This essay touches on many things we've discussed but the nepotism part in particular is very touchy for me as this the one major 'flaw' which Jews are often accused and I can't deny it exists. We strongly believe that nepotism is a good thing, that a person should pass on his inheritance to his children, not to charity or the state (though one should distribute much charity-Johann Kurtz has an essay on this topic). We even believe (perhaps too much) that public institutions should be controlled. We strongly believe that a person's first obligation is always to their family- מבשרך לא תתעלם, even a public figure (as long as one isn't corrupt and doesn't sacrifice the public good).
I think this is something which the church strongly pushed back on in every possible manner, emphasizing strongly that the public good is the purpose of life and tribalism (and to some extent even natural family life) is bad. You are probably right that this served an important role in establishing society, but it is time for a pushback on this and the Jews are testimony that in a cohesive society it is possible for nepotism to thrive and for nepotism itself to play a vital role not only in reproduction but also in productivity itself.
I didn't get that impression of the Orthodox Jews. To the contrary, I got the impression that you are very community oriented. Don't Jews give quite a lot to charity? (Or it is Americans in general that give a lot to charity? I can say that in Sweden, charity is something very marginal and there is no tax break for charitable donations).
Anyway, I think you are entirely right that the way that Orthodox Jews have achieved something that mainstream society hasn't achieved: A formula for peaceful cooperation between families and society at large.
Come to think of it, perhaps you were responding to the point about prioritizing inheritance over charity.
So yes we do greatly emphasize charity. However, we also stress that family must always come first and the bullk of one's energy and inheritance should be invested in one's own family.
The nepotism that Jews are accused of is that of showing favoritism to other Jews over nonJews.
I think what is unique about Jews is that we view all Jews as part of our family. There isn't a choice of family or community, rather their is a hierarchy and a spectrum of family and the entire Jewish nation (especially religious) are part of the family. The myriad help organizations which I mentioned previously are testimony to this.
Re charity giving one of the surveys on the Orthodox Jewish surveys I sent you showed that charity is perhaps the top priority for spending among Orthodox Jews. The Israeli Demographic institute shows similar results.
This is a very important point that is a very touchy subject among mainstream Westerners. On the one hand, we want community the same way as the Orthodox Jews. On the other hand, our culture is built on the idea that all people are of equal value. That principle forces us to be effective altruists that only care about human life and well-being as such. In other words, we are supposed to give zero priority to community. In effect, that is what effective altruism is about: A complete disregard for the value of community.
Mainsteam Western society has come to an impasse where we are forced by our own rules to care equally about the entire world. The only exception that is (grudgingly) allowed is our nuclear families with young children. Modern day politics more or less are about how to handle that insoluble tension between the incompatible values of universality and community.
An observation from inside a traditional conformist society:
Your speculation about the type of society above is spot on largely. In Nigeria, you'd often see women who are abject, alone or partially partnered having babies in twos or threes despite being barely able to feed them. You see them doing backbreaking odd labours or begging on the street to survive day to day. This is the pattern all over Nigeria: the most economically and socially disadvantage having the highest output of offsprings. This is in spite of society doing nothing conscientiously to encourage them to procreate. But I don't think this is also motivated by kin selection (since such women are often lacking in resources to advance kin interest), but may be by individual interest born of instinct.
Also, Kin selection is very high in Nigeria, hence, high nepotism, hence perverse level of corruption. But I also see a high level of in-group selection among nepotists. Don't you think you have to split group-driven behavior into in-group and out group types? My-people mentality (tribalism) is very prevalent and highly approved in Nigeria. Thus I think the kind of group selection that is evolutionarily beneficial and competitive is the type that doesn't split groups within a given sociopolitical boundary.
Unlike other animals, humans are paid to spend time away from child-rearing. It's called work. And forgone income is the opportunity cost of spending time raising children.
