The crux of the repressive spirit in many societies (moralist and police-like), which is intrinsic to all patriarchal civilizations, is a mechanism that psychoanalysts have called "reaction formation". This describes a "flip" to someone individually or collectively who does not want to recognize his own experience and hides its expression through opposite. For example, a person can mask his own aggression through justifying the behavior as having "best intentions" or sexual interest can also be hid through Puritanism or ones selfishness through an allegedly disinterested attitude. Human organizations or cultures can also hide and mask greed through an ethical concern that is displayed as proof of charity or Christian love.
It is this limitation of a healthy self awareness that allows many to feel "right" or even immaculate despite being involved in the operation of voracious and destructive behaviors while maintaining the single focus of a false self gain. This deception regarding reputation constitutes one of the main barriers to a change of consciousness within large companies and financial institutions. But the most remarkable issue concerning the repressive spirit through history has been its function to silence the majority exploited in the name of law, virtue, religion, or patriotism and other ideals to which it should be in obedience. And the same barbaric civilization, in its ruthless spirit of conquest has been effectively concealed by this idealization that almost magically transforms politicians and like exploiters to those who act only for our sake and want to educate.
And although it is true that in the course of recent years many have felt empowered to no longer need justification from the semblance of charity, the patriarchal mind of the majority is so moralistic and repressive that it even perpetuates the suppression of the creative spontaneity of children. It confuses moralism with what the ancients called virtue as when people try be good because they have been domesticated through rewards and punishments.
I think the wisdom expressed by the myth of the tree of forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate contains a great truth, namely that in their desire to become like gods they lost their innocence to not be able to judge what is good and evil. To this day as humans we still judge and arrogantly condemn our neighbors as if we were owners of knowledge of good and evil-that is, as if we alone can discriminate between good and bad. We have become more and more adversarial and criminalizing, to the point the prisons we built already lack space in them. There is also no telling what burden we created to feed their populations, or families we destroyed or the general destination of prisoners we thwarted. But beyond the social harm associated with the breakdown of many families and the abandonment of children and the impact of prisons on the moral development of prisoners themselves it is necessary to understand how dysfunctional is our passion to judge and condemn our neighbors. How deceptive was the "forbidden fruit" of the "knowledge of good and evil"! Perhaps prisons are not intended to only imprison those who refuse to comply with the law, but for the stability of "law and order"which shape a type of society in which the powerful dedicated to dispossess the poor can increase their might.
Unjust legal order of the so-called democracies are becoming less equal "under the law" (similar to the English settlers who appropriated indigenous lands without breaking any of the native's constitution) and not only serve the interests of the powerful and wealthy but also a real punishing passion as part of the police mind that we have internalized from the experience of this repressive authority of society. I find interesting the US researcher Lakoff\s quote, who is particularly interested in the study of politics, and described this as the "strict father model".
The concept refers to the fact that for many the best solution to the problem is the threat of punishment-whether a child that wants chocolates is refused, whether a student who does not achieve satisfactory grades be detained, whether one in possession of marijuana or violent crime, the death penalty proposed.
It seems quite normal that the severity is applied in family life as a penal code, although psychology has made clear for some time that the alleged good behavior motivated by rewards and punishments induces no real changes in understanding. Why not then dominate the world threatened by the lack of moral ethics and virtue with people who have overcome their problems through good fortune of a caring and affectionate treatment? Obviously because society dominates the will of the man over the feelings of the women-and particularly the severity of the alleged paternal order.
The repressive and authoritarian societal moral police then, should evolve towards healthier conditions of virtue and ethics. These are built on the fact that when people are helped to change to feel satisfied with life, they will emerge with natural goodness. This is similar to that described by Lao-Tzu in his famous book of Tao and virtue, which argues that this described here naturally flows under the Tao teaching which is said to describe our own true nature.