Maybe "neocortical virginity" is no joke

File this under "Let's identify the problem."

I have a phone friend whom I've never met in person. She and I are both AS(pergers). We have each struggled to connect with others throughout our lives. She and I have each been alienated by our respective spiritual communities as they adopted fashionable wokism with disregard to long held principles. "Based" figures such as James Lindsay, Glenn Loury, Teal Swan, Blair White and Candace Owens make sense to each of us. (Not to say that we agree with everything they say.)

I have shared before that I have often had the sense of being pranked, a la The Truman Show, in my fruitless attempts to talk honestly with people about the actuality of events and trends in the cultural environment. Similarly, my friend tells me that she learned to feel anxious about being rejected or disregarded by others, and to opt for reticence.

I shared some of the recent content posted on this forum - such as the adult mother who imagined that injected hormones magically cause missing genitalia to grow - or - the pretense that a violent male criminal may actually be a woman ... because he said so.

Through our conversations, we have both come around to the realization that many people around us appear to be afraid to think for themselves - to the point of auto gas lighting themselves - likely for fear of social ostracism. Assuming this is so, then it is easier to take pity on them, instead of taking personal offense when our perspectives are not received well.

It seems that my expression "neo cortical virgin" - which I had invented in tongue-in-cheek jest - may in fact be an accurate description of the condition of many individuals we come across and with whom we struggle to engage in any meaningful way.

PS: This could also explain why Peter Boghossian can never get one of these ideologues on to debate. Maybe they don't want to sully the purity of their neo cortices.