The Prime Directive
One of the most illuminating ways of
understanding minority religions, so-called “cults,” that I have ever run
across is that they are different island realities such as those encountered
by Dorothy in Oz or by Odysseus or Gulliver, etc. Maybe the best version of
the analogy would be the alien civilizations depicted on Star Trek,
where the challenge is always to what extent interlopers into such alternate
worlds may dare to intrude, to contaminate, to missionize, and to what
degree one must let things remain as they are, as distasteful as they may
strike us, given that interference might ruin the whole social ecology. Any
lessons we may have learned from such challenging fictions might come in
handy as we face the problems posed by enclaves of U.S. citizens in our
midst who live by very different mores and insist on respect and legal
recognition of them. Are we justified in demanding uniformity of behavior,
and even of ethics, from absolutely everyone who seeks refuge on these
shores? Our answer to that question may determine whether the old claim of
America being a melting pot is justified or not. It certainly describes the
many, many cases of immigrants plunging into the mainstream of American life
with gusto. But how about the rest?
What about those who, while loving their
new home, seek also, as a matter of integrity, to retain traditional mores?
A good example would be the age-long efforts of Jews to integrate into
surrounding Gentile societies without assimilating to them. If they did the
latter, they would soon cease being Jews at all in any meaningful sense.
Mostly we recognize their motives and approve their distinctive practices,
not wanting to have the precious jewel of Judaism/Jewish culture dissolve
amid the detritus of American mongrelism.
Recently we have found our
accommodationism tested by the increasing demands of Muslims to have the
state (e.g., public schools, state universities) make special provisions for
their diet, their ritual ablutions (e.g., foot-washings), and such. Would
such support by the presumably religiously neutral state amount to state
support of a single religion? I don’t think so, since to do it for one group
would only lead to doing the same for any group of reasonable size that
requested the same privileges. We already allow Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Mennonites, etc., to “affirm” on the witness stand, not to swear, which
their religious scruples forbid. Personally, I think such accommodation a
good idea, as it always is to make people feel at home and grateful to their
new country. The less reason people have for thinking they live under the
hoof of the Great Satan the better. But sometimes it comes down to the tail
wagging the dog, making the exception into the rule, a situation in which
the recently exorcised man only becomes prey to seven more demons worse than
the original (Matthew 12:43-45).
Another prominent case is that of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), a
split-off sect that is a century old, more or less, having dissented from
mainstream Mormonism’s agreement to abandon the practice of polygamy as the
price of U.S. statehood. The larger symbolism of the Mormon decision for
statehood is clear: do social non-conformists prefer what gives them their
cherished identity, their very reason to exist (“exist” means “to stand out
from” the broad ground of being), or would they rather have the comfort in
numbers of being part of a larger, homogeneous whole, the United States?
That is the choice all marginal groups face: cell rejection by the body into
which they have either been transplanted or mutated.
As the rest of us, mainstream America,
decide how much conformity we have the right to demand, the problem the
polygamists pose is not just that, obviously, they allow multiple spouse
marriage (just like the Bible, one might add). Worse yet, they practice
arranged marriages, and they maintain another very old custom of allowing
older men to marry and impregnate much younger women. As I write, a court of
appeals has just overturned the decision of a lower court that mandated the
removal of hundreds of “endangered” children from an FLDS compound in remote
Texas (from the look of it, the same dead-zone landscape depicted in The
Devil’s Rejects, basically another planet). The kids were yanked out
because of a crank phone-call, as it turned out, from someone falsely
claiming to have been abused by an older man, a pre-arranged husband. But
they were able to turn up one gal who had been under age while impregnated.
My problem with this is simply that such dividing lines are culturally
relative and arbitrary. My mother, who died a few years ago at age 87, used
to tell me how she recalled twelve-year-old girls in rural Mississippi and
Tennessee getting married. Because of that, I was never inclined to condemn
Jerry Lee Lewis too harshly. It was within his cultural norms to marry his
twelve-year old cousin, and none of my business.
