WE MAY AS WELL concede at the outset that we live, all of us, in a promiscuous, self-indulgent society that prizes autonomy.1 As a consequence, “obedience” is a tough notion, which we settle mostly either by the vaguest of generalizations, or by confining subject matter to those areas already agreed upon. The fearfulness and avoidance of obedience, as conventionally understood among us, has in my judgment two root causes, both of which are