Cognitive Castration
- A maimed and miserable condition of mind, in which the subject cannot be persuaded by any argument, however cogent.
- The process, widely practiced in school, by which individuals' minds are maimed in this way.
The Process: The traditional school setting, a classroom with a group of students and a teacher, might as well have been invented for the purpose of cognitively castrating the students.
The subject is invited to offer personal opinions in a free intellectual environment. Those opinions which do not meet with rapidly-evolving standards in what it is considered decent to think or believe, are punished with the emotion of shame, usually inflicted by an authority figure with at least tacit approval of all the subject's peers on the scene.
The Effect: A person who reacts to the inevitable cognitive dissonance with displays of emotion (to avoid being shamed again, castrati will compete in terms of shrillness, volume, and extremism), not with introspection and reason.
It is generally not possible to reason a person out of cognitive castration. They were never reasoned into it in the first place.
It may be possible to shame them out of it.
