[I]n what meaningful way is the authoritarian hierarchy of the FLDS not a government in itself? Yes, this is an issue of pluralism and freedom of religion and the autonomy of nonconformist groups, but surely it’s an issue of pluralism in conflict with other liberal values.
The question most relevant to the children’s autonomy is the possibility of exit, which in turn depends on the extent of their isolation and the quality of their education. How real is the choice to stay within this community as children approach adulthood? Carolyn Jessop reports that as a child, she was taught to be terrified of outsiders. The discarded boys seem to have a very tough time of it, which suggests that the adolescents have limited skills for coping with the outside world. According to people at Child Protective Services, the children in their care are significantly less mature than non-FLDS children of equivalent ages. And some of them will be married off at 16, perhaps bearing a few kids before gaining the emotional capacity to question this particular way of life. Jessop didn’t think she had a choice in marrying Merril and bearing his children–her sister had tried to escape and had been dragged back–and she didn’t acquire the courage to leave until she was a mother of eight. Walking away must take incredible courage of the kind few in the compound is interested in fostering.
Tough, important, good questions, and I don’t have the answers. I will say, I’m not entirely sure this is a reason for saying that our “conception of the rights of children is far too constrained,” but I do think this whole case points to a shortcoming in some of libertarian theory (a shortcoming, I hasten to add, that no other political theory has done any better at; children screw up every political theory, libertarianism less so than some). But the Hayekian conception of the open society as groups of people obeying their own social mores so that we can all learn which mores work is impoverished if it does not come along with some overarching conception of the human good—some guiding principle which can act to protect the innocent victims of insular, rights-violating communities like the FLDS. Hayek always seemed to me wishy-washy on this subject—he oscillates between concern that they are the product of “constructivist rationalism” on one hand, and on the other hoping that they will evolve from within the system.... He never really had an adequate answer to this.
But the point is that cultural relativism just ain’t gonna cut it—whether it be the attitude of “don’t care” whether girls are being raped in distant desert communes, or “don’t care” whether slavery be voted up or voted down. Without some universal standard, the competing-societies theory is a recipe for disaster, not for the open, or good, or even decent society. Note Howley’s comment, “The question most relevant to the children’s autonomy is the possibility of exit”—exactly. And the possibility of exit is a universal conception that must apply if the Hayekian world of walled-off communities is to produce anything good.
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