Postmodern thought argues that all boundaries are arbitrary social constructs. If the incest taboo is "just" a rule to prevent genetic defects, then what about cousin marriage (legal in many countries)? If cannibalism is "just" a protein source, is it immoral on a desert island?

Freud called this the "return of the repressed." The primal taboo doesn't destroy the desire it forbids; it intensifies it, driving it underground where it festers into fantasy. Every human being has the latent capacity for incest, violence, and cannibalism—we are primates after all. The taboo is the mental wall we build against these impulses. But walls are also interesting to look at.

Art, horror fiction, and extreme cinema are the safe playgrounds of the primal taboo. When we watch The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or read Cormac McCarthy's Child of God (a novel about a necrophiliac serial killer), we are not endorsing the acts. We are performing a . We approach the electric fence, touch it with a tentative finger (through the buffer of fiction), and feel the shock of the forbidden without receiving its moral penalty.

Primal Taboo (FHD • 720p)

Postmodern thought argues that all boundaries are arbitrary social constructs. If the incest taboo is "just" a rule to prevent genetic defects, then what about cousin marriage (legal in many countries)? If cannibalism is "just" a protein source, is it immoral on a desert island?

Freud called this the "return of the repressed." The primal taboo doesn't destroy the desire it forbids; it intensifies it, driving it underground where it festers into fantasy. Every human being has the latent capacity for incest, violence, and cannibalism—we are primates after all. The taboo is the mental wall we build against these impulses. But walls are also interesting to look at. primal taboo

Art, horror fiction, and extreme cinema are the safe playgrounds of the primal taboo. When we watch The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or read Cormac McCarthy's Child of God (a novel about a necrophiliac serial killer), we are not endorsing the acts. We are performing a . We approach the electric fence, touch it with a tentative finger (through the buffer of fiction), and feel the shock of the forbidden without receiving its moral penalty. Postmodern thought argues that all boundaries are arbitrary