Sunday Food For Thought

Children who become too aware of things are punished for it and internalize the coercion to such an extent that as adults they give up the search for awareness, But, because some people cannot renounce this search in spite of coercion, there is justifiable hope that regardless of the ever-increasing application of technology to the field of psychological knowledge, Kafka's vision of the penal colony with its efficient, scientifically minded persecutors and their passive victims is valid only for certain areas of our life and perhaps not forever. For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body drives breath.

- Alice Miller, excerpt from the afterword of 'For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence'