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

by Greg Lukianoff (Author), Jonathan Haidt (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 out of 5 stars 9,831 ratings
Something is going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen?
 
First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt 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 are incompatible with basic psychological principles, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. They interfere with healthy development. Anyone who embraces these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—is less likely to become an autonomous adult able to navigate the bumpy road of life.
 
Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to produce these untruths. They situate the conflicts on campus in the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization, including a rise in hate crimes and off-campus provocation. They explore changes in childhood including the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade.
 
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.
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Also read The Anxious Generation

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A disturbing and comprehensive analysis of recent campus trends . . . Lukianoff and Haidt notice something unprecedented and frightening . . . The consequences of a generation unable or disinclined to engage with ideas that make them uncomfortable are dire for society, and open the door—accessible from both the left and the right—to various forms of authoritarianism.” —Thomas Chatterton Williams, The New York Times Book Review (cover review and Editors’ Choice selection)

"So how do you create ‘wiser kids’? Get them off their screens. Argue with them. Get them out of their narrow worlds of family, school and university. Boot them out for a challenging Gap year. It all makes perfect sense . . . the cure seems a glorious revelation." —Philip Delves Broughton, Evening Standard

“The authors, both of whom are liberal academics—almost a tautology on today’s campuses—do a great job of showing how ‘safetyism’ is cramping young minds. Students are treated like candles, which can be extinguished by a puff of wind. The goal of a Socratic education should be to turn them into fires, which thrive on the wind. Instead, they are sheltered from anything that could cause offence . . . Their advice is sound. Their book is excellent. Liberal parents, in particular, should read it.”— Edward Luce, Financial Times
 
“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

“Perhaps the strongest argument in Haidt and Lukianoff’s favour, though, is this: if you see this issue as being about little more than a few sanctimonious teenagers throwing hissy fits on campus then, yes, it is probably receiving too much attention. But if you accept their premise, that it’s really a story about mental wellbeing and emotional fragility, about a generation acting out because it has been set up to fail by bad parenting and poorly designed institutions, then their message is an urgent one. And it is one that resonates well beyond dusty libraries and manicured quadrangles, into all of our lives.” —Josh Glancy, The Sunday Times (UK)

“Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s new book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, persuasively unpacks the causes of the current predicament on campus – which they link to wider parenting, cultural and political trends . . . The Coddling of the American Mind is both an enlightening but disquieting read. We have a lot of challenges in front of us.” —Quillette, Matthew Lesh

"The authors remind us of some of the campus happenings that, since 2015, have afrighted old liberals like me . . . In the end [despite some objections] I agreed with Messrs Lukianoff and Haidt that protecting kids has gone too far, and that some campus behaviour is absurd and worrying." —David Aaronovitch, The Times (UK)

"The speed with which campus life has changed for the worse is one of the most important points made by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in this important if disturbing book." —Niall Ferguson, Sunday Times

“Rising intolerance for opposing viewpoints is a challenge not only on college campuses but also in our national political discourse. The future of our democracy requires us to understand what’s happening and why—so that we can find solutions and take action. Reading The Coddling of the American Mind is a great place to start.” —Michael Bloomberg, Founder of Bloomberg LP & Bloomberg Philanthropies, and 108th Mayor of New York City

“Our behavior in society is not immune to the power of rational scientific analysis. Through that lens, prepare yourself for a candid look at the softening of America, and what we can do about it.” —Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director, Hayden Planetarium, and author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

“Lukianoff and Haidt explain the phenomenon of “helicopter parenting” and its dangers—how overprotection amplifies children’s fears and makes them less likely to become adults who can manage their own lives. Children must be challenged and exposed to stressors—including different perspectives—in order to thrive.” —Susan McDaniel, University of Rochester, former President of the American Psychological Association

“An important examination of dismaying social and cultural trends.” —Kirkus Reviews

"I lament the title of this book, as it may alienate the very people who need to engage with its arguments and obscures its message of inclusion. Equal parts mental health manual, parenting guide, sociological study, and political manifesto, it points to a positive way forward of hope, health, and humanism. I only wish I had read it when I was still a professor and a much younger mother." —Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO, New America, and author of Unfinished Business
 
“A compelling and timely argument against attitudes and practices that, however well-intended, are damaging our universities, harming our children and leaving an entire generation intellectually and emotionally ill-prepared for an ever-more fraught and complex world. A brave and necessary work.” —Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Emeritus Chief Rabbi of UK & Commonwealth; professor, New York University; and author of Not in God’s Name
 
“No one is omniscient or infallible, so a willingness to evaluate new ideas is vital to understanding our world. Yet universities, which ought to be forums for open debate, are developing a reputation for dogmatism and intolerance. Haidt and Lukianoff, distinguished advocates of freedom of expression, offer a deep analysis of what’s going wrong on campus, and how we can hold universities to their highest ideals.” —Steven Pinker, professor, Harvard University, and author of Enlightenment Now
 
“This book synthesizes the teachings of many disciplines to illuminate the causes of major problems besetting college students and campuses, including declines in mental health, academic freedom, and collegiality. More importantly, the authors present evidence-based strategies for overcoming these challenges. An engrossing, thought-provoking, and ultimately inspiring read.” —Nadine Strossen, past President, ACLU, and author of HATE: Why We Should Resist it with Free Speech, Not Censorship
 
