It seems to me like an important thing about individual taboo facts is that it’s not particularly advantageous to be correct on them, most of the time, because you can’t publicly work with others on the basis of those facts.
Are you arguing that there’s a political ontology which can only be understood by considering the fact that [redacted] is true, or one which can only be understood by considering the dynamics which lead to [redacted] being taboo despite being true? If it’s the latter, I can much more easily see how that ontology could be productive for acting in the world.
E.g. suppose you’re in Salem and know that there are no witches. You can gain some small benefit by e.g. not spending money on counter-curses, but that’s about it. Trying to spread and organize on the knowledge that there are no witches just gets you burned, but understanding why the trials are going on might actually help you survive.
It seems to me like an important thing about individual taboo facts is that it’s not particularly advantageous to be correct on them, most of the time, because you can’t publicly work with others on the basis of those facts.
Compared with most other facts that are similarly not widely believed, but are not taboo, it seems clear that taboo facts are far more advantageous to know. That’s because most uncontroversial not-widely-believed facts are very unimportant, while taboo facts tend to be highly important and have wide implications (just consider atheism, or belief in evolution, when those where highly taboo: it made everyone act on the assumption that they were false), even if it is often not easy to directly act on them. Individual knowledge of those facts is a necessary requirement for un-tabooing them and making them common knowledge.
It seems to me like an important thing about individual taboo facts is that it’s not particularly advantageous to be correct on them, most of the time, because you can’t publicly work with others on the basis of those facts.
Are you arguing that there’s a political ontology which can only be understood by considering the fact that [redacted] is true, or one which can only be understood by considering the dynamics which lead to [redacted] being taboo despite being true? If it’s the latter, I can much more easily see how that ontology could be productive for acting in the world.
E.g. suppose you’re in Salem and know that there are no witches. You can gain some small benefit by e.g. not spending money on counter-curses, but that’s about it. Trying to spread and organize on the knowledge that there are no witches just gets you burned, but understanding why the trials are going on might actually help you survive.
Compared with most other facts that are similarly not widely believed, but are not taboo, it seems clear that taboo facts are far more advantageous to know. That’s because most uncontroversial not-widely-believed facts are very unimportant, while taboo facts tend to be highly important and have wide implications (just consider atheism, or belief in evolution, when those where highly taboo: it made everyone act on the assumption that they were false), even if it is often not easy to directly act on them. Individual knowledge of those facts is a necessary requirement for un-tabooing them and making them common knowledge.