This would explain Israeli fertility. But what about countries like Taiwan, or Ukraine? Why has fertility dropped so much among Shia in Lebanon, when they are usually fighting at least one war every decade? It seems like a problem for the theory if actually war doesn’t reliably produce increased fertility rates.
The key is that the real high fertility in Israel is in the Haredi community which generally does not serve in the army. And the fertility among the secular is not that high.
Or the Amish, the high-fertility pacifists. I don't think that war in itself causes high fertility. Only the kind of team spirit that makes people sometimes willing to fight wars does.
I'm not sure that I buy Tove's overall argument, but certainly social attitudes make a significant difference regarding what people do. But up until recently, children were exploited as useful workers in most societies, only in industrial times have they become pure expenses. And there's a noticeable trend in industrial societies to become extreme K-selectionists.
I notice that China's latest stimulus policy includes a monthly allowance of 800 yuan per child (after the first), 9,600 yuan per year. Given that the median per capita disposable income in China is around 33,000 yuan per year, that could be a significant motivation for additional children.
In 2001, I think it was, NZ government brought in a child tax credit. Its comparable to the size of the Chineses assistance. Currently, NZ median household income is in the mid $50k after tax and transfers with the value of the tax credit for each child being about $7500 (this varies with income (most of this is summarised in https://stats.govt.nz/information-releases/).
In the 1960's NZ's TFR was in the 4s. From about 1973 to 1980 TFR dropped rapidly to about 2.2 where it stabilised for about 30 years then dropped steadily to about 1.6.
This suggests fertility isn't bought (ie through a transactional transfer payment). Rather cultural changes became evident/impactful on TFR in NZ through the 1970s and again through the 2010s to now. For women, this is seen in their move into the formal workforce and from 2010 when women increasingly undertook higher education and delayed (adopted capstone) marriage.
Even though humans are pretty strange - collaborating with nonrelatives - I don't think they have _lost_ their instinct for having kids. Probably most mammals have no instinct for that. What they do have is the instinct to like the opposite sex at least sometimes, and the instinct to care for babies, at least their own. This is enough for reproduction, you don't need a special instinct for wanting a large brood. And I'd say these same instincts have survived in humans.
Or did you mean "instincts" metaphorically, as in the context of cultural evolution? Meaning that even before contraception was invented, people actually were totally able to prevent themselves from having too many children (possibly true for men, not so much for women), but they had them anyway because that was the cultural norm? I'm not sure. Maybe during the long agricultural Malthusian trap period a couple would have as many kids as possible because this was beneficial for them personally (more helping hands in the farm), the problem was that all the other couples did the same and that lead to overexploitation of the environment and Malthusian famines. Is such a model even cultural, or is it a mix of economic and evolutionary? This wouldn't rule out a cultural component though; having kids may have been also good for social standing in many places.
I suppose the current fertility crisis is also both cultural, economic, and evolutionary (us having no evolved fear of contraceptives, no instincts for wanting many kids).
I agree. There was a ton that was interesting and insightful about this post, but I kept thinking that was really changed in the last 100 years was availability of reliable contraception.
There are countries, like France, that had pretty steeply declining fertility rates long before modern contraceptives. I believe that Protestants in the UK and the US also saw big declines in fertility long before modern contraceptives. And the US had below replacement fertility (I think) from the 1920s up until the end of WWII.
It's kind of interesting, though, that even in this day of readily available, reliable contraception, there are still a lot of young women who don't bother with it - either intentionally or semi-intentionally.
I live in an upper-middle-class town that is adjacent to a working-class town; and in the working-class town, it is sort of expected that girls will either get pregnant in high school or in young adulthood. As one friend who grew up there put it "Well, you get a boyfriend, and then sooner or later you have a baby. But marriage is for rich people." The idea of remaining childless seems very odd to them; though marriage is seems to be viewed as a pipe dream.
