Totem and Taboo in Modern America
We are perplexed and fascinated by taboos and the people who break them. Yet, what constitutes a taboo and its function in the psyche of the individual and the collective is murky and ill-defined. Many Americans pride themselves on being members of a society lacking taboos. They see the increasing emphasis on inclusivity, diversity, and personal liberty as indicators that we are becoming a taboo-free society. However, as an archetype, the taboo continues to permeate the collective psyche, and it is no less powerful today than in antiquity.
Taboos are often presented as relics of a superstitious age. As civilized people, we can imagine ourselves risen above such absurdities, such as the near-universal ancient taboos concerning the dead, menstruating women, and rulers. Yet taboos still hold great power over us. One taboo that remains fixed in our collective psyche with great power is the taboo prohibiting incest. While different cultures define incest with variety and emphasize different aspects, it permeates humanity with near universality.
With the incest taboo, there is a tendency to rationalize it using modern sensibilities and concerns. It is easy to explain away incest taboos as an ancient prohibition meant to prevent genetic disorders that the ancients may have somehow intuitively grasped. Other taboos can be rationalized. For instance, one might explain the taboo against physical contact with the dead as an attempt to prevent the spread of infectious disease. We might apply a Marxist framework to taboos against touching kings and priests as an institutionalized rule meant to protect and preserve the ruling class.
This reasoning is arrogant and represents a projection of modern thinking onto ancient peoples. It removes taboos from their context and forces a modern framework onto ancient concerns. Additionally, it ignores the archetypal power of taboos and rationalizes it in an attempt to establish a sense of superiority. In doing this, we become ignorant of the potential sway of the taboo, and we can become possessed by an archetype more powerful than rationality.
Therefore, let us explore the fundamental nature of the taboo, that we might understand it better. Freud speaks about taboos in his classic book, Totem and Taboo. While much of the material of the book is speculative, it offers rich food for contemplation.
It’s important to note that taboos are distinct from religious and moral restrictions. (Freud, 24) They do not arise from philosophical systems but can influence and overlap with them. Warriors of the Natchez tribe were required to maintain abstinence concerning food, sex, and activity for six months after killing their first enemy. (Freud, 56) Though the killing occurred within the allowable moral framework of war, the warriors became taboo despite the action’s moral quality. Thus, taboos arise of their own power and take on their own character. Unlike religious or moral restrictions, taboos are unlikely to be easily questioned. Due to their immense power, they are accepted as a matter of course.
This power is the power of the profane and of the sacred. These two opposite qualities revolve around one another within the concept of the taboo, creating a paradox that is crucial to the concept. The other quality fundamental to the taboo is its infectious nature. When one touches the taboo object or commits the taboo act, one becomes taboo and capable of spreading it. This is because what is taboo is a receptacle of immense power, transmissible by contact. (Freud, 27) Sometimes this power is profane, as with taboos concerning the dead. Sometimes it is sacred, as the many taboos concerning chiefs and priests. However, the common thread is that the transgressor of the taboo does not possess the capacity or the right to carry the taboo’s electric power. Gods may commit incest, murder with impunity, or witness the divine, but humans are no more capable or entitled to these things than they are of touching the Sun. It isn’t proper that humans should do what is the domain of gods.
Additionally, the transgressor becomes a dangerous example to others. Therefore, if the powers of the taboo do not punish the transgressor, the collective must rise up to punish them, out of fear of the repercussions the universe might heap on society for allowing the violation. Disobedience is as contagious as disease.
Purification rituals often accompany the transgression of a taboo, assuming transgression can be expiated at all. Often death is the only possible relief from a taboo violation. Expiation is often a severe process, demanding total dedication from the transgressor. Atonement for breaking a taboo is not simply contriteness or even repentance, but complete renunciation. As Freud says, “renunciation lies at the basis of obedience to the taboo.” (Freud, 45)
An interesting characteristic of taboos is that their importance or severity is not necessarily obvious from their character. The ancient kings of Ireland were limited by many, to modern sensibilities, perplexing restrictions. (Freud, 59) These are explained in the Lebor na Cert. Kings could not stay in specific towns on certain days, and there were restrictions on when specific rivers could be crossed and so forth. Emperors, priests, chiefs, and kings throughout history have been subject to taboos so specific and minute that they represented a major impediment and burden to life. (Freud, 57) And when broken, despite their elevated status, these individuals were often subjected to severe punishments, even death.
