Modernity
The rise of rationalism and science has reduced the potency of many former taboos in modern cultures. In the United States and Europe, people openly discuss and explore previously taboo subjects such as sexuality and abortion. Increasing understanding has led medical disorders such as epilepsy, birth defects, and sexually transmitted diseases to be treated more analytically and less judgmentally than in the past.
However, changing social customs and standards also create new taboos, such as bans on slavery; conflation of ephebophilia with pedophilia; prohibitions on alcohol, tobacco, or psychopharmaceutical consumption (particularly among pregnant women); and the employment of politically correct euphemisms – at times quite unsuccessfully – to mitigate various forms of discrimination.
Incest itself has been pulled both ways, with some seeking to normalize consensual adult relationships regardless of the degree of kinship (notably in Europe) and others expanding the degrees of prohibited contact (notably in the United States).
Contemporary multicultural societies have established a number of taboos rooted in the perceived injustice and deleterious effects of modern history, particularly neocolonialism. Tribalisms (for example, ethnocentrism and nationalism) and prejudices (racism, sexism, religious extremism) are opposed at times reflexively despite the potentially high cost of diverse societies in terms of trust and solidarity.
Read more about this topic: Taboo
Famous quotes containing the word modernity:
“The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear—and even, in certain respects, would be—the most modern of critical movements.”
—Paul Deman (1919–1983)