Now in my upper-middle-class town five miles away, that is Just Not Done. Girls are usually very vigilant about contraception, and it's rare and scandalous to hear of a high school student getting pregnant. And most girls and young women that I know (which is a lot, I have three young adult daughters) find the idea of childbirth terrifying and dangerous, and profess to not wanting to ever have children.
Now, our state is very liberal and non-religious. Comprehensive sex education, including information on all types of contraception, is mandated in middle and high school - so it's not like we are living in a conservative religious environment where girls don't know it's possible to avoid pregnancy. It just doesn't seem to have much effect on the working-class girls (though it certainly does on the upper-middle-class ones).
I suspect there is both an instinct for children, but also a strong influence of one's social set. If you are a teenage girl or a young adult woman and know a significant number of your peers with babies and small children, it seems normal and non-terrifying. Having extended family around probably makes a difference as well - if you live near extended family and have grown up babysitting your little nieces and nephews, you are more likely to find the concept of babies and children less alien. You've seen your aunts and cousins go through pregnancy and birth, and since they likely work crappy jobs with minimal maternity leave, you see them carry on with life through pregnancy and motherhood. Also, there's less "competitive mommying" - people don't seem to get as worked up over the breastfeeding vs. bottlefeeding thing, no one is playing Mozart to raise baby's IQ, and while there is often much to be concerned about in terms of family functionality in this segment of society, at least they cannot be accused of overthinking things.
But if you are from an upper-middle-class environment, where you are an only child or from a small family, and your mother didn't have you until she was nearly 40, and your parents have moved to the area for their careers and have no relatives nearby, and you spent your teen years doing extra-curricular activities that Look Good On Your College Application rather than earning pocket money by babysitting...the whole concept of infants and small children seems weird and disturbing. Plus, you've heard your parents and other adults continually talking about how horribly expensive children are, and how much work it is shuttling them to all their sports, lessons, classes and activities, and how stressing it is making sure they Get Into A Good College and figuring out how to pay for it...it makes the whole process seem very daunting.
Do female animals suffer particularly in giving births? Heavily pregnant antelope females must be as fit and agile as non-pregnant individuals in order to escape predation.
Hunter-gatherers women had to be mobile too. Is the debility suffered by pregnant women consequence of civilization and in particular of grain-based diet?
Haven't we read instances of hunter-gatherer women giving birth easily?
I'm not at all sure of this. Hunter-gatherer women are also known for dying during childbirth every now and then, and so do several other mammals. Hyenas have it much worse than humans: they have to give birth through their fake penises, leading to 15% maternal mortality during first pregnancy. In mammals, pregnancy is known to be quite energy costly, even though lactation is even costlier; a pregnant antelope is much heavier and almost certainly runs slower or less time as fast. Producing even a single child is a costly thing for mammals.
Kin selection is explained by individual selection between selfish genes.
I wonder if you have read criticism of Darwinianism by the philosopher David Stove. In particular, he is very sharp in the futility of explaining ALL of human behavior by Darwinian means.
There is an irreducible component in human behavior, of which Stove gives many examples.
Perhaps, it is just this non-Darwinian behavior that you are here calling group selection?
I lost the link, but someone showed me a text passage from Charles Darwin where he acknowledges cultural evolution between human societies. But that wasn't what was remembered of his teachings in the 20th century.
This essay touches on many things we've discussed but the nepotism part in particular is very touchy for me as this the one major 'flaw' which Jews are often accused and I can't deny it exists. We strongly believe that nepotism is a good thing, that a person should pass on his inheritance to his children, not to charity or the state (though one should distribute much charity-Johann Kurtz has an essay on this topic). We even believe (perhaps too much) that public institutions should be controlled. We strongly believe that a person's first obligation is always to their family- מבשרך לא תתעלם, even a public figure (as long as one isn't corrupt and doesn't sacrifice the public good).
