Behind the facade of certainty begins the real questioning. In his philosophical column UMBRAL, Colombian philosopher Bruno Maduro takes us to the limits of our knowledge. He analyzes the blind faith in scientific dogmas, questions the construction of our history and sheds light on the unsolved enigma of the human condition. A space for thought beyond illusions, where truth often only glimmers in error and in the intermediate realm of intuition.

An external prohibition, in itself, is harmless. It requires internal constraints within the individual. An external prohibition is usually a law within society or a regulation issued by the state, guaranteeing that transgressions will be subject to punishment. For the subject under its authority, this amounts to something unpleasant or unjust, even if it is neither undignified nor improper. But, dura lex, sed lex (the law is harsh, but it is the law): however much they hurt, rules are necessary for civilisation, for the individual’s existence, for the maintenance of the family. Social rules create boundaries and order so that others, and you yourself, may follow the life's path unhindered.

But what constitutes a rule? One could initially say that a rule of human coexistence is the equivalent of a logical system within a society, which can be defined as that mental representation of a specific event of social organisation, one that governs behaviour, so that human actions may be carried out in the light of a prohibition or a permission. Within this logical-social order, there are two types of rules: implicit and explicit. I shall elaborate later on the implicit and explicit aspects of human regulation. What is surprising about this regulatory logic that makes a rule possible is that most of the prohibitions or permissions underpinning our civilisation have not been woven by rationality or voluntary human deliberation. How so? The true rules of coexistence, existing since the beginning of civilisation, have not depended on major debates or collective discussions, nor on great legislators. The true rules of social coexistence, in their structure, have been woven by the use or disuse of guidelines and prohibitions; in fact, they do not arise from, nor are they situated within, collective or ethnic volition. They stem from the simple fact that human activity requires regulation .

This means that the construction of social rules, whether implicit or explicit, and their respective observance or violation, do not belong to the conscious individual act of the person subject to the rule, nor to that of their collective. But does such a view turn us against the rationalism of contract theories or the debate on current legal norms produced by legislative bodies? The answer is yes. The prototypical structure of prohibition, which is the core of a rule—what I have termed in my book *Authority and Justice* as a prohibitive act (2025)—belongs neither to the realm of pure reason nor to practical reason; the motive and cause that generates every social rule is anchored in that underground realm steeped in darkness, that dark side which inexplicably governs the human condition, and which, after surreptitiously lodging its presence into communal practice, becomes custom or tradition. True regulation originates from within, and takes root in the social sphere without our realising it. This means that the bonds that unite and/or divide us, as patterns of civilisation, as social rules, are situated in a deep recess of the socialised individual's mind, from which, without realising the intervening regulatory acts, they spring forth and become intuitive norms. This position implies that a rule of coexistence depends to a large extent on the subconscious mental act of the socialised subject.

This is not easy to decipher. Social scientists have devoted many sleepless nights to this issue of fundamental human regulation. In the search for an explanation of the norm, the humanities converge. A historian, an ethnographer, a sociologist or a psychoanalyst are similar in that they attempt to decipher the patterns or norms that govern us within a social conglomerate. But they do so without giving due consideration to their cause, motive or nature. There are countless such narratives that describe parts of these rules of order, but how were those rules designed? Or how did they come to be as they are? For them, this remains a mystery to be solved.

I opened this debate on the nature of the rule in my book Authority and Justice (2025), and I did so to redefine or reinvigorate the discussion on the nature of rules, and, regarding these major contemporary discourses—those that are already almost accepted as universal truths—to see whether there is validity amongst them, or whether they possess the force of current truth. My conclusions were sobering: many of these sociological, anthropological or political-legal discourses are collective and academic fictions. They do not resolve the issue. They cannot bear the weight of the scrutiny imposed by reality.

My first target in launching this critique was the political theory and normative framework of contemporary liberals; classical authors of political theory, such as John Rawls and others, were called upon for this attack, placed in the dock: I attacked, in Rawls (1971), the idea and fiction of his ‘original position’, as it is a major influence on the formation of contemporary political constitutions and on the major legal and political frameworks of today. I concluded that Rawls’s weakness, in his original and political position, is extreme when he is questioned about the nature of a regulatory norm or a social rule, fundamental to ordering the humanity of a nation. This is where my disagreement with him arises.

Secondly, I also questioned the anthropological approach of the classical Marxists, that Marxian ethnology derived from its own founders: Marx and Engels, (Marx, K. 1988). In contrast to the latter, I have proposed, in my ethnological research, that Marxist theory is highly risky, particularly when it attempts to address the issue of the composition of rules and prohibitive structures in communities mislabelled by them as ‘primitive’. Marx and Engels’ idea of a primitive or savage society, one that must be overcome, is catastrophic.

At the outset of this inquiry, it is merely two opposing approaches—in political science and empirical anthropology—that are initially targeted. But there are others as well.

Regarding the liberals, this debate begins as follows: my opposition to Rawls’s fiction of the veils of ignorance is forceful and definitive; his theory contradicts current ethnographic work and findings. A theory that destroys the multicultural human being is not credible. And it is this cultural destruction that this type of liberal contractualism brings about. Rawls reduces the human being to a universal, unipolar entity. But Rawls’s free and equal human beings, without reference to any form of power over them, are a fallacy. The Rawlsian veil of ignorance fails to recognise that ‘man’ is an adjective that transforms empirically across the different regions of the globe, through languages and cultures. Against this real plurality of humanity, by attempting to impose a dry and unvarnished contractualism, Rawls himself redirects his discourse towards an immediate means of implementing new, exclusionary technologies of domination.