Finally, the last fundamental aspect of a taboo is our unconscious ambivalence towards them. There is no need to prohibit what no one wants to do and, “a thing that is forbidden with the greatest emphasis must be a thing that is desired.” (Freud, 87) Therefore, what is taboo represents something we desire intensely, even if only unconsciously. Thus, all the acts and thoughts we prohibit so strongly, such as murder, incest, hatred, etc., represent things that we, on some level, want to commit.
In modern American society, one of our taboos is racism. Its mere accusation is enough to end careers, close businesses, and form mobs. The immense power surrounding the words and symbols which evoke racism should be enough to suggest its taboo qualities. However, it’s worth developing this idea. We can see the archetype manifest in many situations, for instance, in the American collective response to questioning accusations of racism.
Chris Harrison’s removal as host of the TV show, the Bachelor, follows the taboo pattern. By engaging in a symbolic act that recalled racist institutions, Bachelor contestant Rachael Kirkconnell had become taboo. Harrison expressed ambivalence about ostracizing or condemning Kirkconnell’s actions, and he became taboo by extension. Kirkconnell’s actions had infected Harrison through contact. Here the contact wasn’t physical but through association, yet the concept of transmission remains. His only recourse will be to attempt expiation of the taboo violation, which, as Freud suggested, requires not simple contriteness but a full renunciation demanding much from the transgressor. However, expiation can be difficult, particularly in a society whose expectations are rapidly changing and whose taboo rituals are not fully established.
An example of modern taboo expiation is Meyers Leonard, a former NBA player with the Miami Heat. After using an anti-semitic word while live-streaming a video game, he came under intense collective pressure to make amends for breaking the taboo. In the period following the offense, Leonard was fined $50,000 and was suspended and then traded by his NBA team (note the team had to increase its physical distance from Leonard to avoid becoming taboo). Additionally, he met with rabbis, participated in Shabbat dinners, attended a holocaust memorial, and participated in various events with UM Hillel. Since then, he has been released from the NBA and will likely never play professional basketball ever again.
Leonard’s purification ritual was deemed insufficient, with some commentators noting that learning some history and talking to people does not guarantee someone's thinking has changed. In breaking the taboo, it is insufficient that Leonard acknowledges his error because he has become profane. What is expected is a complete transformation of his person in a way that cannot be objectively measured or assessed.
The defining characteristic of taboos is their immense archetypal power. Once broken, the violator becomes profane and taboo by the transmission of the energy from the initial taboo object, act, or personage. The transmission continues until broken by ostracization, death, or ritual purification. Purification is not the same as religious or moral contriteness and repentance. It demands complete renunciation to return to a state of normalcy, which is distinct from attaining a state of moral purity. Taboos do not represent moral imperatives but social prohibitions from acts imbued with too much power. A power arising from the intense tension of our conscious disdain towards the taboo and our unconscious desire to break it.
The taboo is alive in modern America. It will exist wherever human beings live and create societies. We are driven by intense social, moral, and egoistic pressures to be good, to be obedient. Simultaneously, we have a powerful unconscious desire to break all restrictions, regardless of the repugnance or horror those acts engender. We are sinners. On some level, we all want to kill. We all want to commit incest. And we all want to hate others for being different.
Understanding these drives and tendencies in our psyche allows us to approach our sins consciously, without destroying the lives of our fellow sinners. Ultimately, their taboo violations are our vicarious fantasies lived out. And there is no telling when our darker desires might possess us and compel us to break a taboo.
This article used the following works as reference and inspiration:
Sigmund Freud. Totem and Taboo. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1950.
The Book of Rights, Lebor na Cert, available in full here: https://archive.org/details/lebornacertbooko00dilluoft
Image: “Freud — What lurks behind” by One From RM is licensed under CC BY 2.0
