Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. I got a bunch of notes about that last monologue on friendship if you didn't hear it, I talked about the steep decline and number of close friends that people have. So in the nineteen nineties only about two to three percent of people said they had no close friends. Now that number is ten percent for college graduates and twenty four percent for high school graduates. Again, that's no close
friends at all. So one person wrote in I have Facebook friends and people I text with in my hometown, but I moved to a new town six years ago and haven't made any close friends here. Another person wrote, I moved last year and haven't been able to make friends in my new city. My wife hasn't either. Our son is two and we have acquaintances through his daycare, but no actual potential friends. And the last note I'll highlight is quote I have close friends who are always
there for me, but I live far away. I don't have the kind of friends that I see people have on social media, where they go out to dinner or the movies. I'm not sure where I would be on that survey because I do have friends I can count on,
but rarely see end quote. A lot of the people who wrote in had recently moved, and I don't know if that's because I mentioned that a lot of people have moved, and I've obviously talked about my own move and the fact that there's been this national realignment where people have moved in the last few years, or maybe that's just a coincidence. It's hard when you move to start a new friend group, to make new friends. It's hard to get to know people. People are strange when
you're a stranger. I say that a lot about being in a new place and meeting new people. Only one person who wrote in indicated they have a child, and I think it's so much easier to make friends through your kids, especially when they're small. When they get a little older, like mine are a little older, it's harder. You don't quite get to know their parents of the
kids that your kids like the same way. But when they're little, you'll see the same parents at school pickup or drop off or at events, and you'll get to know people, and your kid will like some kid in his class, and you'll arrange the playdate, and then you'll realize the parents are cool too, and that's how it happens. I think the person who wrote in and has the small child that he has acquaintances in daycare is actually in the best position to make friends. The other ones
are tougher. The last one that I read, the one who has close friends but no one to actually hang out with. I think that one's really tough because you're having the actual friend needs met, but not the socializing part, and that's a really important part. I wrote about this a few years ago after our family moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn. It was a small move and we had a lot of friends. Our dance card, as they say, was full every weekend. We always had places to be
in people to be there with. But I was really lacking the day to day the people you talk to as you push your kids on the swings. The really just the acquaintances. So this is what I wrote at the time quote the lack of acquaintances translated into lacking a sense of being part of a community, which made
me feel isolated. Sure, I could call my best friend and talk for an hour about things that really matter, but what I needed during the other waking hours of the day was someone with whom to discuss where to get the best hole in the walled Chinese food, or to chat about the weather while ordering my coffee.
End quote.
In that same piece, I wrote about the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, and Dunbar theories are really common theory and it's been discussed a lot. But his theory was that people can only maintain one hundred and fifty friendships. That's a very high number of friends in the real world,
but not so high online. So then Dunbar applied his theory of friendship more recently to Facebook friends, I wrote Dunbar said that if you have one hundred and fifty Facebook friends, you can likely own only count on about four of them in a time of crisis, and of course this was shared across the media spheres, damning evidence that our Facebook friendships are shallow. But that reaction, while rational, is wrong. It misunderstands the nature of a social circle
and misses the importance of again, these acquaintances. Four friends who will be there for you if you need them at three AM is a solid number, but there's nothing wrong with the other one hundred and forty six friends playing a different role for you. The truth is that the three am crisises are hopefully few and far between, and if you have four friends you can turn to during those times, you're already in a great place friend wise.
But for the rest of your life, it's fine to have friends and acquaintances or tell you how cute you look in your profile picture, play online games with you, or leave comments when you crowdsource restaurants in a new city offline. This can translate to your neighbor taking in your packages while you're away, or a mom friend keeping an eye on one of your children while you chase the other one around, or a variety of other casual
interactions that make up our everyday lives. I really think we need acquaintances, and they can become real friends too along the way. So I think that the two people who said that they do have close friends but not in their new city or town should work on developing acquaintances first and foremost. And I got to tell you, I have to admit I'm lacking that in my life right now. I have a lot of friends, but I
don't know a lot of people in my neighborhood. And I've talked about this on here before, and I want to make that change because I think it's important to recognize people where you live. I think it's important to say hello to people. I think it's important to have those little interactions. Someone you see on a regular basis and have a cordial relationship with can end up becoming a friend, a good friend. Maybe at some point it'll get friendly enough that you can go grab a drink
or do an activity and it'll grow from there. I'd say, don't let age and geographical change rob you from the experience of making friends and developing bonds with people. It's harder as we get older, definitely, of course, and it's harder when we move in adulthood. But it's worth the effort, and I hope the people who wrote in won't give up. Thanks for listening. Coming up next and interview with Nicole Neely. Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Nicky Neely, founder of Parents Defending Education. Hi, Nikki, so nice to have you on.