I think this is something which the church strongly pushed back on in every possible manner, emphasizing strongly that the public good is the purpose of life and tribalism (and to some extent even natural family life) is bad. You are probably right that this served an important role in establishing society, but it is time for a pushback on this and the Jews are testimony that in a cohesive society it is possible for nepotism to thrive and for nepotism itself to play a vital role not only in reproduction but also in productivity itself.
I didn't get that impression of the Orthodox Jews. To the contrary, I got the impression that you are very community oriented. Don't Jews give quite a lot to charity? (Or it is Americans in general that give a lot to charity? I can say that in Sweden, charity is something very marginal and there is no tax break for charitable donations).
Anyway, I think you are entirely right that the way that Orthodox Jews have achieved something that mainstream society hasn't achieved: A formula for peaceful cooperation between families and society at large.
Come to think of it, perhaps you were responding to the point about prioritizing inheritance over charity.
So yes we do greatly emphasize charity. However, we also stress that family must always come first and the bullk of one's energy and inheritance should be invested in one's own family.
The nepotism that Jews are accused of is that of showing favoritism to other Jews over nonJews.
I think what is unique about Jews is that we view all Jews as part of our family. There isn't a choice of family or community, rather their is a hierarchy and a spectrum of family and the entire Jewish nation (especially religious) are part of the family. The myriad help organizations which I mentioned previously are testimony to this.
Re charity giving one of the surveys on the Orthodox Jewish surveys I sent you showed that charity is perhaps the top priority for spending among Orthodox Jews. The Israeli Demographic institute shows similar results.
This is a very important point that is a very touchy subject among mainstream Westerners. On the one hand, we want community the same way as the Orthodox Jews. On the other hand, our culture is built on the idea that all people are of equal value. That principle forces us to be effective altruists that only care about human life and well-being as such. In other words, we are supposed to give zero priority to community. In effect, that is what effective altruism is about: A complete disregard for the value of community.
Mainsteam Western society has come to an impasse where we are forced by our own rules to care equally about the entire world. The only exception that is (grudgingly) allowed is our nuclear families with young children. Modern day politics more or less are about how to handle that insoluble tension between the incompatible values of universality and community.
An observation from inside a traditional conformist society:
Your speculation about the type of society above is spot on largely. In Nigeria, you'd often see women who are abject, alone or partially partnered having babies in twos or threes despite being barely able to feed them. You see them doing backbreaking odd labours or begging on the street to survive day to day. This is the pattern all over Nigeria: the most economically and socially disadvantage having the highest output of offsprings. This is in spite of society doing nothing conscientiously to encourage them to procreate. But I don't think this is also motivated by kin selection (since such women are often lacking in resources to advance kin interest), but may be by individual interest born of instinct.
Also, Kin selection is very high in Nigeria, hence, high nepotism, hence perverse level of corruption. But I also see a high level of in-group selection among nepotists. Don't you think you have to split group-driven behavior into in-group and out group types? My-people mentality (tribalism) is very prevalent and highly approved in Nigeria. Thus I think the kind of group selection that is evolutionarily beneficial and competitive is the type that doesn't split groups within a given sociopolitical boundary.
Unlike other animals, humans are paid to spend time away from child-rearing. It's called work. And forgone income is the opportunity cost of spending time raising children.
>But I imagine that most people will actually appreciate their neighbors. They will genuinely appreciate other people's children.
Wow.
I need to rewrite that paragraph with some "not"s.
But the truth is I didn't imagine a society so harsh.
What can it possibly be like to live in a society where people don't genuinely appreciate other people's children (even those with Down Syndrome)?
Perhaps I am being harsh, but it is hard for me to even relate to such a concept.
What more is there to appreciate in this world than life itself?
This would explain Israeli fertility. But what about countries like Taiwan, or Ukraine? Why has fertility dropped so much among Shia in Lebanon, when they are usually fighting at least one war every decade? It seems like a problem for the theory if actually war doesn’t reliably produce increased fertility rates.
