One of the conclusions of the #EpsteinFiles are that a significant portion of American oligarchs are irredeemable monsters who rape children. And certainly, this is true.

However, beyond that we should also remember that transgressing against morals also had a "social bonding" purpose for the members of the Epstein Class. Most people who were willing participants in Epstein's parties almost certainly did all sorts of other illegal and immoral things. But by raping children together, they built trust with each other since they knew secrets about each other that could potentially ruin them. They would thus have the strongest possible incentives to not spill each others' secrets, which in turn would facilitate business between them.

And this kind of social bonding over shared immorality was hardly exclusive to the Epstein class. Consider all the child abuse scandals in the highest echelons of the Catholic church. Or how David Cameron was rumored to have indecently touched a dead pig as part of his fraternity initiation. Or how many crooked business deals involve joint brothel meetings (there have been a few notorious cases in Germany as well).

That many powerful people who indulge in immorality in private preach against it in public is no contradiction (see Trump going on about the "Epstein Files" during his campaigns). After all, the "bonding over immoral acts" works best if the penalty for revealing is harshest, since that increases the motivation to keep quiet.