Taboo Breaking
22nd August 2020
ZMan indulges in a little sociology.
The Scandinavian nationalist, Fróði Midjord, is fond of saying that the way to break a taboo is to break the taboo. The logic is that taboos only work as a crowd control device when the crowd agrees with the taboo. If people stop abiding by a taboo, then it loses its power to enforce behavior. We see this with the social norms that have fallen away since the 1960’s. Things like adultery and divorce were normalized, in part, by people ignoring the taboos against them.
Of course, a good way to have your life destroyed is to go around breaking taboos, especially the ones that matter to the people in charge. Start talking race realism at your office and you not only get fired, you become unemployable. Break the taboo against fighting back against left-wing street thugs and you could end up in prison. Breaking taboos works only when a critical mass of people decides to break the taboo and a larger set of people are ready to join them.
That’s the other problem with taboo breaking. Without popular or institutional support, the taboo breaker ends up enforcing the taboo. He gets hauled out in front of the crowd and is properly punished. The crowd sees it and the point is made. If you don’t want to end up like the guy being made into an example, don’t break the taboo. Rosa Parks would not be known to us without the support of the ruling class. Her taboo breaking was welcomed by the people in charge.