Or rather, it explains Palestinian fertility. Arafat famously stated "the Palestinian women's womb is my greatest weapon".
Israeli fertility does not need that much explanation for those who know the culture. Read this (100) The curious case of Israeli fertility - by Anders L (substack.com) or this https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-september-2024 (link #5) or the book Family Unfriendly.
The key is that the real high fertility in Israel is in the Haredi community which generally does not serve in the army. And the fertility among the secular is not that high.
Or the Amish, the high-fertility pacifists. I don't think that war in itself causes high fertility. Only the kind of team spirit that makes people sometimes willing to fight wars does.
I'm not sure that I buy Tove's overall argument, but certainly social attitudes make a significant difference regarding what people do. But up until recently, children were exploited as useful workers in most societies, only in industrial times have they become pure expenses. And there's a noticeable trend in industrial societies to become extreme K-selectionists.
I notice that China's latest stimulus policy includes a monthly allowance of 800 yuan per child (after the first), 9,600 yuan per year. Given that the median per capita disposable income in China is around 33,000 yuan per year, that could be a significant motivation for additional children.
In 2001, I think it was, NZ government brought in a child tax credit. Its comparable to the size of the Chineses assistance. Currently, NZ median household income is in the mid $50k after tax and transfers with the value of the tax credit for each child being about $7500 (this varies with income (most of this is summarised in https://stats.govt.nz/information-releases/).
In the 1960's NZ's TFR was in the 4s. From about 1973 to 1980 TFR dropped rapidly to about 2.2 where it stabilised for about 30 years then dropped steadily to about 1.6.
This suggests fertility isn't bought (ie through a transactional transfer payment). Rather cultural changes became evident/impactful on TFR in NZ through the 1970s and again through the 2010s to now. For women, this is seen in their move into the formal workforce and from 2010 when women increasingly undertook higher education and delayed (adopted capstone) marriage.
Even though humans are pretty strange - collaborating with nonrelatives - I don't think they have _lost_ their instinct for having kids. Probably most mammals have no instinct for that. What they do have is the instinct to like the opposite sex at least sometimes, and the instinct to care for babies, at least their own. This is enough for reproduction, you don't need a special instinct for wanting a large brood. And I'd say these same instincts have survived in humans.
Or did you mean "instincts" metaphorically, as in the context of cultural evolution? Meaning that even before contraception was invented, people actually were totally able to prevent themselves from having too many children (possibly true for men, not so much for women), but they had them anyway because that was the cultural norm? I'm not sure. Maybe during the long agricultural Malthusian trap period a couple would have as many kids as possible because this was beneficial for them personally (more helping hands in the farm), the problem was that all the other couples did the same and that lead to overexploitation of the environment and Malthusian famines. Is such a model even cultural, or is it a mix of economic and evolutionary? This wouldn't rule out a cultural component though; having kids may have been also good for social standing in many places.
I suppose the current fertility crisis is also both cultural, economic, and evolutionary (us having no evolved fear of contraceptives, no instincts for wanting many kids).
I agree. There was a ton that was interesting and insightful about this post, but I kept thinking that was really changed in the last 100 years was availability of reliable contraception.
There are countries, like France, that had pretty steeply declining fertility rates long before modern contraceptives. I believe that Protestants in the UK and the US also saw big declines in fertility long before modern contraceptives. And the US had below replacement fertility (I think) from the 1920s up until the end of WWII.
It's kind of interesting, though, that even in this day of readily available, reliable contraception, there are still a lot of young women who don't bother with it - either intentionally or semi-intentionally.
I live in an upper-middle-class town that is adjacent to a working-class town; and in the working-class town, it is sort of expected that girls will either get pregnant in high school or in young adulthood. As one friend who grew up there put it "Well, you get a boyfriend, and then sooner or later you have a baby. But marriage is for rich people." The idea of remaining childless seems very odd to them; though marriage is seems to be viewed as a pipe dream.
