
How Do You Rebuild Your Life After Leaving a Polygamous Sect? - johnny313
https://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/ex-flds-new-chapter
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dsfyu404ed
This article seems to me like a prime example of part of why these communities
have these sorts of problems. People outside the communities look in with an
attitude like "look at this poor people, it's such a shame that they have to
live like this" and imply that a lot of the negatives are enabled by their
culture, beliefs and how they live their lives.

That kind of thinking is exactly why these sorts of communities become so
closed to outsiders. When communities are more closed they must rely more on
each other internally which means they must work harder to keep the peace and
can't challenge abuses of power within their community. That paves the way for
more abuse. More abuse paves the way for more contempt from outsiders. If your
ancestors were all arrested by the state police for living the way they
believed they should live and outsiders generally looked down on you you
wouldn't exactly be in a hurry to rock the boat by calling attention to the
community's problems either.

What a wonderful feedback loop it is. Society really sucks at not isolating
groups with non-mainstream belief structures.

It's nice to see that this particular group mostly broke its way out of the
downward spiral before it got too bad.

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bsder
> That kind of thinking is exactly why these sorts of communities become so
> closed to outsiders.

Which cause is first and which effect second?

Sometimes the leaders of these _WANT_ to isolate and close off. This is a
standard mechanism of psychological control.

However, things do change with time. I suspect most people in the US now
regard polygamy as silly and stupid rather than an offense against society.
Polygamy has been shown to have particularly bad destabilizing effects on a
society overall; however, I suspect that a place like the US could actually
weather polygamy now given that women have much more power and mobility.

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dropit_sphere
One point of view is that the U.S. is _currently_ running under semi-
polygamous norms. A stunning proportion of U.S. adults are "single," but that
doesn't necessarily mean they're not having sex.

Of course---partners are not evenly distributed, leading to numerical outcomes
more akin to polygamy than polite society might pretend.

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bsder
Most people would not equate "serially monogamous" with "semi-polygamous".

I don't know that many people who are having sex with multiple partners
simultaneously in spite of Tinder and the hookup culture.

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mdekkers
The same way everybody else does after a traumatic event: One day at a time.
Not sure how the article fits with HN....

~~~
virmundi
HN likes to social commentary on different societal norms. Think of it as
different programming paradigms or architectural styles. It's interesting to
see how a system not setup like ours functions.

