> There's no need for convoluted explanations. I don't see how it's at all convoluted. If anything, it's too reductive. Taboos, traditions, etc., don't need

> There's no need for convoluted explanations. I don't see how it's at all convoluted. If anything, it's too reductive. Taboos, traditions, etc., don't need to exist because of a reason that's explicit. Sometimes, they do, but that doesn't explain the taboos that don't make obvious sense. A taboo can be more or less a form of "cultural neuron" that doesn't have an explicit purpose but incidentally changes the balance of the system towards something that society at a given time may benefit from without even knowing it. A religion featuring more ornate hats than others may have more true believers, or perhaps the other way around for all we know. If that's at least plausible, if not true, that wouldn't necessarily mean a reverend at one point decided to declare a certain kind of hat wearing because of the "good of the church." The inverse can also be true. Take for instance the taboo of sexism. Makes sense, right? Given modern western principles, why should culture allow for discrimination based on sex? On the other hand, there's evidence that many women, regardless of their political positions, actually appreciate men who are "benevolently sexist." It's a phenomenon compelling enough that even Psychology Today, a publication heavily biased against anything unflattering to women, has reported on it more than once. By making sexism a taboo, and far more taboo as of late, society has raised the bar for just how confident a man has to be to attract a woman. We really don't need a study to demonstrate that, on average, women are attracted to confidence. An effect of making sexism taboo is it changes the signal to noise ratio, allowing women to better identify which men they'll actually be attracted to. Maybe there were some people arguing against sexism with this in mind, but I imagine they are an extreme minority. Most anti-sexists probably weren't thinking along those lines. At least that taboo makes some reasonable sense in isolation, and even the fashion of religious garb can be made sense of, but what about a taboo that makes no sense? What about merely making a mouth-noise that comes out sounding like "shit?" It makes little explicit sense that saying the word "shit" be a faux pas. You can say poop, doodie, scat, dung, and even crap, but shit is considered a curse word. It's really pretty stupid. Except I would argue that having any form of taboo can have a positive effect, even if it barely makes sense. By having cultural limits of any kind, it puts the society on the same page and creates a mindset where individuals try to at least maintain some level of basic class as a mindset. Personally, I like saying the word shit, but adding virtually any variable to a chaotic system can have effects that weren't explicitly predicted.