Now in my upper-middle-class town five miles away, that is Just Not Done. Girls are usually very vigilant about contraception, and it's rare and scandalous to hear of a high school student getting pregnant. And most girls and young women that I know (which is a lot, I have three young adult daughters) find the idea of childbirth terrifying and dangerous, and profess to not wanting to ever have children.
Now, our state is very liberal and non-religious. Comprehensive sex education, including information on all types of contraception, is mandated in middle and high school - so it's not like we are living in a conservative religious environment where girls don't know it's possible to avoid pregnancy. It just doesn't seem to have much effect on the working-class girls (though it certainly does on the upper-middle-class ones).
I suspect there is both an instinct for children, but also a strong influence of one's social set. If you are a teenage girl or a young adult woman and know a significant number of your peers with babies and small children, it seems normal and non-terrifying. Having extended family around probably makes a difference as well - if you live near extended family and have grown up babysitting your little nieces and nephews, you are more likely to find the concept of babies and children less alien. You've seen your aunts and cousins go through pregnancy and birth, and since they likely work crappy jobs with minimal maternity leave, you see them carry on with life through pregnancy and motherhood. Also, there's less "competitive mommying" - people don't seem to get as worked up over the breastfeeding vs. bottlefeeding thing, no one is playing Mozart to raise baby's IQ, and while there is often much to be concerned about in terms of family functionality in this segment of society, at least they cannot be accused of overthinking things.
But if you are from an upper-middle-class environment, where you are an only child or from a small family, and your mother didn't have you until she was nearly 40, and your parents have moved to the area for their careers and have no relatives nearby, and you spent your teen years doing extra-curricular activities that Look Good On Your College Application rather than earning pocket money by babysitting...the whole concept of infants and small children seems weird and disturbing. Plus, you've heard your parents and other adults continually talking about how horribly expensive children are, and how much work it is shuttling them to all their sports, lessons, classes and activities, and how stressing it is making sure they Get Into A Good College and figuring out how to pay for it...it makes the whole process seem very daunting.
"sacrifices of childbearing"
Do female animals suffer particularly in giving births? Heavily pregnant antelope females must be as fit and agile as non-pregnant individuals in order to escape predation.
Hunter-gatherers women had to be mobile too. Is the debility suffered by pregnant women consequence of civilization and in particular of grain-based diet?
Haven't we read instances of hunter-gatherer women giving birth easily?
I'm not at all sure of this. Hunter-gatherer women are also known for dying during childbirth every now and then, and so do several other mammals. Hyenas have it much worse than humans: they have to give birth through their fake penises, leading to 15% maternal mortality during first pregnancy. In mammals, pregnancy is known to be quite energy costly, even though lactation is even costlier; a pregnant antelope is much heavier and almost certainly runs slower or less time as fast. Producing even a single child is a costly thing for mammals.
So-so. Also Nisa-the-'Kung-woman said that childbirth was very painful.
But yes, women of nomadic peoples can't have as debilitating pregnancies as those of us in settled agricultural societies.
I explored the topic more in depth here: https://open.substack.com/pub/woodfromeden/p/are-modern-children-born-too-late?r=rd1ej&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Kin selection is explained by individual selection between selfish genes.
I wonder if you have read criticism of Darwinianism by the philosopher David Stove. In particular, he is very sharp in the futility of explaining ALL of human behavior by Darwinian means.
There is an irreducible component in human behavior, of which Stove gives many examples.
Perhaps, it is just this non-Darwinian behavior that you are here calling group selection?
I hadn't heard of David Stove. I see that he died in 1994. By then the concept of cultural evolution was almost unheard of.
Isn't cultural evolution again a term for effects not captured in Darwinian evolution
I lost the link, but someone showed me a text passage from Charles Darwin where he acknowledges cultural evolution between human societies. But that wasn't what was remembered of his teachings in the 20th century.
Tobe k for minister of family