Nerd Analysis: The Psychology of Taboo

Check out these thoughts by Steven Pinker, psychologist and linguist at Harvard (from a recent speech of his).  Here is a bit of Pinker:

It brings up a phenomenon called the Psychology of Taboo, the sensation that certain ideas are evil to think. Quite apart from the fact, of course, that certain actions are evil to commit, but can it be sinful even to think a thought? 

OK, theology aside (where, say, lust is arguably a sin of the mind as much as the flesh), the real point for me is the intersection between this idea and the institutional policing force of campuses (hello, recall the First Amendment poison that is otherwise known as "campus speech codes"?).  Note too how the taboo mentality is deeply inimical to actual academic freedom (not the faux variety trumpeted by lockstepping campus leftists).