Thanks for having me.
So I should mention right up front I'm on the board of Parents Defending Education. I don't know if that needs to be mentioned, but I figured why not, And that's how I've gotten to know you and think you are a fascinating person, super funny and interesting, and thought, let's delve into who you are on the show cool and you're very excited about.
That, super excited.
So how did you Did you always want to defend education? Did you always want to be a parent defending education?
Never? No? Never.
It's funny because I think back to one my first job in DC, I was a CATO, and I was like, the one issue I did not like when I was working in PR for a CATO, I was like, I hate education policy, so like haha.
Because it was like boring.
It was like school choice, right, it was like school choice good, Union's bad. But school education has gone like a lot more interesting in the past couple of years, not necessarily for good, but it's more interesting now, at least for sure.
So what made you change your mind?
So I actually am really passionate about civil liberties, and that's kind of how so I sort of fell into it backwards, so kind of to like wayback machine. My grandparents, actually on my dad's side, met in an internment camp in Manzinar in California during World War Two.
They're Japanese Americans, and.
So that's saying, a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.
Like that totally resonates.
With me, like I know it does with you because it did happen to my family, right, and so that to me was just always something was really interesting. And so I'm married to a lawyer, Like we have boring dinner parties, we talk about the fourteenth Amendment like I'm a super fun person. But to me, the kind of the most exciting area of law right now is the
intersection of the First Amendment. I used to run a campus free speech group and Title six, Title nine, you know, on the racial sex discrimination issues, and so that is kind of like where I have fallen into this. Just watching our education system both put you know, be weaponized against kids in the name of you know, doing good in the name of papty, but then also just sort of watching how the lessons and how kids are treated in school then ends up impacting wider society.
Did having kids along the way there probably factor in somewhat.
Yes, absolutely, I mean yeah, I was like a die in the whole libertarian until I had kids. And yeah, so my political views have moderated somewhat, or I guess, as my dad said, I he considered me to the right of a tilibahun.
And so you know, it's kind of in the beholder, I suppose.
Wait and where are you now?
I mean, I'm a conservative now, much to my core libertarian husband's great chagrin.
It's funny, like, you know, you never think about that. People get married and they you know, switch politically and it's always like left to right or to left or whatever. But this is like sort of an inter right.
Battle, right. Yeah.
So yeah, I mean he he like talks, he talks to my kids about qualified immunity and like I talked about immigration.
So it's like it's a never ending you know. The kids.
Yeah, do the kids enjoy it?
They do.
Yeah. A couple of years ago, they were off school the day actually the Harvard students for a fair admissions argument, and my my friends were arguing it.
So they were inside the court, and so I took the kids to the outside.
And it was funny because like, I'm Asian, and so I was outside the court with my little Asian kids and we had some protesters, some pro affirmative action protesters come up to us and start to try and give us materials like little propaganda sweatshirts and stuff.
I said, sorry, we're on the other side of this issue. And I got to talk to them just very you know, straight up.
I said, you know, those people, do you think that you should be able to get into a cuege or not because of the color of your skin? And they were like, what what are you talking about. I was like, that's what those people think. That's why we hat taking those sweatshirts. And they were like, oh weird. And so really to kind of, you know, explain what's going on and in term, you know, in the news kind of through the lens of your family's I.
Feel like kids get that. They get the whole. I don't want to be I don't want to be somewhere just because of like the accident of my birth or or you know, somewhere I don't deserve to be, or like my daughter's been offered opportunities because she's a girl, and she's like, I don't want to be the girl on this whatever this is.
I think they see that really clearly.
