How Governments Create and Enforce Taboos

Now that questionning the events of 9/11 has been made taboo, how are taboos actually made? I asked AI:


While governments do not create taboos in the traditional cultural sense (really?), they can heavily influence, formalize, and enforce social norms to a degree that can effectively create and reinforce taboos

. A government's power to create laws and use coercive force gives it a powerful mechanism for turning a societal rule into an ingrained, legally enforceable taboo. 

How government action creates and reinforces taboos

• Legal codification: A government can take an existing social norm and codify it into law, moving it from an unspoken rule to a legally punishable offense. For example, laws related to public decency often formalize an underlying social taboo against certain behaviors. In some countries, taboos around dress codes are legally enforced and carry penalties.
• Active norm management: Governments can use public information campaigns, advertising, and other forms of communication to actively influence and "manage" social norms. By promoting certain behaviors and discouraging others, they can effectively shift societal values to the point where certain actions become socially unacceptable and are treated as taboos.
• Regulating behavior: Through regulation, governments can alter the conditions and circumstances that influence social behavior. In one case study, a government's introduction of a smoking ban in public places helped change the social norm around smoking. The policy made public smoking less socially acceptable, reinforcing a de facto taboo.
• Political messaging: Governments often use rhetoric and political maneuvering to stigmatize certain ideas, groups, or forms of expression. For example, some political actors may frame scientific inquiry into topics like intelligence and race as "taboo" to discourage research that could challenge prevailing political values, effectively creating a public taboo around the topic.
• Housing and policy design: A government can promote specific social structures, such as the "nuclear family," through policy design. In Singapore, policies related to public housing have been used to enforce norms of heteronormativity. By favoring certain social arrangements, the government makes alternatives less common and less accepted, pushing them towards the realm of taboo. 

Societal vs. government-enforced taboos

It is important to distinguish between social and government-driven taboos.

• Societal taboos typically emerge organically over time from culture, religion, and other social forces. They are enforced informally through social sanctions like shame and ostracism.
• Government-enforced taboos are formalized and backed by the force of law. While they may originate from existing cultural beliefs, the government's involvement transforms them by adding a layer of legal coercion. 

The influence is a two-way street, as policies that align with existing social norms are more effective and can deepen the taboo. Conversely, laws that conflict with deep-seated beliefs can be less effective and may even face resistance.

Carl Jung viewed taboos as 

social and cultural forces that drive the repression of certain thoughts, desires, and behaviors into the unconscious mind. He saw this as integral to the development of his concepts of the Shadow and the collective unconscious. 

Taboos and the Shadow archetype

For Jung, the "Shadow" is the part of the psyche that contains all the hidden, repressed, and undesirable aspects of a person's personality. Taboos are the primary mechanism by which these aspects are formed. 

• The origin of the Shadow: From childhood, individuals are taught which behaviors, impulses, and desires are unacceptable by family and cultural standards. Anything that goes against these taboos—from sexual urges to aggressive feelings—is pushed into the unconscious mind and becomes part of the personal Shadow.
• A "moral problem": Jung considered the Shadow a "moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality". Repressing taboo desires does not eliminate them; they remain active in the unconscious and can influence behavior in negative or destructive ways.
• Integration and wholeness: The process of individuation, or psychological wholeness, requires confronting and integrating these repressed aspects of the Shadow. By bringing taboo thoughts and impulses into conscious awareness, an individual can work through them rather than be controlled by them. 

Taboos and the collective unconscious

Jung also believed that taboos operate on a larger, collective level, shaping an entire society's psyche. 

• Beyond the personal: While Sigmund Freud saw the unconscious primarily as a dumping ground for repressed personal urges, Jung expanded this concept. He believed that the psyche contains a deeper, inherited layer called the "collective unconscious," which is a universal repository of human experience.
• Societal projections: When the Shadow is unintegrated at a collective level, it can manifest as societal prejudices and scapegoating. A group can project its collective Shadow—the forbidden or reviled parts of itself—onto an "out-group".
• Crossing the boundary: Confronting taboos was seen by Jung as a dangerous but necessary step. It involves "stepping over the border from one known state into the chaos of the unstructured unknown," and can be frightening for the ego. 

The consequences of ignoring taboos

According to Jung, failing to acknowledge and integrate the aspects of ourselves repressed by taboos can lead to significant psychological problems:

• Projection: A person may see their own repressed taboo traits in others, leading to harsh judgment and distorted views of reality.
• Unconscious acting out: Unacknowledged impulses can burst forth in destructive ways, leading to antisocial behaviors.
• Neuroses: The energy used to repress taboo thoughts and desires can result in psychological distress, anxiety, and depression.
• Collective atrocities: On a mass scale, repressed collective shadows can lead to destructive societal events like discrimination, war, and genocide.