Are the primal taboos dying?
This is the function of mythology and tragedy. The story of Oedipus, Medea (who kills her children), or Atreus (who feeds his brother his own children) allows a society to collectively gaze into the abyss of the primal taboo, scream, and then reaffirm the boundary lines of the human. We live in an age of transgression. In the 20th century, artists and philosophers like Georges Bataille ( The Story of the Eye ) celebrated the violation of taboos as a path to "sovereignty" and authentic experience. The internet has democratized the grotesque. Click a few links, and you can find communities that rationalize incest, market shock footage, or argue for moral relativism regarding cannibalism. primal taboo
The primal taboo against necrophilia, or even simple mutilation of a corpse, is a taboo against confusing the categories . A dead human is not an object. To treat it as a sex object or a plaything is to deny the humanity that once animated it. This is why the ancient Egyptians preserved bodies with obsessive care, and why modern outrage over the mishandling of war dead is so intense. The taboo protects the dignity of the person beyond biological death. Here lies the great paradox of the primal taboo: The more forbidden something is, the more fascinating it becomes. Are the primal taboos dying
Postmodern thought argues that all boundaries are arbitrary social constructs. If the incest taboo is "just" a rule to prevent genetic defects, then what about cousin marriage (legal in many countries)? If cannibalism is "just" a protein source, is it immoral on a desert island? We live in an age of transgression
Freud called this the "return of the repressed." The primal taboo doesn't destroy the desire it forbids; it intensifies it, driving it underground where it festers into fantasy. Every human being has the latent capacity for incest, violence, and cannibalism—we are primates after all. The taboo is the mental wall we build against these impulses. But walls are also interesting to look at.
Why is it so powerful? The offers a compelling biological explanation: humans who grow up in close domestic proximity during the first few years of life are desensitized to sexual attraction to one another. It’s a built-in evolutionary brake against inbreeding.
The next time you feel that sudden, wordless shudder of revulsion—whether at a news story, a film, or a fleeting thought—stop and acknowledge it. You have just brushed against a primal taboo. And in that negative space, that void of the unthinkable, you have discovered the hidden foundation upon which your entire moral world is built.