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“It’s hard to resist the temptation to hope for disaster, for systemic collapse…an event that will destroy the whole thing….but who is it that suffers, that dies in those events? It’s not the well-heeled banker…a die-off can’t be a political program…”
A society’s most potent taboos are shadows of its highest values.
Consider prostitution in relation to the historical institution of marriage; both involve an intimate exchange: the former producing money, the latter producing capital. Taboos are ontologically necessary preconditions of the “sacred.” In order for the sacred to be, it needs to enjoy something we can call a ‘semiotic monopoly.’ Its signs must remain pure; irony is to be avoided at all costs. In other words, the sacred gestures and ritual attitudes must not be appropriated without warrant: there must be strict and pitiless felicity conditions imposed. Violations of these conditions of felicity are called taboos, and they carry strong punishments, not the least of which is the imputation of insanity, being declared mad.
Well burrowed, old mole! 