Sir Barken Hyena writes:
I know the obvious answer is “yes and they are racial & gender related” but when reading about Victorian England, for example, it’s clear that the taboos of the age were pretty much universal. Nobody anywhere, above the level of the street prostitute, was discussing sex. Or so it seems. Hard to say from this remove of time and space but the vibe I get from that era tells me that even two close old friends sitting around privately chatting would have been very reluctant to broach that subject.
But today? Is there anything even remotely like that? The racial and sexual taboos are a subject of lots of stand up, as Paleo Retiree likes to point out, and much else besides.
So for this post I’d like to encroach on Question Lady’s territory and ask: what are the universal taboos of this age?
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
Sir Barken, You can always encroach on my territory! I don’t think there are any universal taboos. If there were universal taboos then people would be able to agree on things. There would be no wars. There would be no law suits. We would be able to move past silly religious debates in politics and move on to solving real problems. But if I could institute one universal taboo it would be: Thou shalt not put tons of oak and butter flavoring into white wine and call it Chardonnay.
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>>There would be no law suits.
How DARE YOU, madam…
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I heartily agree: that kind of Chardonnay always smells like hot bicycle tires to me.
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No, all white wine should be taboo! See, there’s no hope.
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It’s a good while since I’ve seen an American refer to someone dying rather than “passing”.
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Nobody in the Victorian period was talking about the sex? That would certainly come as news to the friends (and readers) of the Sir Richard Francis Burton.
http://burtoniana.org/books/1886-Perfumed%20Garden/index.htm
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“But today? Is there anything even remotely like that? The racial and sexual taboos are a subject of lots of stand up, as Paleo Retiree likes to point out, and much else besides.”
Okay, I’ll test the hypothesis. Let’s see how long this comment stays up.
The n-word.
That is all.
[Edited by site administrator, as though to prove Josh’s point.]
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Come on you can do better than that
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Victory
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I always thought the Manolo knew everything, but now I’m sure.
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Political Correctness is a whole system of taboos, god knows. Racial differences, sex differences, endless overattentiveness to everyone’s sensitivities …
Hey, a thought and a question? PC seems to be more than just a system of taboos. Sex may have been a taboo in Victorian times, but the Victorians (or most of them) weren’t fooling themselves or each other — as the Manolo points out, they KNEW about sex, even if they didn’t yak about it in great detail at cocktail parties. But PC … It seems to be not just a modern Emily Post for the multicultural age — I wouldn’t mind that all too much — but an effort at actual thought control. Not only do you not speak about PC-taboo topics, you mustn’t think about them either. Presumably because thinking such thoughts will lead to evil actions. (Which, for one thing, erases one of the main purposes of the arts, which is to try out different thoughts, feelings, fantasies and life-approaches than we have access to in day-to-day life. Hey, maybe this helps explain why so much irreverent art and entertainment in recent years has tended in the direction of raunch and camp — there’s nothing wrong with raunch and camp in PC terms, where the kind of rawness and sting of something like “Killer Joe” is very dicey, PC-wise.) So PC is childish in its assumption that we can’t or shouldn’t play with forbidden thoughts, and it’s totalitarian in its determination to police not just behavior but thinking.
Am I off here?
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Good point about the mind control…PC does go further than the usual taboos.
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Try broaching the subject of IQ and race.
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Money is still taboo. All those Sex and the City girls, people like Julie Klausner, etc, they’ll be happy to tell you about their sex life in great detail. If you asked them what their rent is though they’d be mortified.
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Colonialism. An out-and-out colonialist would be beyond the pale. Sure there are neocons and charter cities and NGOs and open borderists, so there is huge demand for the real thing, but nobody actually advocating genuine colonialism, and in fact someone did, it would be immediately discrediting.
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Ha, it’s like Radish is reading my comments (I also came up with the name “Radish” first, so I also have that going for me).
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