Yeah, yeah, and they're yeah, they're not kind of biased by like societal things. They're just like their gut feeling about like what is right and what is wrong, and so yeah, it's trying and trying to keep them on that path.
So what do you worry about? What's the concern for you?
I mean I worry about my kids NonStop.
Obviously, I was like realizing of the day, you know, you have to kind of teach them how to navigate the world, but then also like the rules of baseball, Like it's like like like there's very complicated things of like right small hygiene, and then like how to act in society, and then like how to use the metro and so it's it's like a weird it's like a weird thing. But I really I want them to be
so reliant. I don't want them to be followers. And right now we're homeschooling them this year, so I don't want them to be weird either, And so like how do you sort of like get them to be citizens of the world in a way that's not like strange.
And then I guess kind of aside from my family, I also just worry about kind of the globe, like the general.
Unraveling of society in America, right now, which is I guess kind of intercepts with having kids.
Do you feel better about it since the Trump election are same.
So, I mean, I think there's a lot of work to be read to be done over the next couple of years, because I think just trust and institutions has crumbled so much, I mean just in the past decade, and so you know, to restore trust in the healthcare.
System and the education system. The Wall Street Journal had.
A great article a few weeks ago and calling this basically America's glastnhost period.
And I think we're sort of in that error.
Right now because it's like people feel that they can kind of speak truth that they've had in their heart for a long time, and just what do we do with that is kind of an interesting, you know, mystery.
Yeah that actually that's a really good good way of putting it. But I mean, people like I think us we're speaking the truths all along. But it's definitely I feel like regular people are no longer whispering to me. It's like they're if they're not by regular people, I mean, like not in our political world. I feel like they're much more likely to say things out loud in a way that they couldn't in the last four years.
Yeah, and just like me working on the civil liberty stuff. I mean, it's funny.
Because we have so many friends that are so freaked out about the courts and you know, support packing and Supreme Court and all that stuff.
And to me, what has really been.
Worrisome over the past couple of years, and particularly in the wake of October seventh, was watching how there was just a really obviously unequal adjudication of civil rights law
in this country. I mean you could tell a little kid in school Hitler should have finish the job, and that was considered acceptable, right, Like there were I saw a school in California where they there were swastika is drawn and they said, oh, this is a Buddhist religious symbol like kitty yeah, versus like if you called my kids some Asian slur. I mean, the full force of the state and federal government will come down on your shoulders.
And so just average people saw, you know, based on the color of your skin or what's between your legs, you will get a fair shake or not. And so I just I think that then gave people a coverage to say.
I'm just not going to fall the laws.
You know, the laws don't matter anymore, and that like erosion of faith in just the rule of law is something that really really worries me.
Do you think we can come back from that? How do you dial back.
The erosion of law?
I mean, I think you know this is I will wave my libertarian card very briefly. There are too many laws and they're sporadically enforced. And so to get back to a place where like murder is bad, full stop, rape is bad, full stop, Like let's actually go after those major crimes and really make sure that those people are held accountable and like maybe not get so mad at like, you know, people doing like little things here
or there. I mean the fact that New York City has a biased response team or right, like things like that, like is the biggest problem in New York City that like people are calling names?
I'm pretty sure not. And so like let's actually use the law for what it's intended.
Yeah, I look being libertarian and Jason, I'm all for it. I'm I'm in full support. I love libertarians. I Mean, in another world I'd be libertarian.
But if they're cute, it's like this world or yeah, I'm close, but not quite there were trouble for this one.
What would you be doing if not this, Like, what would be a totally different like plan B for you?
I mean, I keep saying I'm going to fix education, so I could just day drink. I frankly, I think I'd probably get bored. I keep having this fantasy of my mom is Irish, like I have like a very weird family history, so I keep thinking I want to like buy an Irish country estate and.
Fix it up.
Although a couple of years ago I watched too much HDTV when I was on maternity leave and I decided that we should move to Texas.
I think I was like really into that fixed rubber show.
Who among Us? Yeah?
Yeah, like the actual like really actually doing house things. I'm not a handy person whatsoever. Like I'm like a write a check person that also dates me.
I guess I'm like the same. Yeah, I would like.
To think I would like supervise like home renovations or something, but I problem.