“How can we as a nation do a better job of preparing young men and women of all backgrounds to be seekers of truth and sustainers of democracy? In The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt provide a rigorous analysis of this perennial challenge as it presents itself today, and offer thoughtful prescriptions for meeting it. What’s more, the book models the virtues and practical wisdom its authors rightly propose as the keys to progress. Lukianoff and Haidt teach young people—and all of us—by example as well as precept.” —Cornel West, professor, Harvard University, and author of Democracy Matters; and Robert P. George, professor, Princeton University, and author of Conscience and Its Enemies

“Objectionable words and ideas, as defined by self-appointed guardians on university campuses, are often treated like violence from sticks and stones. Many students cringe at robust debate; maintaining their ideas of good and evil requires no less than the silencing of disagreeable speakers. Lukianoff and Haidt brilliantly explain how this drift to fragility occurred, how the distinction between words and actions was lost, and what needs to be done. Critical reading to understand the current campus conflicts.” —Mark Yudof, president emeritus, University of California; and professor emeritus, UC Berkeley School of Law

"This book is a much needed guide for how to thrive in a pluralistic society. Lukianoff and Haidt demonstrate how ancient wisdom and modern psychology can encourage more dialogue across lines of difference, build stronger institutions, and make us happier. They provide an antidote to our seemingly intractable divisions, and not a moment too soon.” —Kirsten Powers, author of The Silencing
 
"We can talk ourselves into believing that some kinds of speech will shatter us, or we can talk ourselves out of that belief. The authors know the science. We are not as fragile as our self-appointed protectors suppose. Read this deeply informed book to become a more resilient soul in a more resilient democracy.” —Philip E. Tetlock, author of Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction 
 
“In this expansion of their 2015 piece for the Atlantic, Lukianoff and Haidt argue that the urge to insulate oneself against offensive ideas has had deleterious consequences, making students less resilient, more prone to undesirable “emotional reasoning,” less capable of engaging critically with others’ viewpoints, and more likely to cultivate an “us-versus-them” mentality . . . the path they advocate—take on challenges, cultivate resilience, and try to reflect rather than responding based solely on initial emotional responses—deserves consideration.” —Publishers Weekly

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

The Untruth of Fragility: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Weaker

When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind,
harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent.

meng tzu (mencius), fourth century BCE

In August 2009, Max Haidt, age three, had his first day of preschool in Charlottesville, Virginia. But before he was allowed to take the first step on his eighteen-year journey to a college degree, his parents, Jon and Jayne, had to attend a mandatory orientation session where the rules and procedures were explained by Max's teacher. The most important rule, judging by the time spent discussing it, was: no nuts. Because of the risk to children with peanut allergies, there was an absolute prohibition on bringing anything containing nuts into the building. Of course, peanuts are legumes, not nuts, but some kids have allergies to tree nuts, too, so along with peanuts and peanut butter, all nuts and nut products were banned. And to be extra safe, the school also banned anything produced in a factory that processes nuts, so many kinds of dried fruits and other snacks were prohibited, too.

As the list of prohibited substances grew, and as the clock ticked on, Jon asked the assembled group of parents what he thought was a helpful question: "Does anyone here have a child with any kind of nut allergy? If we know about the kids' actual allergies, I'm sure we'll all do everything we can to avoid risk. But if there's no kid in the class with such an allergy, then maybe we can lighten up a bit and instead of banning all those things, just ban peanuts?"

The teacher was visibly annoyed by Jon's question, and she moved rapidly to stop any parent from responding. Don't put anyone on the spot, she said. Don't make any parent feel uncomfortable. Regardless of whether anyone in the class is affected, these are the school's rules.

You can't blame the school for being so cautious. Peanut allergies were rare among American children up until the mid-1990s, when one study found that only four out of a thousand children under the age of eight had such an allergy (meaning probably nobody in Max's entire preschool of about one hundred kids). But by 2008, according to the same survey, using the same measures, the rate had more than tripled, to fourteen out of a thousand (meaning probably one or two kids in Max's school). Nobody knew why American children were suddenly becoming more allergic to peanuts, but the logical and compassionate response was obvious: Kids are vulnerable. Protect them from peanuts, peanut products, and anything that has been in contact with nuts of any kind. Why not? What's the harm, other than some inconvenience to parents preparing lunches?

But it turns out that the harm was severe. It was later discovered that peanut allergies were surging precisely because parents and teachers had started protecting children from exposure to peanuts back in the 1990s. In February 2015, an authoritative study was published. The LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) study was based on the hypothesis that "regular eating of peanut-containing products, when started during infancy, will elicit a protective immune response instead of an allergic immune reaction." The researchers recruited the parents of 640 infants (four to eleven months old) who were at high risk of developing a peanut allergy because they had severe eczema or had tested positive for another allergy. The researchers told half the parents to follow the standard advice for high-risk kids, which was to avoid all exposure to peanuts and peanut products. The other half were given a supply of a snack made from peanut butter and puffed corn and were told to give some to their child at least three times a week. The researchers followed all the families carefully, and when the children turned five years old, they were tested for an allergic reaction to peanuts.