There are anti-polygamist activists with
horror stories to tell about the abuses to which young women are subjected
in the FLDS and similar groups. But, famously, the daughter of a courageous
mom who managed to escape the clutches of one of these cults with all her
children in tow shocked her mother by going back to the cult and rejoining
when she was old enough. Personally, I have known Unificationists (Moonies)
who seem to live quite happily in marriages arranged by Reverend Moon. All
of which I intend to lead up to this consideration: it is a mixed bag. If we
break up these religions in order to eliminate any possibility of abuse
occasioned by polygamous sects, we will be making the exception into the
rule, usually a bad idea with plenty of ensuing unintended consequences. Why
destroy the village in order to save it? In the same vein, I commend the
wise authorities in Utah for their historic policy of salutary neglect when
it comes to enforcing the monogamy laws. To do so would be just like sending
in crews to remove a building’s old asbestos insulation: the danger lies
dormant until stirred up by the very attempt to root it out.
When it comes to the island-world of the
polygamists, I say, follow the Star Trek “prime directive” of
non-interference. I know, it will not always be possible to do so. Every
individual case is special, but this is the basic rule to be flexible
with.
But don’t we have the right to summon
would-be Americans to embrace the values we as a country enshrine and value?
On a pragmatic basis, that is, on issues which have an impact on our ability
to work and recreate and go to school together, etc., yes, we must. But even
there we have learned to make considerable accommodations, for instance,
honoring dogmatic pacifism by allowing conscientious objector status. One
thing we believe we do not have the right to do is to demand conformity of
belief. But what we sometimes miss is that ethics follow from beliefs,
religious doctrines, and that to ban one is to ban the other. We cannot
demand that people sacrifice their integrity.
One of the most volatile instances of the
responsibility of the state to protect children’s welfare versus the
sovereignty of their parents concerns educational standards. The government
recognizes parochial and home-schooling for parents who fear public school
will corrupt their children morally or ideologically. I think that can work.
The state stipulates certain standards for noncontroversial subject areas,
and parochial/home instructors may be fair in teaching about evolution
without advocating it, just as comparative religion teachers instruct
students about Buddhism or Islam without evangelizing for them. I knew a
woman who was a fundamentalist who home-schooled her kids and had broadly
educated herself in preparation for the job. I asked her what she did with
evolution, and she said she explained it to her kids and left them to decide
for themselves. She had enough faith in God and the Bible as well as her
kids, to trust they would make the right decision. Good for her! I don’t
know if she is an exception, or if she’s even as objective as she’s trying
to be. But I think it is her right.
Against this, I know that some atheists
and secularists view religious catechism of one’s children to be a form of
child-abuse. They would interfere with normal domestic arrangements and
leave child-rearing to “the experts” as they style them. I see what they
mean. One can scarcely believe how poorly so many parents bring up their
children. But I fear they have to be accorded the freedom to err. We have to
have enough faith in the individual to believe each can grow and develop in
distinctive ways precisely by overcoming early obstacles to intellectual
growth. There is a world out there that will help them educate and endlessly
reeducate themselves.
Frankly, I hear about Leftist wishes that
the State might control child-rearing, and I think “Stalinism.” Again, it
would be a disastrous error, making the exception into the rule. Sure, there
are egregious cases of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that government
must patrol and punish, or it is failing in its duties to its populace. We
can and should offer parenting guidance to lower-income parents who had
families while still children themselves and are just clueless. But to say,
“Okay, Americans, we’ve given you your chance, and you blew it, so hand over
the kiddies” – that’s making the government seizure of the FLDS kids into
policy for all kids. Sure, send them all to Camp Quest and Camp
Inquiry for indoctrination—the very opposite of what such institutions are
for, but that is what they would become if all children were to be turned
over to the ostensibly superior education by “specialists.” What a
nightmare! Fascism and Communism, remember, were both social-engineering
experiments spawned by doctrinaire Leftist elites. No one was trying to be
evil. They just erred by elevating school-marms to godhood. My position is
that there is no god—including the government. And including people who
agree with me.
So says Zarathustra.