That's you know, look, you could hire people to do stuff you don't have to, like, you know, reel the hammer yourself. I yeah, feel like, but no, an Irish pub in the countryside. I think it's not a bad life. I you know, bring libertarianism to Ireland. They really could do some They're really a mess. It's it's unfortunate. So what advice would you give a sixteen year old Nikki Mealy?
So I'm a super insecure growing up and I think probably what I would tell myself is not everyone's opinion matters, Which is funny now because like I like, I don't like my Twitter, Like I like things go out, but like I don't read the messages because somebody like I did your mom sixty nine on Twitter saying something mean like devastating where it's like the Washington Post thing, I'm like a like a hateful bigot is like kind of doesn't bother me. And so I just like there are
a few people whose opinions actually matter. But otherwise, like there's so much sound and noise out there, and this is even like you know, I mean when you were growing up, it was for social media, and so just really you know, to kind of drown out the noise and really focus in on whose opinion you value.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Chicago.
I grew up in the North Shore. So I'm an aspiring jew. I was one of the few Christians and so yeah, I tried to.
Get my.
Yeah, I feel like you're You're totally an honorary one. If you ever want to join.
The fold, Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm on my way.
How did you get to d C? What was the path?
I went to grad school in California. I was looking at I was looking at grad schools in d C. And in California, I got a scholarship to go to Pepperdine. I didn't get scholarships to go to DC, but I was working in commercial real estate at the time, and so I flew to d C. I met with the admissions people at the DC schools and I said, this is what Pepperdine's offering.
Can you match it? Can you beat it? And they were like, we don't do scholarships that way.
And I was like, California, it is so I have family out there. I had not spent a lot of time out there, you know, and it was fun. I decided that after a couple months of living in Malibu, fine, I would actually go to college, like you know, it's sonny every day.
It was fun.
It was actually that was where I was a Democrat growing up, like all through college, like I was in the student aclu, I put free Mooma posters up in like my sworty, like what the good retrospect was the doing? And it was in grad school that I had a professor who had me read Milton Friedman, had me read Hayek, and I was like, oh, there was a way to help more people with dignity, and so.
That was really that was kind of what red pilled me.
Yeah, I was gonna ask whether, like a five year old Nikki Neely was like handing out copies of the Cato Constitution.
Or not, but no, I wanted to. I wanted to. I was a Democrat. I sent a mad letter to George H. W.
Bush about like cutting down old trees, and I got some letter back about like reading during Christmas break, and.
I was like, this is you needed me read it even me care about the trees, and so.
Yeah, it was you know, like growing up, I thought that my my dad was a Chicago Democrat. He always voted for Daily and then I found out, you know, years later, that he just wanted to smoke hot and I didn't want to pay taxes and.
So like, yeah, among us you know, it turns out, yeah.
We're parents surprised about your shift.
Very much, So, yes, very much. So I think it was I think it was probably a source of great disappointment. I mean, my mom is like, she's the European, She's like, everything in Ireland is free.
I was like, is it though, is that so? Yeah?
Free stuff is always the most expensive stuff. Actually, exive, I lived in Scotland. Everything was free there too, and yet nobody could afford anything. It was like, do you see what's going on here? Like all your free stuff is maybe getting in the way of your being able to provide for your families. Do you go back to Ireland?
I do. All my family's still there.
My mom is the only one who's in America actually, so I go back, you know, once or twice a year to see everybody. And my mom used to domp me there when I was growing up, for like a month every summer. And so I want my kids to have that same connection to going back and visiting and feeling comfortable, you know, eating the goofy Caprey chocolate bars and having bean some toast.
Right, I mean yeah, and taking that step towards owning that that that pub right and again bringing libertarianism. I'm actually I'm fully down with your plan. I think this is the way forward for you. I think they you run PDE out of the bar. You know, listen if it works out.
It was my idea.
I want President jad Vance to make me ambassard Ireland just so I can go there and be like, you guys are super wrong on Palestine.
I'm really sorry, like some sold me to their face.
Right, Well, yes, that would be nice too. But in the meantime, you know, i'd be I'd be visiting you at your pub, regardless of their bad pub. We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What's like in the future, do you grow PDE into an even more powerful force?
