Taboos: what’s the point?

At 18:00 CET on the 21st June 2016, Fritt Ord, Free Word and Index on Censorship held a debate on the role of taboos in society.

The debate took place in English at Fritt Ord‘s Norwegian headquarters and this page contains a recording of the debate, information about the speakers, the theme and the organisations involved.

Theme / Speakers / Recording / Organisations / Related articles

About the debate:

Do taboos play an essential role in culture and society or must we simply get rid of them? On the 21st June, speakers from diverse fields in Russia, Norway and the UK came together to find out.

Pål Johan Karlsen of started the debate by speaking out in defence of the elephant in the room, asking: why are taboos useful and suggesting that we might need them in order to orientate ourselves successfully within our hypersocial and crowded worlds. Referencing research from Sweden, the UK and the US, Pål talked about the factors which create taboos, how we may best challenge them and their perception as natural necessities within the scientific community.

Next up was Index editor Rachael Jolley, who presented a global survey of taboos and their effects on societies and specific demographics within those societies, referencing menstrual taboos in India and abortion taboos in El Salvador as being representative of how taboos can harm societies and may require being broken down. In her talk, Rachael also looked at the history of taboos in certain countries and explored why some taboos lead to censorship.

Who decided these are the rules and how do they change?” she asked. “Sometimes it takes a generational shift such as we’ve seen in Ireland with the vote to change the law on gay marriage“.

There’s a tipping point theory where a body of resistance builds up to such a point that the dam breaks and the public suddenly demands another way is found and an older way is discarded” Jolley added.

The discussion’s third speaker,‘s Maria Stepanova, had a more regionally focused approach, which looked at taboos in Russia, paying special attention to emerging “government-inspired” taboos, which are shaped and encouraged by state outlets.

So, what are taboos, how do they come about and what role do they have to play in our societies? How long do they remain relevant, can taboos originally serve a purpose but become anachronistic as society progresses? And, why do they exist in the first place? Are they a form of behavioural guide intended to protect us from harm and to allow us to learn from other people’s mistakes rather than making them ourselves? Or, are they all too often implemented from above, allowing one societal group to censor and restrict others in order to consolidate its own position and beliefs?

To find out more, watch the debate yourself via the video above and/or peruse the related articles down below.


Pål Johan Karlsen is an author and an editor of

Rachael Jolley is the editor of the Index on Censorship magazine.

Maria Stepanova is a Russian poet, essayist, editor/journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of


This debate was organised by:

50hochFreeWord      50hochFrittOrd      50hochIndex

All three organisations campaign for freedom of expression, highlighting spoken and written work and constantly challenging infringements to free expression and censorship issues in Norway, the UK and much further afield.

At the beginning of the year, Index published an edition of its magazine which focused on taboos, which you can find out more about here, and carried out a debate looking at what is still classified as being taboo, which you can find more information on here.

And, in March 2016 as part of their Unravelling Europe project, Free Word looked at some taboos of its own with Harry Seymour’s Love in bloom essay, which you can find here and which investigates the history of homosexual relationships in Islam. 

To find out more about each institution and their debates which have previously featured on Time to Talk, click on the corresponding links below:

Visit Free Word’s own website / find out more about previous Free Word debates on Time to Talk

Visit Index’s own website / find our more about previous Index on Censorship debates on Time to Talk

Visit Fritt Ord’s own website

Related articles:

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Carol’ review: breaking a taboo by Joe Morgenstern 

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Egypt’s women: covered-up or locked-up by Michael Armanious 

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