Michael Lissack our lives to a degree that is unparalleled in human history. This is true both because technological change has freed us from many of the constraints im- posed on us by nature and because cultural change has freed us from many of the constraints imposed on us by social institutions. Nowhere is the value of autonomy and control more important or obvious than in modern America. It probably undergirds the extraordinary importance we give to freedom of choice and the sanctity we give to the rights of the individual. We rebel against our social institutions (church, state, school) when they try to tell us what to do. Our children rebel against us when we try to tell them what to do. One of the reasons that the character of many of the things we do in life keeps changing is that we refuse to be constrained by the customs, habits, and traditions of those who came before us. We are in a unique position to realize the values of autonomy and control. But this opportunity is some thing of a two-edged sword. To the extent that we can take responsibility for making of our lives what we will, we must also take responsibility for failing to do so. Albert Hirschman, in his book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, has suggested that we have two general classes of responses available to us when things are not as we want them to be. We can leave and thus exit the situation, or we can protest and thereby give voice to our concerns. In the marketplace exit is the characteristic response to dissatisfaction. If a restaurant no longer pleases us, we go to another. If our once favorite breakfast cereal gets too expensive, we switch to a different one. If our favorite vacation spot gets too crowded, we find a new one. One of the principal virtues of freemarket choice is that it gives us the opportunity to express our displeasure by exit. In the domain of social relations, things are different. We don’t dismiss lovers, friends, or communities the way we dismiss restaurants, cereals, or vacation spots. Treating people in this way is unseemly at best and repre- hensible at worst. Instead, we give voice to our displeasure, hoping to in- fluence our lover, our friend, or our community to change. And even when our efforts fail, we feel bound to keep trying. Exit, or abandonment, is the response of last resort. By contrast, our society’s emphasis, indeed obsession, with security
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