Family Structure, Part II: Orphans Still Not Required

“It’s taken almost thirty years and my family fortune to realize the vision of that day.” – Back to the Future

It’s easy to make a website for orphans – you don’t need a home page.

Last post we talked about the main family structures that impact the ideology of the United States (Absolute Nuclear, Authoritarian, and Egalitarian Nuclear).  As noted in the post and in the comments, there were several left out.  Let’s start out with the biggest structure in the world and the structure that breeds commies:

The Exogamous Clan.

• This is the family structure that was seen in China, Cuba, northern India, Russia, and the part of France commies come from.
• The basic structure is that marriage occurs with women from outside the clan, and the husband brings the wife home.
• This is a wickedly high stress scenario: more than one woman in the household is insanely susceptible to the competition and emotional games that more than one woman can bring, plus lots of adult males and jealous wives under the same roof.
• The result, the father has to have huge amounts of power. Women are pushed down relentlessly to keep peace in the family.  This is reflected in that the sons’ wives are chosen by the parents, and even the sons are fairly replaceable.
• The idea of independence never comes up until the father dies and the son has to form his own clan and only then does the family break apart.

The result of this is that the culture where the Exogamous Clan is the family structure prizes discipline, social duty, conformity, and not being different.  The culture lends itself to strong central governance:  strong emperors or a strong central government – looking at you, Chairman Xi.  In China, the initial failed attempts at communism were attempts to move this Exogamous Clan structure to the societal level.

And they decided they didn’t need to teach him, they said, “Hilfinger it out.”

When these cultures have an overthrow of their leadership, the bloodshed is epic until the new father figure takes over.  Children from this family structure will have a really hard time understanding the Absolute Nuclear and Authoritarian since independence is prized in the Absolute Nuclear and Authoritarian and is a cancer to the Exogamous Clan structure.

The next stop on our world tour leads us to the Islamic world, which pretty much all follows the same family structure:

The Endogamous Clan.

The Endogamous Clan is essentially and nearly exactly the Islamic world.

• These are marriages based on arranged cousin marriages.
• There isn’t much family stress since everyone is already family and is already inbred related so everyone pitches in.
• Dad busy? There’s an uncle who will help you out.  The “Patriarch” rarely has to rule because the uncles will form an opinion and go with it.
• Women aren’t outsiders, and they are the ones who end up setting up the marriages, picking and choosing which cousins should marry.
• They consider the entire world a clan, and their goal is to carry their clan, Islam, to everyone.
• If you’re outside the clan, however, slavery is just fine with them.

If you think about having kids with your cousin and go, “ewww, gross” you’ve been inoculated against Endogamous Clans.  For good reasons:  one study in Bradford (U.K.) determined that childhood birth defects in Bradford was double the national average – largely because of Pakistani first cousin marriage.  I guess it’s okay for them to sleep with their second cousin, if the first cousin doesn’t mind.

Islamic pubs are the worst, no drinking, no dancing.  But the women can get stoned.

The English and the Pakistani (and other East Asians from Endogamous Clans) living in England will never really understand each other.  The English will see a group that they want to assimilate, and the Pakistani are there only for conquest.  Why did Pakistani kebob shop owners chop up and cook and sell an English child (to other English people)?

The kid was not a member of the Clan, so who cares?  This is a significant cultural clash that has yet to come to a head.

The last major group is from sub-Saharan Africa.  This was classified by Todd as a Flexible System.  There’s a system, but that system is defined as “whatever”.

• This is primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, and Todd found it also in the United States cotton belt.
• Monogamy? Polygamy?   Whatever.
• Women raise the children while men wage war and herd cattle.
• A large number of the men don’t have the opportunity to have sex: polygamy leads to periodic civil wars.
• Men join together in war bands to take women or create social status.
• Power is important, but responsibility is not prized.

Africa has been chaotic, and it appears that much (not all!!) of the social system seen in the United States today from African descendants has been a replication of the Flexible System, which appears to be in many cases becoming the predominant urban family structure for all people, not just African descendants.

Since Ford V. Ferrari was such a hit, Chevy tried to release a film:  Total Recall.

The final two are Asymmetric and Anomic.

Asymmetric is:

• Weird and limited to India, consisting of arranged marriages from the cousins of female relatives only.
• It’s India, so like all things Indian it’s confused and chaotic and covered in curry powder.
• I’d like to ignore it, but it’s like a billion people. But it’s a billion Indians, so I’ll ignore it.

India probably breaks every rule, primarily because regardless of the family structure, that structure also has to contend with the caste system.  When I was interacting with Indians, they looked to see what caste I’d have been in if I were Indian.  Due to several questions, they seemed convinced it would have been the warrior caste (they were warrior caste) so we were cool.

India will keep being India, and Indians (wherever they go) will want to hang out with other Indians more than anyone else, including getting all of their family hired.

What do you do with an elephant with three balls?  Walk him, and pitch to the rhino.

Anomic is:

• No fixed structure, whatsoever.
• Tribal, think rainforest tribal.
• Consists of oppressive empires and peasants, with consisting of military dictatorships coupled with coups.
• Comically ineffective at doing anything of note.

I have no doubt that Mssr. Todd would not write this book today in the current climate of moral relativism.  In choosing to review cultures and compare them, by definition some will come up short in some way or another – the greatest burst of human invention, ever, came primarily from two family systems, the Absolute Nuclear and the Authoritarian.  Cultures like the Exogamous Clan structure have provided innovation, but for the most part (until recently) tried to turn their back to the world since dealing with foreigners is, well, messy.

What did Malcom X name his son?  Malcom XI.

But it does explain that to the CCP and Chairman Xi, if you are Chinese-American, you’re still Chinese.  Back in (I think?) the year 2019 I read that China had naturalized 4,000 citizens from other countries.  That’s not a typo.  4,000.  Conformity comes from being Chinese, which is why I don’t really expect them to ever be interested in taking over the world.  They like Chinese people, and I’m pretty sure they think they’re a separate species.

Will China fight for resources?  Certainly.  Will China fight for Taiwan?  Yes, to the Chinese, those are just more Chinese.  Does China want to control Japan or Korea or Vietnam?  No.  They want them to do what China wants, but China has been, historically, very happy staying at home, likely (in part) for the reasons Todd discussed related to family structure.

The endgame of this is complex – as family structure in nations changes due either to technological progress, social change (divorced moms), and/or the influx of foreign family patterns, the very ideology of nations is bound to change.

Family patterns may change, but remember, to an orphan a selfie will always be a family photo.