Today I Learned

Tuesday night I learned the people living under the repressive, polygamous religion headed by the now imprisoned Warren Jeffs (I forget the name of it) really do seem brainwashed. In a fascinating special on 48 Hours I saw a number of them interviewed and there was an eerie bland blankness in most of their affects, and the things they said.

Is it brainwashed, or understimulated? The religion doesn't allow them to watch television and I sensed books were not a big part of their lives. The families live in giant groups, some with over 30 children, so the need to take care of basic domestic business trumps everything. The families seem harmonious, with everyone pitching in, and the multiple mothers might actually calm the children, who have more consistent access to one of them than kids in regular families.

But beyond child rearing, it seems the people in this religion are slotted into a life of such conformity that their minds never wake up to consider alternatives. Or, they might be so inbred that their I.Q.s have fallen. Only the people who had escaped the religion spoke with anything like normal animation and emotion. Very few of them showed the sadness you'd think was inevitable after leaving their entire families behind, never to see them again, just for the chance to live in freedom and think for themselves.

Warren Jeffs is a creepy character. His sickening sexual greed (he has something like 80 wives, yet fools around on them) is belied by his sallow, boyish face. I've never been so glad to hear someone is in jail.

Here's a gross fact: When the family Warren Jeffs was reared in was dissolved by some decree of the church elders, Jeffs married the women who had raised him -- he married his mothers. This fact was disclosed with a disgusted chuckle by one of the lawyers trying to help kids caught in the Jeffs snare.

I've always been fascinated by cults and trying to discern if there is a pleasure element present or not. I was convinced Elizabeth Smart had kind of a good time with her Latter Day Saint captor, Brian David Mitchell. She returned to her family glowing with health and what looked like high spirits. But the photographs of some of the young girls in this religion totally contradicted this idea. They looked dead-eyed, lost. They literally lack a life force, because there is no normal choice available to them. Sobering. Thank you, 48 Hours!