Moral corsets

The phrase ‘moral corset’ appeared during conversation this weekend and begs to be played with.

Moral corsets are socio-cultural creations which keep good stuff from leaking out and bad stuff from leaking in. Variations can be worn by individuals, families, communities and by a wide range of subcultural groups. Their main function is to support the process of enculturation which on the positive side involves education and training and, on the negative side, involves brainwashing and indoctrination.

All socio-cultural entities have a beginning, a middle and an end and change their moral corsets as they move from womb to tomb and find that norms crack and paradigms shift. (“The only constant thing is change.”)

A moral corset is a cognitive and emotive exoskeleton which has to be shed and replaced at the various development stages. (‘When I became a man I put away childish things.’) Culture is a corset factory which produces goods of varying quality and cost which are therefore status symbols. There is a standard set of moral corsets for ordinary folk and a transcendental set for radicals.

Special moral corsets are worn by soldiers and by those who support the war effort at home. They are quickly put in place by mainstream propaganda so as to demonise the enemy and make mass murder acceptable.

Moral corsets are stuffed with ethical considerations – eg good v bad, right v wrong - and with rules regulations, laws, customs, and habits.

Man is a social animal that is hard wired for foraging in small groups in the African savanna but now lives by shopping as individuals in supermarkets. To overcome the inconsistencies, we are now obliged to wear officially sanctioned moral corsets.

There are basically two sets of mainstream, moral corsets – conservative/republican and socialist/liberal; and there is a third, smaller group of anarchist/libertarian. (“You are either for us or against us.”)