What custom decrees we dare not say, or do, or be, or contemplate, has long been of fascination to me, so when I heard of a new book about the phenomenon of taboos, I quickly ordered a copy. Upon unwrapping the package and contemplating the physical book, I was momentarily stunned. It looks like the author, Robert R. Arthur, fabricated the book at his kitchen table, using quality paper and pretty good glue, and cereal box cardboard to give it a hard cover. The front cover presents the title in handwritten form (with wiggly evidence that the writing hand was shaky) under sketchy illustrations that are kind of eye-popping: an Aztec priest holding up the freshly extracted heart of a sacrificial victim, and the Grim Reaper having doggie-positioned sex with a nubile young maiden. 

This cover suggests that Robert Arthur is going to take us on a comedic romp through the realm of the forbidden, which is somewhat misleading. The writing style is by no means lacking in wit, but the intent of the research and writing is serious.

It's ingrained into us from babyhood to avoid saying that Uncle Charlie died, and to explain his disappearance by saying he "passed away." In a sense, this is apt because we have no physical evidence of where in the world this "away" people pass on to is. And the avoidance of the word died or death enables us to avoid the single most absolute truth of our own lives—that having been born, the only certainty is that we'll die and pass into this great mystery called "away." The author's point is made by his cover art: Sex and death both manifest from this great mystery, and thus both loom large in the realm of the forbidden—phenomenon in our lives that we cannot explain and therefore evade, imbue with superstition, or respect with silence.

But what's with the amateurish book production? Is this author really serious? Upon getting into the reading, one quickly discovers that Robert Arthur is not only serious, he is humorous and scholarly and a thorough researcher. Why, then, didn't he have this book published by a Simon and Schuster or Random House, or another of the New York houses clustered under the umbrella of the cartel that now owns and operates our mainstream book-marketing infrastructure? Given a decent promotional campaign, this book has what it takes to top the New York Times bestseller list for months.

A few pages into the book the answer emerges: This book about taboos is itself taboo; no major American publisher would touch it with a ten-foot pole. Robert Arthur uses both academic and street lingo to get his points across. This breaks an unwritten but powerful no-no: Never use street terms like fuck to deliver a scholarly exploration of customs having to do with fornication. It's considered exceedingly bad taste to call a fornication a fuck in a scholarly tome thick with footnotes. Arthur breaks this unwritten ban. Why doesn't he use the synonyms acceptable in polite society? He could easily have done what's called "cleaned up" the language and done away with expletives that are forbidden in scholarly works. Ah, but he's making a point about the hypocrisy of such taboos. He has opted to SHOW us some of our irrational linguistic prohibitions. Rather than costume "hot" words in euphemisms, he presents them stark naked.  It naturally follows that he is left with no choice but to seek independent publishing.

Arthur involves the reader in the blood and gore and hypocrisy of mankind's long history of taboos, especially, in Book 1, sexual taboos. Book 2, he makes clear, will explore taboos having to do with race, religion and death. Book 1 covers taboos about mucus, excrement, drugs and sex, with most of this book devoted to a long history of sexual taboos from prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies to the present. Since sex permeates so many other facets of life, Book 1 mentions some of these. Did you know that the first currency of the USA was not inscribed with "In God We Trust" but rather "Mind Your Own Business"? This inscription was meant to reflect the new nation's break with the enforcement of Puritan morality and a new emphasis on individual choice and the pursuit of happiness. Apparently what the Founders had in mind was a society in which each was free to pursue happiness in his own way as long as his way did not harm others or infringe on the rights of others.

The subject of taboos is oceanic, so Arthur takes some shortcuts through history. Some of these may raise objections among scholars specializing in this or that ancient culture.  Anyone who was alive during the sexual transformations of the 1960s, for instance, may find his choice of highlights during this period limited. No matter, Arthur provides hundreds of footnotes, and I found myself reading them too, and marveling at the tremendous amount of information he sorted through to craft his summaries. While covering the sexual proclivities of the ancient Greeks, for instance, he includes a quote from Aristophanes' Clouds: as translated by Alan Sommerstein in 1982:

"The ideal penis to the ancient Greeks and Romans was small. Large ones were portrayed for comic effect. In a 423 BC play a warning is given: 'If you do these things I tell you ... you will always have a shining breast, a bright skin, big shoulders, a minute tongue, a big rump and a small prick'." 

What possessed Arthur to expend the tremendous energy needed to word-dance this shadowy subject into book form? A visit to his web site is revealing:

"Taboos are a burden on society.By protecting irrational views they hinder progress towards greater happiness. The government and the media use taboos to lie and mislead. It is not a conspiracy, but by pushing panic for votes and viewers they thwart Americans' pursuit of happiness. Taboos are not relics of primitive societies." 

You Will Die is tightly written and quickly becomes a swift and engaging read. Arthur has a keen eye for the absurd, and in mankind's long history of taboos, there is an abundance of absurdity. The book lacks a bibliography and index, a lack that could be fixed in a future edition. I think it should also expand on inter-racial sex and marriage from colonial times to the present in the USA, outlawed and/or taboo until recently. But, forgetting what it lacks and focusing on what it contains, it's a broad survey shaped into an informative and insightful book.