Liberals are not the only ones drawn into the debate. This critical force is directed with equal intensity against Marxist anthropology—an anthropology which, from its very inception, viewed indigenous peoples as primitive and savage beings. But to distance oneself from both positions is not ideological; it is scientific. My interest is no less significant; I have sought to uncover the nature of the human rule in acts of social coexistence, and in that quest, I have encountered other schools of thought, which I have also subjected to harsh criticism. I have reviewed and addressed, in this order, the notion of the rule in Durkheim’s sociology, in an attempt to determine whether there is current validity in his sociological discourse that addresses this issue of the nature of a human rule; or to identify points of reference within a contemporary discussion of this problem. His discursive weakness in this area is evident. (Durkheim, 2025). Or, furthermore, I have brought into this sound inquiry the functionalist positions of B. Malinowski, particularly in his Theory of Culture (Firth, 1974)

What is the issue? I begin with this question: What is this thing we call a human rule? I have taken issue with J. Rawls’s argumentative framework, enquiring whether, on this subject—the nature of the rule—there is any quantified validity in the hypothesis he describes as the original position. But viewed from a political and legal perspective, the reality is this: J. Rawls’s idea of the original position subjects us to contemporary myths, not to solutions regarding what a rule is or its purpose. I do not believe that his original position becomes the preamble to a modern Theory of Justice or serves as the narrative foundation for individual, collective or constitutional rights. Why? Because Rawls disregards the nature of the human rule that arises from the very empirical coexistence of our communities, just as they are and behave. Contrary to that reality, he wishes to bestow upon us a veil of ignorance that conceals the certainty of who we are. I view Rawls’s argument thus: the nature of his political discourse becomes weak and fragile when subjected to empirical social reality, particularly when contrasted with the norms of those ethnic communities studied by contemporary empirical anthropology. The original position and the veil of ignorance in Rawls are as fictitious in their content as the positions described by the myths narrated in the anthropological and theoretical canons of Frazer. (Frazer, 2025). Rawls’s theory, I argue, leaves out the nature of the implicit or explicit rules—those that govern us as men and women. That is its first rational flaw. In short, we seek to delve into the nature of the rule without the ideological prejudices that are currently promoted in academia. Hence my choice to go straight into the field.

Let us consider a first case of empirical evidence in anthropology, one that supports my hypothesis – although there are many such cases. I put the following forward for consideration: there is a basic rule that orders and regulates human society, the nature of which is still being debated today: I am referring to that pattern of social prohibition that stems from endogamous regulation: the prohibition of incest.

We have addressed this problem, the incest taboo, in my book Authority and Justice, as a key feature of implicit human rules, because unlike the approach taken by the classics of kinship anthropology, we believe that this original incest taboo is not a simple social rule. Rather, this rule is a primary act of the social: it is what the Greeks called a περὶ ὧν τὸ τί ἐστι τῆς (Aristotle in 1003b35), that is, an indefinable. Or as psychoanalysts would put it: a mental archetype.

The nature of incest, as an archetype of prohibition and rule in humanity, takes us by surprise, especially when we try to define its character. Yet despite not being a fully defined entity, there is something irrefutable about the original prohibition against incest: its capacity to regulate the social. In this sense, we can affirm that its effectiveness is such that, although its source stems from the irrational rather than from consensus within communities, its reality—its validity—is immense and unquestionable. We might venture to say that the prohibition of incest is the quintessential non-rational, non-contractual human rule. And as a core implicit rule, as it takes shape and generates its norms, it compels us, without any rational discussion of it, or any hint of a contract, or the nature of its consideration being called into question by society. For this reason, a regulatory prohibition, such as that against incestuous endogamy, we maintain, has taken no account of rational deliberations or liberal regulators, nor veils of ignorance, nor the exploited nor the exploiters. That prohibition has derived from psychological weapons and regulatory guidelines and norms that generate a strict and severe social order, such that its surreptitious legislative force is so powerful that it can be asserted that it is the direct heir to that very same regulatory power which has sustained our entire civilisation throughout its existence.

The fact is that, in the construction of implicit human rules, as in the case of the prohibition of incest, when such a norm establishes a ban, it does so from within the human being; it does so from the very depths of the individual mind’s subconscious. From the subconscious, not the unconscious. What this means is that the regulatory norms against incest do not belong to the rational structure nor to the collective consensus. They are prohibitions, full stop. There is no room for any argument that might challenge them. This is a rule of profound order, such that it is itself exempt from any legislative debate. Here we see what I have termed in my book Authority and Justice as the deep prohibitive structure: a place within the human mind where that subconscious, human, socialised pattern resides, which seeks to make the individual viable as a social being, and which outright protects the plurality and rich tapestry of cultural identities still present on this planet. To see the utility of implicit subconscious norms, we have concluded that cultural norms—those we study in empirical anthropology—form the basis upon which the entire social structure of nations rests, and these are not regulated by our state law. These implicit rules operate as follows: human rules are prohibitive because they are effective from the depths of the mind. Because of this, they are automatic and subconscious.

These kinds of implicit rules can be considered the true, fundamental rules of our civilisation, as they are normative guidelines that cannot be rationalised, which prohibit without the mediation of the rational or the contractual.

Our work in empirical ethnological hermeneutics seeks to detail the practical application of the prohibitive norm, something that has not yet been done. We must begin this work. This is essentially what I have sought to initiate since my book *Authority and Justice*, published only in my country, Colombia. If we wish to have another five thousand years of diverse and distinct peoples, just as the ethnological researcher found them, then this approach is urgent.

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Bibliography

Durkheim, É. (2025)
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Marx, K. (1988). 
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Rawls. J. (1971)
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Firth, R. W. (1974)
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Frazer, s. J. G. (2025) 
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