How Political Taboos Subvert Conflict Resolution and Produce Radical Polarization

EDITORIAL, 27 Oct 2025

#922 | Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service

A fundamental principle of conflict resolution is “Multiply the options for agreement.”   To maximize the chances of achieving sustainable peace, the parties to serious social conflicts need to consider the widest possible range of choices for resolving them.  In practice, however, the options for resolution are often restricted to actions deemed acceptable by powerful figures with interests in preserving some systemic status quo.  Options that propose to transform existing socioeconomic, political, or cultural structures are considered taboo and are taken off the table.  As a result, opportunities to resolve conflicts sustainably are lost.  Struggles that could be effectively resolved or mitigated become seemingly intractable and civil violence seems increasingly likely.

This underlying dynamic is currently intensifying political polarization in the United States and many other nations.  People feel aggrieved because of unsolved problems ranging from stagnant wages and job insecurity to environmental degradation, poor public services, dysfunctional families, rampant substance abuse, violent crime, and feelings of loneliness and despair.  As Johan Galtung pointed out repeatedly in his studies of “structural violence,” such problems are generated in large part by failing systems of power and prestige rather than by errors of political leadership or faults of personal character.  Yet people around the world are taught to blame endemic ills on bad leaders or personality defects rather than “sacred” systems such as the capitalist market and the ethno-political or imperial nation.

The Capitalist Market Taboo

Among the most powerful constraints limiting the imaginations of conflicting parties and would-be conflict resolvers are those that prescribe considering substantial changes to the existing structures of modern oligopoly (“late”) capitalism.  The for-profit system is considered sacred.  In the United States, proposals to redistribute wealth or income, to give workers a more decisive role in production, or to increase government power over corporations and capitalist markets are labeled “socialist,” and socialism is equated with totalitarian communism.  In Europe and elsewhere, reforms advocated by moderate social-democrats are not necessarily tabooed, but more radical suggestions (e.g., that public institutions take control of industrial sectors or prioritize collective rights) tend to be dismissed out of hand as “communist.”  As a result, proposals to solve problems such as climate change, mass migration, and endemic poverty by subordinating the interests of great capital to those of worker- or community-controlled institutions are considered utopian and are seldom thought about seriously, much less discussed.

The Ethno-Political and Imperial Nation Taboos

Once, to be politically “progressive” meant to imagine and advocate the development of international entities, political, economic, and cultural, that would transcend the nation-state and move in the direction of a universal human community.  As Karl Marx (among many others) put it, our collective destiny as human beings was to resolve resolvable social conflicts by developing a “species consciousness” that would relativize (not necessarily eliminate) more limited forms of group consciousness, including nationalism, and put an end to interstate warfare.  Instead of a globalized consciousness, however, we have witnessed the globalization of capital, the rise of imperialist super-states, and a worldwide surge of ethno-nationalism.  Challenging the political and moral primacy of the nation is now taboo; not even the political parties described as “far Left” are willing to run the risk of being called traitors to the national tribe.  As a result, solutions to the problems that, unsolved, generate terrorism and war are considered unthinkable if they challenge national sovereignty or subordinate the alleged “national interest” to some broader interest based on social class or human rights.

All this raises the inevitable question: cui bono?  Who gains from maintaining these taboos?  Clearly, their chief beneficiaries are the elites who dominate both the late capitalist and ethno-political systems – in the case of imperialist states or associations, an interlocking elite of oligarchs, top politicians, and military leaders.  Nevertheless, since taboos do not resolve problem-driven conflicts, something like a law of diminishing returns undermines even elite authority.   As systems continue to fail and social problems worsen, aggrieved members of the community desperately seek targets for their increasing anger and frustration, and demagogic leaders are happy to offer them “acceptable” (non-tabooed) scapegoats.

Some Examples:

When wages continue to stagnate or fall, if the source of problem is not the late capitalist market system, the villain must be an influx of immigrants or some other “enemy within.”  When oligarchs become multi-billionaires by investing in military-industrial companies while civilian public services deteriorate, if the source of the problem is not the imperialist ethno-state, the villain must be an aggressive foreign power or some other “enemy without.”  And if de-industrialized communities are stricken by broken families, personal violence, and drug addiction, if the sources of violence are not systemic, the villain must be some combination of enemy within (anti-Christians, say, or “antifa” activists) and enemy without (foreign drug cartels).

The taboos thus produce scapegoats – but scapegoating vulnerable populations is no more effective than taboos are in resolving the systemic problems that generate conflict.  The inevitable outcomes, if nothing else changes, are further radicalization of aggrieved groups, more intense polarization of conflicting parties, governments that appear both authoritarian and ineffective, and an increased likelihood of civil and interstate violence.  To arrest this downward spiral requires challenging the taboos that currently prohibit us from thinking about proposed changes in existing systems of power and value.  It is vital to understand that overcoming these taboos does not mean adopting specific system-altering changes.  It does mean that ordinary people, as opposed to elites, get to decide what changes, if any, make sense to them, and to make decisions based on that understanding.

We know that economic, political, and cultural institutions are changing constantly.  Transformation has become the norm.  But “democracy” is defined so restrictively that, even in societies that consider themselves democratic, decisions about system transformation are reserved to those Johan Galtung referred to as the “top dogs”: the masters of the major systems.  Sustainable peace and long-term conflict resolution depend upon the rest of us asserting our right to participate decisively in determining how the systems that now generate want, violence, and despair can become generators of prosperity, peace, and joy.   Moving democracy to the system level could be the next step in our social and political evolution.

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Richard E. Rubenstein is a member of the TRANSCEND Media Service Editorial Committee, of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, and a professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School, Rubenstein is the author of nine books on analyzing and resolving violent social conflicts. His most recent book is Resolving Structural Conflicts: How Violent Systems Can Be Transformed (Routledge, 2017).

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 27 Oct 2025.

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