The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

Book Overview

New York Times Bestseller - Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction - A New York Times Notable Book - Bloomberg Best Book of 2018 - One of Bill Gates's Top Five Books of All Time

"Their distinctive contribution to the higher-education debate is to meet safetyism on its own, psychological turf . . . Lukianoff and Haidt tell us that safetyism undermines the freedom of inquiry and speech that are indispensable to universities." --Jonathan Marks, Commentary

"The remedies the book outlines should be considered on college campuses, among parents of current and future students, and by anyone longing for a more sane society." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising--on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen?

First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn't kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths--and the resulting culture of safetyism--interferes with young people's social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life.

Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to promote the spread of these untruths. They explore changes in childhood such as the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised, child-directed play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. They examine changes on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the emergence of new ideas about identity and justice. They situate the conflicts on campus within the context of America's rapidly rising political polarization and dysfunction.

This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735224919
• ISBN13: 9780735224919
• Release Date: August 2019
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Almost every page is worth the price of the book, but...

This book is well organized, beautifully written, fun, and easy to read. Almost every page is packed with insight from research and the authors' own experience. I urge everyone to read this book, especially anyone involved with education in any way. Having said that, chapter 11 about social justice is perplexing. Throughout the book, the authors discuss the role that students, parents, and school faculty and administration play in the theme of the book, coddling the minds of young people. This chapter hardly addresses the role of schools, particularly faculty and administration, in social justice on campuses. Specifically, I expected that it would cover the role of Critical Theories. It's not as if the authors are unaware, as they have a section earlier in the book named "Modern Marcuseanism" in which they briefly discuss Crenshaw and intersectionality, but they completely neglect all the other influential thinkers that followed in the Marcusean school, like Derrick Bell, Angela Davis, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paulo Freire, Richard Delgado, or even Ibram Kendi, all of which are highly relevant to the modern social justice movement. Indeed, in chapter 11 it's as if the authors are afraid to discuss relevant topics like DEI -- the chapter begins with five pages of discussion that is not on topic, before the authors seem to feel compelled to tell the readers that they are not Republicans, in a paragraph that, between the lines, reveals that they are well aware of the influence of illiberal beliefs in social justice. Although the chapter has some good discussion, the authors unfortunately deprived the readers of some relevant insights that they must have with respect to Critical Theories including its derivative movement, DEI, and its effect on social justice attitudes on campuses today. It is quite shocking and disappointing.

Very eye-opening and thought-provoking

I do love this book’s apolitical approach to dissecting how the American political climate has become so tense and polarized. I would recommend this to everyone who is baffled by the current political climate and wants to learn how they can help.