The results were stunning. Among the children who had been "protected" from peanuts, 17% had developed a peanut allergy. In the group that had been deliberately exposed to peanut products, only 3% had developed an allergy. As one of the researchers said in an interview, "For decades allergists have been recommending that young infants avoid consuming allergenic foods such as peanut to prevent food allergies. Our findings suggest that this advice was incorrect and may have contributed to the rise in the peanut and other food allergies."

It makes perfect sense. The immune system is a miracle of evolutionary engineering. It can't possibly anticipate all the pathogens and parasites a child will encounter-especially in a mobile and omnivorous species such as ours-so it is "designed" (by natural selection) to learn rapidly from early experience. The immune system is a complex adaptive system, which can be defined as a dynamic system that is able to adapt in and evolve with a changing environment. It requires exposure to a range of foods, bacteria, and even parasitic worms in order to develop its ability to mount an immune response to real threats (such as the bacterium that causes strep throat) while ignoring nonthreats (such as peanut proteins). Vaccination uses the same logic. Childhood vaccines make us healthier not by reducing threats in the world ("Ban germs in schools!") but by exposing children to those threats in small doses, thereby giving children's immune systems the opportunity to learn how to fend off similar threats in the future.

This is the underlying rationale for what is called the hygiene hypothesis, the leading explanation for why allergy rates generally go up as countries get wealthier and cleaner-another example of a problem of progress. Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik explains the hypothesis succinctly and does us the favor of linking it to our mission in this book:

Thanks to hygiene, antibiotics and too little outdoor play, children don't get exposed to microbes as they once did. This may lead them to develop immune systems that overreact to substances that aren't actually threatening-causing allergies. In the same way, by shielding children from every possible risk, we may lead them to react with exaggerated fear to situations that aren't risky at all and isolate them from the adult skills that they will one day have to master [emphasis added].

This brings us to the oracle's first Great Untruth, the Untruth of Fragility: What doesn't kill you makes you weaker. Of course, Nietzsche's original aphorism-"What doesn't kill me makes me stronger"-is not entirely correct if taken literally; some things that don't kill you can still leave you permanently damaged and diminished. But teaching kids that failures, insults, and painful experiences will do lasting damage is harmful in and of itself. Human beings need physical and mental challenges and stressors or we deteriorate. For example, muscles and joints need stressors to develop properly. Too much rest causes muscles to atrophy, joints to lose range of motion, heart and lung function to decline, and blood clots to form. Without the challenges imposed by gravity, astronauts develop muscle weakness and joint degeneration.

Antifragility

No one has done a better job of explaining the harm of avoiding stressors, risks, and small doses of pain than Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Lebanese-born statistician, stock trader, and polymath who is now a professor of risk engineering at New York University. In his 2007 best seller, The Black Swan, Taleb argued that most of us think about risk in the wrong way. In complex systems, it is virtually inevitable that unforeseen problems will arise, yet we persist in trying to calculate risk based on past experiences. Life has a way of creating completely unexpected events-events Taleb likens to the appearance of a black swan when, based on your past experience, you assumed that all swans were white. (Taleb was one of the few who predicted the global financial crisis of 2008, based on the financial system's vulnerability to "black swan" events.)

In his later book Antifragile, Taleb explains how systems and people can survive the inevitable black swans of life and, like the immune system, grow stronger in response. Taleb asks us to distinguish three kinds of things. Some, like china teacups, are fragile: they break easily and cannot heal themselves, so you must handle them gently and keep them away from toddlers. Other things are resilient: they can withstand shocks. Parents usually give their toddlers plastic cups precisely because plastic can survive repeated falls to the floor, although the cups do not benefit from such falls. But Taleb asks us to look beyond the overused word "resilience" and recognize that some things are antifragile. Many of the important systems in our economic and political life are like our immune systems: they require stressors and challenges in order to learn, adapt, and grow. Systems that are antifragile become rigid, weak, and inefficient when nothing challenges them or pushes them to respond vigorously. He notes that muscles, bones, and children are antifragile:

Just as spending a month in bed . . . leads to muscle atrophy, complex systems are weakened, even killed, when deprived of stressors. Much of our modern, structured, world has been harming us with top-down policies and contraptions . . . which do precisely this: an insult to the antifragility of systems. This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most [emphasis added].

Taleb opens the book with a poetic image that should speak to all parents. He notes that wind extinguishes a candle but energizes a fire. He advises us not to be like candles and not to turn our children into candles: "You want to be the fire and wish for the wind."

The foolishness of overprotection is apparent as soon as you understand the concept of antifragility. Given that risks and stressors are natural, unavoidable parts of life, parents and teachers should be helping kids develop their innate abilities to grow and learn from such experiences. There's an old saying: "Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child." But these days, we seem to be doing precisely the opposite: we're trying to clear away anything that might upset children, not realizing that in doing so, we're repeating the peanut-allergy mistake. If we protect children from various classes of potentially upsetting experiences, we make it far more likely that those children will be unable to cope with such events when they leave our protective umbrella. The modern obsession with protecting young people from "feeling unsafe" is, we believe, one of the (several) causes of the rapid rise in rates of adolescent depression, anxiety, and suicide, which we'll explore in chapter 7.

