227. Cognitive Warfare, Moral Inversion, and the War on Children with Simon Esler

227. Cognitive Warfare, Moral Inversion, and the War on Children with Simon Esler

From You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist by Stephanie Winn

August 17, 2026 · 1h 13m

About this episode

Stephanie Winn interviews filmmaker Simon Esler about cognitive warfare and its implications on society, particularly regarding gender identity and children's rights.

I'm welcoming back filmmaker Simon Esler, who first appeared on this podcast back on episode 54 to discuss his documentary Cut: Daughters of the West . This time, we're diving into his new docuseries You Are Here , which explores the landscape of cognitive warfare—the idea that human cognition itself has become the most contested territory in modern conflict. We start with the chilling case of Barry Neufeld, a Canadian school board trustee who was fined $750,000 for refusing to believe that children can be born trapped in the wrong body—what the judge's ruling called "existential denialism." From there, we explore how Canada's human rights laws and conversion therapy legislation have embedded gender identity ideology into the legal framework, silencing detransitioners and punishing dissenters. Simon and I discuss how our minds are conditioned by narratives we've never examined, how meta-perceptions warp our view of political opponents, and what Iain McGilchrist's work on brain hemispheres reveals about Western cognitive vulnerability. We also get into the concept of cognitive entrenchment, moral inversion, and the historical parallels between modern ideological capture and…

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