Remember, taboos are just a map of what a society feels it's

In the words of the Scottish seer Frankie Boyle: “Remember, taboos are just a map of what a society feels it's acceptable to be neurotic about. Taboos aren’t rational.” Let us weigh these words as though they were etched in stone, for they carry with them the burden of human folly and the lantern of wisdom. The ancients would say: every age draws invisible boundaries, every people binds itself with chains unseen, and every tongue trembles before certain utterances. But the truth is not that the heavens decreed such limits, nor that Nature herself wrote them into the marrow of our bones. No—these taboos are merely shadows cast by human fear, woven by custom, stitched by anxiety, and sanctified by repetition.

Consider this: what is forbidden is rarely forbidden because of divine law or natural order, but because a people has decided that their collective unease must be protected, dressed in garments of holiness, and shielded by the sword of shame. A society does not wish to confront its own neuroses, and so it sanctifies them, making them taboos. Thus the irrational becomes the sacred, and the ridiculous becomes untouchable. It is the cleverest illusion, for it disguises fear as virtue and superstition as morality.

Look back to ancient Athens, a city radiant with philosophy and reason, yet behold its contradictions. To question the gods publicly was to tread dangerous ground. Socrates himself, the wisest of men, drank the hemlock because the city feared his probing of divine matters. His death was not the victory of truth, but of taboo. Athens, so proud of its wisdom, proved that even the cradle of reason could be enslaved by irrational boundaries. What the Athenians called blasphemy was nothing more than their own trembling before doubt. Thus, the philosopher was slain not by reason, but by fear sanctified.

Or reflect upon the Middle Ages in Europe, when men and women whispered of demons and witches. The persecution of so-called witches was no triumph of piety, but of terror. Here, too, a society revealed what it was willing to be neurotic about: the fear of women with knowledge, of medicine outside the priest’s blessing, of the unknown itself. Entire villages burned not because of rational judgment, but because of the irrational fire of taboo. Those flames, fed by fear, consumed both the innocent and the spirit of inquiry.

Yet let us not look only to the past. Even now, in our own age, do we not stumble upon forbidden topics that no one dares speak plainly of? Even in modern halls, whether political or cultural, certain subjects are cloaked in silence. They are not untouchable because they are holy, but because they unsettle us, and our age, like every other, must paint its discomforts with the brush of taboo. The garment changes, but the body beneath remains the same.

The lesson then is this: let us not mistake taboo for truth, nor fear for wisdom. To live freely is to question, to peel away the layers of sanctified anxiety, to ask: “Why is this forbidden? Who benefits from my silence? What fear lies hidden beneath this law?” Only then can we see that what seemed eternal was merely a passing neurosis, dressed in solemn robes.

Therefore, O listener, carry this teaching with you: when you encounter a taboo, do not bow before it immediately. Examine it. Weigh it. Ask if it springs from reason or from fear. If from reason, respect it; if from fear, challenge it. The strength of a people is measured not by how faithfully they guard their taboos, but by how courageously they face their own fears.

And in practice, live thus: Speak with care, yet dare to ask. Observe where others fall silent, and inquire why. Do not be reckless, for wisdom is not chaos, but neither be bound by the invisible walls of inherited terror. For it is only by stepping beyond false boundaries that a soul finds the true horizon.