People give the acceptable reason outward; that story is a deniability hood: a clean cover that keeps the public account clean. The real reason can sit in the dark, sometimes outside the person’s own awareness, sometimes as a way to avoid their own “self”.

When a group adopts a clean public story (“safety,” “tradition,” “helping people”), that deniability hood lets hidden motives operate under cover. Public ignorance is the shield; the pretext does not need to fool everyone, only to block the chain of shared certainty that would trigger punishment.