I think so. I think that you know there is the world is our oyster. Now.
It's been great to see the Trump administration really taking on a lot of these issues head on. They actually might help work me out of business, and I'm totally here for it.
I'm all good.
Yeah, But I think there's going to be over the next couple of years a lot of clean up. I think there's we're gonna right now, We're seeing kind of a dens and disarray. But I think there is going to be a lot of hashtag resistance districts that are not going to comply programs that we go underground. And it's funny because you know, you know, I am called,
you know, a hater most of the time. I'm sure you know you get a fair amount of unpleasant mail once in a while, and it's like, well, I want people to I want children to be treated equally regardless of immutable characteristics. Like I'm really curious why people have a problem with that. And so I think there's going to be just a lot of you know, messaging and continuing to clean up the messages that have been wrought because this is I mean, this has taken place over.
Fifty years, as it wasn't just over the past four years, right, So for.
A long time PDE was in K through twelve education and working to kind of root out all the different problems within K through twelve a lot of the wokeness and that kind of thing, especially over the last few years. But now you're moving into the college space, which I recall being skeptical about just because I think the colleges are such a lost cause. But you don't seem to think that you you're full steam ahead.
Why do you think they're salvagable.
I think that there's I think the colleges are salvageable. I do think there's going to be kind of some some consolidation, some breakouts. I remember being at a Montpellar meeting a couple of years ago and watching Jonathan Hite talk about a coming split in academy where he said there's going to be Pursuit of Truth University and there's
going to be Social Justice University. And as of right now, I mean today, I think it's very muddled because you think you're going to one college that's going to teach you, you know, pursuit of truth, and you're not.
You're getting a bunch of woke garbage.
And I think if people want to fully opt into going to some social justice university, that's fine, go spend your money on that. But it's when people kind of have the bait and switch for their problems. But I think that there's a real governance issue where the inmates have been allowed to run the asylum for far too long, and so to take some of that back for trustees to play a role for there to be a stronger role for.
Administrations in this to rain in some of the excesses.
I think we're sort of that kind of peak wackiness with both the cost of colleges as well in the actual value.
Of the product that's being delivered.
And so I think I think there's going to be a real ground shift over the next couple of years, both because of the regulatory compliance element, a lot of universities of major legal exposure that I don't think even trustees are fully aware of. I'm on the board of two universities. I emailed one of them over the weekend and said, what's.
The plan to comply?
Because there's a lot of deadlines coming up, and so I think programs are going to have to be terminated, there's going to be layoffs, there's going to be program re alignments, and so don't think it's a really exciting and dynamic time to be in higher education.
Do you have any bright spots, any any universities that you could see kind of coming out of this moment better and stronger and maybe as leaders of this freedom moment?
You know, I think it's there's none that really come to mind. You know, the University Chicago was good on some speech stuff, but they still have some bad programs.
You know.
Strough Florida and the Hamilton Center has made great strides into in the right direction.
It's devastated with Ben's as said he was stepping.
Down, but I think will in Bodens but it's like just kind of watching the pressure that they have even put on the marketplace.
I think other universities are realizing Wow.
I mean, you know the fact that Harvard early admit applications were down thirty percent last year. That's a huge that's thousands of applications. It's a large number. A lot of these universities, you know, they look at those application fees as another income stream and so for them to start to see these market signals and realize, so, well, we're not getting as many applicants this year.
What is going on? Why is that?
Why are kids from the mid Atlantic region all apply to schools in the SEC in the South?
Something's going on here? Yeah, I think.
Is some some administrators are getting the message. Others are not, and they're going to be the dinosaurs. They're gonna be four step jobs eventually.
Were you surprised at that thirty percent job. Like, I'm pretty shocked about it, honestly, Like even I wouldn't want my kids to go to you know, basically at any school right now, and thankfully my kids are a few years off from it. But still if they, you know, were able to apply to Harvard, I would still want them to I guess, you know. So I was surprised at that.
Yeah, I think it's I think the prestige of it was also the fact that I think a lot of federal judges said, we're not hiring clerks from here.
I think that there.
Has been a lot just it's been a really there's been a lot of churn on like a number of industries over the past few months, and I think that's probably going to continue. I mean, the absolute unrepentance of some of these university administrators.