The Rise of Safetyism

In the twentieth century, the word "safety" generally meant physical safety. A great triumph of the late part of that century was that the United States became physically safer for children. As a result of class action lawsuits, efforts by investigative journalists and consumer advocates (such as Ralph Nader and his exposŽ of the auto industry, Unsafe at Any Speed), and common sense, dangerous products and practices became less prevalent. Between 1978 and 1985, all fifty states passed laws making the use of car seats mandatory for children. Homes and day care centers were childproofed;choking hazards and sharp objects were removed. As a result, death rates for children have plummeted. This is, of course, a very good thing, although in some other ways, the focus on physical safety may have gone too far. (The Alison Gopnik essay quoted above was titled "Should We Let Toddlers Play With Saws and Knives?" Her answer was: maybe.)

But gradually, in the twenty-first century, on some college campuses, the meaning of "safety" underwent a process of "concept creep" and expanded to include "emotional safety." As an example, in 2014, Oberlin College posted guidelines for faculty, urging them to use trigger warnings to "show students that you care about their safety." The rest of the memo makes it clear that what the college was really telling its faculty was: show students that you care about their feelings. You can see the conflation of safety and feelings in another part of the memo, which urged faculty to use each student's preferred gender pronoun (for example, "zhe" or "they" for students who don't want to be referred to as "he" or "she"), not because this was respectful or appropriately sensitive but because a professor who uses an incorrect pronoun "prevents or impairs their safety in a classroom." If students have been told that they can request gender-neutral pronouns and then a professor fails to use one, students may be disappointed or upset. But are these students unsafe? Are students in any danger in the classroom if a professor uses the wrong pronoun? Professors should indeed be mindful of their students' feelings, but how might it change Oberlin students-and the nature of class discussions-when the community is told repeatedly that they should judge the speech of others in terms of safety and danger?

To understand how an Oberlin administrator could have used the word "safety," we turn to an article published in 2016 by the Australian psychologist Nick Haslam, titled "Concept Creep: Psychology's Expanding Concepts of Harm and Pathology." Haslam examined a variety of key concepts in clinical and social psychology-including abuse, bullying, trauma, and prejudice-to determine how their usage had changed since the 1980s. He found that their scope had expanded in two directions: the concepts had crept "downward," to apply to less severe situations, and "outward," to encompass new but conceptually related phenomena.

Take the word "trauma." In the early versions of the primary manual of psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychiatrists used the word "trauma" only to describe a physical agent causing physical damage, as in the case of what we now call traumatic brain injury. In the 1980 revision, however, the manual (DSM III) recognized "post-traumatic stress disorder" as a mental disorder-the first type of traumatic injury that isn't physical. PTSD is caused by an extraordinary and terrifying experience, and the criteria for a traumatic event that warrants a diagnosis of PTSD were (and are) strict: to qualify, an event would have to "evoke significant symptoms of distress in almost everyone" and be "outside the range of usual human experience." The DSM III emphasized that the event was not based on a subjective standard. It had to be something that would cause most people to have a severe reaction. War, rape, and torture were included in this category. Divorce and simple bereavement (as in the death of a spouse due to natural causes), on the other hand, were not, because they are normal parts of life, even if unexpected. These experiences are sad and painful, but pain is not the same thing as trauma. People in these situations that don't fall into the "trauma" category might benefit from counseling, but they generally recover from such losses without any therapeutic interventions. In fact, even most people who do have traumatic experiences recover completely without intervention.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B076NVFT5P
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 4, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 5.3 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0735224902
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Best Sellers Rank: #26,157 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
  • Customer Reviews:
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  1. Jonathan Haidt

    Jonathan Haidt

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    Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then did post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago and in Orissa, India. He taught at the University of Virginia for 16 years before moving to NYU-Stern in 2011. He was named one of the "top global thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine, and one of the "top world thinkers" by Prospect magazine.

    His research focuses on morality - its emotional foundations, cultural variations, and developmental course. He began his career studying the negative moral emotions, such as disgust, shame, and vengeance, but then moved on to the understudied positive moral emotions, such as admiration, awe, and moral elevation. He is the co-developer of Moral Foundations theory, and of the research site YourMorals.org. He is a co-founder of HeterodoxAcademy.org, which advocates for viewpoint diversity in higher education. He uses his research to help people understand and respect the moral motives of their enemies (see CivilPolitics.org, and see his TED talks). He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom; The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion; and (with Greg Lukianoff) The Coddling of the American Mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting a generation up for failure. For more information see www.JonathanHaidt.com.

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  2. Greg Lukianoff

    Greg Lukianoff

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    Greg Lukianoff is an attorney and the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is the author of "Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate" and his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, in addition to dozens of other publications. He is a regular columnist for The Huffington Post and has appeared on television shows, including the "CBS Evening News," "Fox & Friends," "The Today Show," CNN's "New Day," C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," and "Stossel." He received the 2008 Playboy Foundation Freedom of Expression Award and the 2010 Ford Hall Forum's Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award on behalf of FIRE. He is a graduate of American University and Stanford Law School.