Who is this guy, Robert R. Arthur? Under the heading "About the Author," we learn this:

He goes on to say that after graduating from law school in 2001, he lived in an abandoned school house in Hanover for three years while working on this book, supporting himself by substitute teaching and working as a public defender for poor people who could not afford legal representation. "If this Book is a failure, I will try to conform to society, find a wife, get a real job, and settle down."  

Of course the initial self-publication of this Book is a resounding commercial failure—it cannot be otherwise. We have become a nation run by the groupthink of merchants, and the last thing these sellers of money and products want to be reminded of is their (and our) collective hypocrisy, including sexual practices of the past that are considered abhorrent today—given what we now deem child sexual abuse, it's abhorrent to learn that in medieval times, sexual play with children was as common as baked bread; and that children were often interested spectators at the trysts of grownups.  

Today's cartel-controlled media has its own set of taboos, some of which are wildly comedic or downright ridiculous compared to past customs. The mainstream media deemed it worthy to publicize every detail of the Clinton-Lewinski affair but hides the civilians killed by US military actions under "collateral damage," while glorifying imaginary military slaughters in video games and "action adventure" movies. The grungiest sex to sell TV crime stories is fine, and the Bill-Monica story certainly did yeoman service in that endeavor, promoting the sale of everything from cars to movie stars. "What's good for business is good for society" seems to be the guiding principle here. Public relations experts come up with stunningly clever ways to promote wars that enrich the military-industrial complex, while portraying people who are against war as crazy and unpatriotic. Orwellian ways and means of manipulating public opinion to perpetuate socially destructive undertakings are acceptable; those who object to this status quo are viewed with suspicion. Corporate welfare is acceptable but public welfare is shameful, as it's "the law" to subsidize companies to relocate to cheap labor markets overseas while "allowing" American workers the "freedom" to find other gainful employment, if they can. By showing us the absurdity of so many past do's and don'ts, You Will Die becomes a dash of cold water to the face of readers contemplating contemporary society.

Today's set of taboos will not be tomorrow's, of course, and Arthur shows how taboos change and evolve over time. Customs or values we take for granted today will eventually be perceived as ridiculous or worse. Aztecs no longer cut out the hearts of sacrificial victims and children no longer watch grownups having sex. The Roman Catholic Church no longer sends inquisitors to prosecute us for thoughts taboo to their creed—the Bush Administration has a different creed and differently costumed inquisitors. What persists is the irrationality of taboos, and our susceptibility to being hoodwinked by contemporary versions. 

This is not to say that everything we humans have tacitly agreed to prohibit is ridiculous.  There are practical reasons to forbid incest and murder. But how rational is our taboo against murder committed by individuals compared to our acceptance of murder committed by the State? Labeling such murders wars or executions mask the irrationality, but barely.      

Discovering You Will Die reminded me of discovering The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts, first published in 1966. That was a much more liberal time for groundbreaking works, as book publishing then was mostly a mom and pop operation, with today's media cartel but a dream in the hearts of ambitious marketers of money and merchandise. I clearly remember that back in the early sixties, Ballantine Books was Ian Ballantine, his wife Betty and an editor named Bernard Shirr-Cliff, working out of a small office at an unfashionable Manhattan address.  Alan Watts' book was issued into that very different publishing environment. 

The main difference between the approaches of Watts and Arthur is that Watts aims at self-enlightenment while Arthur aims at societal enlightenment. This difference reflects the different tempers of these different times, the 1960s and the first decade of the 21st Century.    

Said Watts: "Sex is no longer a serious taboo. Teenagers sometimes know more about it than adults. But if sex is no longer the big taboo, what is? For there is always something taboo, something repressed, unadmitted, or just glimpsed quickly out of the corner of one's eye because a direct look is too unsettling. Taboos lie within taboos like the skins of an onion ... The book I am thinking about would not be religious in the usual sense, but it would have to discuss many things with which religions have been concerned—the universe and man's place in it, the mysterious center of experience which we call 'I myself,' the problems of life and love, pain and death, and the whole question of whether existence has meaning in any sense of the word." 

Arthur continues: "The intent of this book is not to advocate all tabooed activities and beliefs, but to present them truthfully so that its readers can make their own well-informed decisions.  A value judgment that this book does make is that it is wrong to persecute people who come to different conclusions. To criminalize acts that do not harm others is to deny them the pursuit of happiness that inspired the American Revolution." 

There are those who believe human nature is immutable and therefore it's futile for "do-gooders" to even try to raise our awareness or improve society. Yet modern quantum physics has spiraled us to a new awareness of the principles of ancient witchcraft and/or psychic phenomenon by demonstrating that our mental intentions do indeed, with seeming magic, move the material world, if only on a subatomic level. Robert Arthur spirals us to a raised awareness of our human hypocrisy.

Although there is scant chance a major American publisher will take on Arthur's You Will Die, I fervently hope he persists and produces Book 2, even if this means he must paste copies together at his kitchen table, as he appears to have done to deliver Book 1. As the temper of this time changes and our present taboos are transformed, this book may find its place among valued literary survivors. In the meantime, it is amusing—sometimes hilarious—to learn about past taboos, and instructive, for we know that tomorrow many of the values we consider "acceptable" today will tomorrow become as obnoxious as the medieval habit of blowing mucus out of noses onto shirttails.