Has been kind of jaw dropping.
I mean, think back to I guess suddenly over a year ago when there was that hearing with Harvard and pen and MIT.
The MIT president said that she was.
Not disciplining students because she didn't want to impact their visa status.
I mean, fast forward to now, and it.
Is a very serious proposal to actually just yank the visas of those kids full stop.
Why are we letting some of the people like that in anyway?
And so I think some of these administrators have really like they've they've found Jesus, because like they are realizing that there they are deep, deep trouble and that there is going to be a side of the federal investigations which take, you know, thousands of hours and millions of dollars to kind of adjudicate and deal with behind the scenes. The reputational damage is astonishing. I mean, I would not
allow my kids to apply to Harvard. I would tell them I'm not co signing your student loans, right, And so I think there's a lot of people like that, because you know, there are real safety concerns as well. But even prior to all the October seventh stuff. I mean, as the mother of a boy, there are colleges that I would not have sent my son to because of
seeing how they dealt with Title nine. Having stued a lot of universities over First Amendment issues, I know the ones that have silenced students and have not treated them properly because of perceived microaggressions. And so there are more than a few universities that I would not send my kids and my money to including both my alma mater and my husband's all the water which which are which ones University of Illinois for me and University of Texas
for my husband. So it still calls every year asking for donations, and I say, you know how much money spent on gibs and done.
No.
Yeah, it's so tough though I don't want to like opt my kids out of what remain kind of the most elite universities. And yes, I love that there's fewer firms pulling from these universities, but still Harvard Student has every door in the world open to them, you know,
as a Jew from the former Soviet Union. The idea that my kids won't be able to go to some schools again the way my parents and my grandparents couldn't you know, there's something difficult about that, But I understand obviously, and I again, I'm glad not to be having to face this until you are able to fix our entire college system and in the next few years by the time my kids apply.
So it's been funny.
Even so Town and Country has been They've been running this series about like the New Ivys, and so even I mean, when you've lost town and country, like you've really kind of you've sort of lost like the elite and so yeah, just like what actually gives you value for money? Like where will your child get a job with a degree that they can actually go take and use in their role?
Are you optimistic over like the next decade about.
The next time?
I think there's going to be you know, like I like the fact that Trump is doing all this stuff basically from day one, because it means.
That there's no bigger there's four years of enforcement on this.
And that means that a lot of the actions that are being taken now we're going to set in, I mean, the layoffs, kind of the program termination. You know, what's that Reagan saying, like the closest thing to eternal life is is a government program. I mean, you know, four years of like like putting a stake through the heart of something, like, it's gonna be pretty hard for some of this stuff to come.
Back, right.
I don't know if I'm crazy about like the bounties that some places have been putting out like that feels a little creepy.
But beyond that, I think.
You know, people are sort of starting to feel like, oh, it's nice to be like I can breathe a little bit without having that beat on my throat, right, and it's refreshing.
Yeah, the breathing, I'm all about it. So end us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
I think you get out of life what you put into it.
So I like, I work a lot of hours, and I realized it's funny. I just had lunch with a friend and I said, you know, I really actually need to work on this congressional testimony. And I was like, no, I have to like put my computer down and like actually go and like talk to somebody and clear my head.
And it was worry.
When I was getting one of my organizations off the ground, I was talking to a donor and he said, you know, do you.
Ever get to like kind of stop and think? And I was like, sorry, I don't get to have dinner with my family, Like what do you stop and think? Who does that?
To actually be able to take a step back, you know, and clear your head? I think actually is like is really productive and so you know, to actually I find that as an adult now, it's so easy. My default setting is like I just want to sit on my couch like and like you know, eat dinner and like not talk to anybody. But every time I go out, I connect with a friend, somebody's in town. I'm like, you know, on a trip, and I go to like a restaurant, like it's like it's fun.
I'm glad that I went.
And I find that I have to push myself and so just I encourage people to, like, you know, get out and go do something because more often than not, you won't regret it.
I love it. Go touch Grass. She is Nicky Neely. Her group is Parents Defending Education. They're fantastic. Check them out.
Thank you, thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.