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"Great read! The book delves into the out of control safetyism, over sensitivity, and emotional fragility of today's young people...." Read more

"A must read. I think the concepts explored and the data explained is so so important...." Read more

195 customers mention "Insight"191 positive4 negative

Customers find the book informative and well-researched, providing great analysis with interesting facts and concepts.

"Great read. Insightful for those who feel alone in their beliefs of true freedom of speech, the bizarre changing of collective mindsets, and the..." Read more

"An excellent, well researched and thoughtful read. Highly recommend for anyone looking to make sense of the current climate of American society." Read more

"It was well written and informative, but eventhough Im not conservative, they seem to attack the right while describing the left as victims...." Read more

"...Here is one very insightful, well-researched, and balanced book on how we got here, how to recognize it, what to do to protect free speech, and how..." Read more

82 customers mention "Enlightenedness"79 positive3 negative

Customers find the book enlightening, containing genuine wisdom and key concepts of cognitive behavioral therapy. One customer notes how it helps drive a rethink among parents and teachers, while another describes it as an incredible job at distilling a troubling societal trend.

"...There is much more in the book that is both mind-opening and enlightening...." Read more

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"Good overall points (find a summary somewhere as overall analysis of problem is spot on)...." Read more

"...This book was eye-opening and insightful, extremely informative...." Read more

67 customers mention "Reading requirement"63 positive4 negative

Customers find the book to be necessary reading for parents and educators, providing good guidance and being an enlightening read.

"A must read to understand today's generation!" Read more

"...A must read for parents, educators and academic administrators...." Read more

"This is a must read for all parents out there. Are you raising a well rounded child?..." Read more

"A great read for parents and young adults alike." Read more

54 customers mention "Educational value"50 positive4 negative

Customers appreciate the educational value of the book, finding it a good guide to Cognitive Behavioral Techniques and Therapy, with one customer noting how it improves critical thinking skills and helps correct distorted thought patterns.

"...A must read for students, educators, and persons interested in understanding others in order to create greater cohesion among us." Read more

"...A must read for all social workers and mental health professionals, as well as parents and anyone who cares about society and children." Read more

"...Also this book should be a must read for teachers, coaches, etc." Read more

"Highly educational and helpful." Read more

50 customers mention "Writing quality"47 positive3 negative

Customers praise the book's writing quality, noting its conversational style and suitability for general readers.

"A well written and insightful analysis of the current follies and failures at American colleges and universities, perpetuated by their 95% liberal/..." Read more

"...Well written and worth the read. If you’re wondering how politics got so gross and divisive, this should give you some insight." Read more

"...I can't recommend this book enough! It's very well written, easy to read, and engaging. Loved it" Read more

"Very challenging read. Very well written. Lots of food for thought." Read more

49 customers mention "Thought provoking"48 positive1 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking, describing it as mind-opening and intellectually responsible, with one customer noting how it encourages critical and accepting thought processes.

"...Thought provoking, providing plenty of material to agree and disagree with, it should be mandatory reading for anyone wanting to understand the iGen..." Read more

"...It's practical and thought-provoking with actionable ideas to fight the growing toxic culture." Read more

"...I also found Chapter 7, Anxiety and Depression, to be thought provoking, particularly the ties to social media and screen time...." Read more

"This is a well written manuscript on how to protect curiosity and critical thinking amidst a politically correct and overly sensitive system." Read more

40 customers mention "Political content"27 positive13 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the book's political content, with some appreciating its apolitical approach while others criticize its politically charged concepts.

"This is a very serious book with an important message. It should be required reading for educators and parents. It is also written very well." Read more

"...With scientific research, sociological analysis, and interesting anecdotes, the authors do a deep dive into the culture of emotional safeguarding -..." Read more

"...CHAPTER 2 | The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always Trust Your Feelings..." Read more

"...The book is apolitical and unbiased, finding fault and offering praise on both ends of the political spectrum...." Read more

