Why Does Excess Grow as Prohibition Increases?
As a psychologist, I can state this clearly: Morality is not the product of oppression. Oppression does not produce morality; it produces fear. And fear does not give rise to virtue — it gives rise to compliance.
When societies force behavior into alignment, they do not cultivate conscience; they merely create the appearance of order under surveillance. Just as every suppressed impulse returns in pathological forms within the individual, suppressed reality re-emerges within society in distorted, excessive, and uncontrolled ways.
What we are witnessing today is not merely moral decay. It is the delayed outcome of long-accumulated repression. In no society ruled by excessive prohibition does virtue increase. On the contrary, every suppressed impulse returns in a distorted form.
"At the societal level, repressed reality turns into scandal."
Repression Produces Pathology
What Freud described as “the return of the repressed” tells us one thing clearly: What is repressed does not disappear. It merely changes its form.
- When sexuality cannot be spoken of in society; abuse increases.
- When morality is imposed only through slogans; hypocrisy spreads.
- When criticism is forbidden; decay accelerates.
Because morality is only possible through choice. Nothing imposed by force can be called moral.
Excessive Control Produces Excessive Collapse
In sociology, this is known as reactive extremism: The more tightly a system suppresses something, the more violently it erupts beyond control.
What we see on screens today reflects this dynamic precisely: On one side, constant rhetoric about “values.” On the other, excess, exhibitionism, and sensationalism. This is not a coincidence. It is the inevitable consequence of authoritarian systems. When morality is endlessly invoked while its foundations — education, justice, transparency, accountability — are dismantled, what remains is nothing but noise.
Labeling Does Not Conceal Reality
In the face of every scandal, there is a rush to assign a label: Blaming an ideology, a group, an identity. This reflex does not explain reality. It attempts to obscure it. Because the issue is not ideology; the issue is power, ownership, lack of oversight, and spaces without accountability.
Psychology Is Very Clear
Morality is not built through fear, prohibition, or repression — ever. It emerges from a balance between freedom and responsibility. When this balance collapses, what appears is not a moral society, but uncontrolled decay. The scandals we see today are not exceptions; they are the natural outcome of long-standing repression.
As a Psychologist — and as a Mother
Beyond being a psychologist, I also speak as a mother of four. I know from lived experience that children raised through pressure do not become moral — they become obedient. And obedience does not produce conscience.
For this reason, I chose to raise my children not through prohibitions, but through responsibility. I encouraged them to listen not to what society dictates, but to their own conscience — to choose what is right even in the absence of external control. Psychology tells us this clearly: Morality functions only when it is internalized.
Final Word
The louder a society speaks about morality, the more silently morality disappears within it. And the more prohibitions there are, the more excess follows. This is not a claim. It is the painful but unchanging truth of human psychology and social systems.