Brilliant Synthesis of Systemic Issues - Required Reading for Parents & Educators
5 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Synthesis of Systemic Issues - Required Reading for Parents & Educators
Lukianoff and Haidt have greatly expanded their popular Sept 2015 Atlantic article into a more detailed and nuanced book of the same title. Haidt is a social psychologist and Lukianoff is a First Amendment Lawyer - a perfect pairing for this project. Haidt is also author of the highly relevant and absolutely brilliant 2012 book, "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion." A major reference and parallel running throughout the book is Nassim Taleb's seminal book, "Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder." Key Coddling conclusion: Parents and educators are unwittingly, and paradoxically, harming today's students by trying so hard to protect them. This is from perceived physical dangers as well as from ideas that might prove uncomfortable. The net is that "helicopter" parenting and increasingly ideologically uniform college campuses aren't allowing children to develop natural resilience (identical in concept to children being susceptible to diseases if not properly immunized). Kids are not receiving the proper stress-testing to the issues they will undoubtedly encounter in the real world and "the growing tendency to cultivate vulnerabilities in students carries unacknowledged costs" (Erika Christakis). An important and highly unsettling second derivative of the cited trends are the "consequences for the future of liberal democracies." The book references "the coarsening of social interaction," and desire to "invoke coercion by other parties to solve problems" as one of the "vulnerabilities of democracies." A wonderful speech excerpt from Chief Justice John Roberts highlights his grasp of the importance of antifragility and ability to "see the message in your misfortunes." Parents need to let children fall, fail and skin their knees more, while colleges need to make sure students are exposed to diverse ideologies and ideas that make them uncomfortable. In the end, "safe spaces" are anything but. There is a great chapter on "The Bureaucracy of Safetyism" that opens with a prescient Alexis de Tocqueville quote from Democracy in America: "The Sovereign power [or soft despot] extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute and uniform rules...it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." Safety, conformity and resume wars breed "Excellent Sheep." Lastly, Haidt and Lukianoff's chapter "The Quest for Justice" demonstrates their ability to parse polarizing issues, like "social justice," and disaggregate them into the component parts. In this instance, the important distinction between "distributive justice" (the perception that people are getting what is deserved) and "procedural justice" (the perception that the process by which things are distributed and rules are enforced is fair and trustworthy). Do your brain a favor - buy The Righteous Mind, Antifragile and Coddling and then steal away for a weekend to read them all.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Clay Garner
    5.0 out of 5 stars “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.”
    Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2018
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.”

    This is a good indication of authors goal. For many (most) the ideas, explanations, suggestions, prescriptions, criticisms; will sound/feel . . . irritating, maybe painful.

    Nevertheless, they present detailed evidence, mainly news reports and researched events (which I prefer). A few charts and statistics.

    Focus on reasoning and persuasion. For example . . .

    “Dictionary definitions of “coddle” emphasize this overprotection; for example, “to treat with extreme or excessive care or kindness.”

    (How can kindness be bad?)

    “The fault lies with adults and with institutional practices, hence our subtitle: “How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.” That is exactly what this book is about. We will show how well-intentioned overprotection—from peanut bans in elementary schools through speech codes on college campuses—may end up doing more harm than good. But overprotection is just one part of a larger trend that we call problems of progress.’’

    (I liked this new term - ‘Problems of progress’. Clever.)

    “This term refers to bad consequences produced by otherwise good social changes. It’s great that our economic system produces an abundance of food at low prices, but the flip side is an epidemic of obesity. It’s great that we can connect and communicate with people instantly and for free, but this hyperconnection may be damaging the mental health of young people.’’

    (Devote considerable space to the damage social media is doing to youths who have grown up with this tool. Sad.)

    “In Part I of the book, we set the stage. We give you the intellectual tools you’ll need to make sense of the new culture of “safety” that has swept across many college campuses since 2013. Those tools include learning to recognize the three Great Untruths. Along the way, we’ll explain some of the key concepts of cognitive behavioral therapy, and we’ll show how CBT improves critical thinking skills while counteracting the effects of the Great Untruths.’’

    (Only three ‘great lies?’)

    “In Part II, we show the Great Untruths in action. We examine the “shout-downs,” intimidation, and occasional violence that are making it more difficult for universities to fulfill their core missions of education and research. We explore the newly popular idea that speech is violence, and we show why thinking this way is bad for students’ mental health. We explore the sociology of witch hunts and moral panics, including the conditions that can cause a college to descend into chaos.’’

    (I really learned a lot about this. Excellent!)

    “In Part III, we try to solve the mystery. Why did things change so rapidly on many campuses between 2013 and 2017?’’

    The Search for Wisdom
    PART I Three Bad Ideas
    CHAPTER 1 | The Untruth of Fragility: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker
    CHAPTER 2 | The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always Trust Your Feelings
    CHAPTER 3 | The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life Is a Battle Between Good People and Evil People

    PART II Bad Ideas in Action
    CHAPTER 4 | Intimidation and Violence
    CHAPTER 5 | Witch Hunts

    PART III How Did We Get Here?
    CHAPTER 6 | The Polarization Cycle
    CHAPTER 7 | Anxiety and Depression
    CHAPTER 8 | Paranoid Parenting
    CHAPTER 9 | The Decline of Play
    CHAPTER 10 | The Bureaucracy of Safetyism
    CHAPTER 11 | The Quest for Justice

    The quotes appear in the text, not as footnotes. For example . .

    “Marcuse argued that true democracy might require denying basic rights to people who advocate for conservative causes, or for policies he viewed as aggressive or discriminatory, and that true freedom of thought might require professors to indoctrinate their students:

    ‘The ways should not be blocked [by] which a subversive majority could develop, and if they are blocked by organized repression and indoctrination, their reopening may require apparently undemocratic means. They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc. Moreover, the restoration of freedom of thought may necessitate new and rigid restrictions on teachings and practices in the educational institutions which, by their very methods and concepts, serve to enclose the mind within the established universe of discourse and behavior.’”

    This doctrine of Marcuse plays a key role in this book. They spell out how this idea has influenced university life. Chilling.

    Another excerpt . . .

    “In June 2017, John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, was invited to be the commencement speaker at his son’s graduation from middle school. Like Van Jones (whom we quoted in chapter 4), Roberts understands antifragility. He wishes for his son’s classmates to have the sorts of painful experiences that will make them better people and better citizens. Here is an excerpt from his speech:

    (be aware - this very counter-cultural)

    ‘From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.’”

    Wow!

    Not what we usually want for others (ourselves). Especially for our kids! Maybe . . .

    Easy read. Writing for general reader, not academics.

    Nevertheless, about one thousand or more notes (linked).

    Two hundred references.

    Tremendous scholarship!

    Extensive index (linked).

    Wonderful!

    Includes appendix. 1. How to do CBT 2. The Chicago Statement on Principles of Free Expression

    One caveat: authors use evolutionary psychology to justify/explain the feelings/actions presented. I think Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky do a better job describing the source of human evil. The ‘will to power’, the ‘demonic’ influence provides clearer (better) explanation.

    Authors do quote Solzhenitsyn: ‘Evil runs through every human heart’. He became a Christian due to this insight. Humans made in god’s image. Now fallen. All humans know — we all have both potentials. Godly greatness and animal wretchedness. Think Pascal. Convinced Solzhenitsyn that the Bible account is to be trusted.

    (See also: “The Judgement of the Nations” by Christopher Dawson; “The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West” by Micheal Walsh; “The Crisis of Western Education” by Christopher Dawson; “Myth of the Nation and Vision of Revolution: Ideological Polarization in the Twentieth Century” by Jacob Talmon. These thinkers provide a longer range, historical, even philosophical analysis. Tremendous!)
    78 people found this helpful
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  • Eric Mabbott
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent accessible cultural analysis - A must-read!
    Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2019
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    What is happening on the college campus? Is it really as bad as the news stories report? What can be done about it? Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff have put together a book to help. The title is long enough to make a puritan blush, but it certainly sums up the message of the book: good intentions and bad ideas can do a lot of damage. The book was born out of a 2015 article written for the Atlantic by the same title (You can read it here). This is the second book by Jonathan Haidt I have reviewed. The Righteous Mind here. This book is not a screed against the “kids today” and how we just need to get back to the good old days. Haidt is a moral psychologist who works as a professor at NYU. Lukianoff is the president of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) which focuses on defending First Amendment rights in higher education. Both men independently noticed some disturbing trends which led them to co-author their initial article. Afterward, they decided to put their research into a book to delve deeper into the problem and offer solutions. The book is divided into four parts:

    Part 1: Three Bad Ideas

    The authors explore three key bad ideas which seem to be accepted more and more in society:

    1) Kids are incredibly fragile.
    2) We should always trust our feelings.
    3) Life is a battle between good and evil people.

    These ideas are bad because they are false. First, children are anti-fragile. They are not like glass which shatters. Rather they are more like a muscle that gets stronger when tested. This is not to say trauma is acceptable any more than we would say an athlete getting injured is getting stronger. The point is that kids are stronger than we think.

    Second, the problem with always trusting our emotions is that we can be easily fooled. We lose the ability to have a healthy confrontation because we stop caring about someone’s intent and only care about their impact on our emotional state.

    Third, when we boil relationships down to only a conflict between good and evil people we will not be open to compromise or even listening to the other side. If I think my opponent is basically Hitler then I am not going to reason or persuade him. I am going to fight him.

    These three key ideas are being taught and reinforced in our education system, entertainment, and social media. The problem with these ideas is not the intent behind them which is protection and the betterment of society. The problem is that these ideas in action make everything worse and actually do the opposite of what they intend: we become more fragile, more angry, more stressed and anxious and so on.

    Part 2: Bad Ideas in Action

    This section catalogs cases where these bad ideas were put into play. The authors are careful to note that events are not indicative of every college campus. However, they are present in major universities predominantly on the west and east coasts. The authors review some of the riots that occurred in recent years on college campuses as well as the march in Charlottesville. They examine the nature of intimidation and violence that is trending in the news. Then they look at why our society is so prone to witch hunts and the importance of viewpoint diversity.

    Part 3: How Did We Get Here?

    This section was the most emotionally difficult part of the book for me. The authors dissect how we arrived in this situation focusing upon polarization, anxiety and depression, the decline of play, the rise of safety policies, and the quest for justice. They examine the influences of social media, screens, overprotection, and misguided efforts to achieve social justice. This section is not blasting those who want justice, school administrators, parents or children. The authors are interpreting the data in terms of “six threads” that together help explain how it is we arrived in our present state.

    Part 4: Wising Up

    Again, the book is not just old men yelling to protect their lawns. The authors present solutions along three lines: families, universities and society. They encourage parents to allow their kids to take calculated risks while resisting the urge to jump in as soon as they struggle. The authors talk about teaching children how to cope with disappointment and pain. They strongly recommend limiting screen time. There are more solutions, but if you want to know them you should read the book!

    REFLECTIONS

    This book came out at the right time for me as I had just finished reading Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. I also watched the news and was actively wrestling with my own use of social media. Normally it takes me less than five minutes to fall asleep at night (apparently I’m overtired). Yet there was one-night last spring (2018) that I couldn’t go to sleep because I was so angry about things someone I didn’t know said on social media. My mind wouldn’t rest as I rolled over what my response would be to this person and how I would show them how wrong they were. I think it was around 1:00 am that I finalized my brilliant rhetorical salvo I would unleash in the morning. However, when I woke up I knew something was wrong with me. I needed to back off social media. Last fall I even deactivated my Facebook account. I didn’t even self-righteously announce it beforehand! The point is that I was primed to read this book.

    This book thoughtfully and fairly engages with serious issues in our society which will get worse unless we commit to making serious changes. I appreciate the authors’ desire not to castigate or vilify anyone. They want to make things better. They assume that the people involved in these issues on the campus are acting in good faith. This allows for thoughtful analysis and generous criticism that actually contributes to the conversation. My only criticism is that the final three chapters which present solutions are very short. Perhaps in time, the authors can present how they and some of the groups they point to as good examples are handling these modern challenges. Also, this book cannot give us the reason why we ought to live this way except for the general improvement of society. For Christians, grace and holiness are central for how we interact with others (or at least they should be!). There are core reasons why we are compelled as followers of Christ to live differently than society. As a holy people (set apart by mercy) we do not participate in that which is abhorrent to God. But as people who have been saved by grace, we explain our hope and commitment to Jesus with gentleness, respect, and love. This is not really a criticism. It is an acknowledgment of the limits of a non-Christian book.

    I was challenged by this book to consider how I am raising my children particularly in terms of allowing them to take risks and giving them the room to fail. This book also led me to reflect on how I interact with others. I found myself reading this book saying, “Yeah, the Bible says we should do that…” We know it yet we don’t do it. For example: thinking the best of others or at least giving them the benefit of the doubt. Or how about not be hasty with our words in person and especially online? I seem to remember something about taking every thought captive. A good sign to me that this is a good book is that you leave it hopeful that we can do better or at least how I can do better.

    THE BOTTOM LINE

    I said in my review of The Righteous Mind that I would likely recommend this book over that one. That turned out to be true. This book does a wonderful job explaining current trends and what can be done about them. Positively there seem to be reasons for hope that things are changing already on the college campus. While this is encouraging, the pressure to unnecessarily self-censor seems to be increasing and there remains a cause for concern. This book is well written, engaging and challenging. It is not a Christian book (I'ma pastor) so don’t expect biblical answers or a biblical worldview. I do recommend this book if you are looking for an insightful cultural analysis of the rise of terms like “trigger warning” and “safe space” and the current state of social discourse in America. Overall, an excellent read and well worth your time.
    132 people found this helpful
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  • Alisha W.
    4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful & Thought-Provoking
    Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2025
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    I found this book to be thought-provoking and a timely read. The authors raise important questions about how we’re shaping the next generation’s resilience and critical thinking, as well as approaches to differing viewpoints. Some sections felt a little repetitive but overall a good reflection book on education and social discourse.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Ashish Gupta
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good book
    Reviewed in India on January 23, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Good book
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  • Christian Nugue
    5.0 out of 5 stars Ne me fais pas peur
    Reviewed in France on March 16, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Ce livre-phare explique bien la naissance aux USA, vers le tournant du siècle, d'une génération dorlotée, hyperprotégée, qui redoute le contact non pas avec le danger, mais avec la POSSIBILITE d'un danger. D'où, dans le monde universitaire contemporain, des dizaines d'intervenants désinvités en catastrophe parce que leurs prises de position risqueraient de heurter la sensibilité de certains étudiants. C'est ainsi par exemple que la théorie de l'évolution, qui s'appuie pourtant sur des bases scientifiques solides, a été évacuée de nombreux campus de la planète. Proprement ahurissant. Merci aux auteurs pour leurs explications éclairantes.
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  • 名古屋ペンギン
    5.0 out of 5 stars We have similar issues in Japan
    Reviewed in Japan on January 8, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    We have similar issues in Japan.
    Paranoid parenting, deline of play, bureaucracy of safetyism and so on.
    So, we should read this book for fortune-telling of our society!
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  • Roger
    5.0 out of 5 stars Truth often hurts.
    Reviewed in Germany on October 18, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    But it pays in the end. This seems to me to be the battle Jonathan Haidt is engaged in. He presents convincing arguments about the United States, and how from parenting to college campuses, the pursuit of hearing what makes us feel good can come at the cost of what is true, and that this cost may reveal itself in the future to be way more than we are willing to pay.
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  • Narciso González
    5.0 out of 5 stars Por fin algo muy bueno que leer para corregir nuestra sociedad
    Reviewed in Mexico on July 2, 2022
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Nuestra sociedad necesita un reset y corregir el muy torcido rumbo al que se dirige, los autores hacen de este lo que debe ser libro de texto en todas las escuelas.
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    Narciso González
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Por fin algo muy bueno que leer para corregir nuestra sociedad

    Reviewed in Mexico on July 2, 2022
    Nuestra sociedad necesita un reset y corregir el muy torcido rumbo al que se dirige, los autores hacen de este lo que debe ser libro de texto en todas las escuelas.
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