Jonathan Haidt — The Coddling of the American Mind, How to Become Intellectually Antifragile, and How to Lose Anger by Studying Morality (#644)
Illustration via 99designs“Shared anger is thrilling, and that’s part of what’s driving us off a cliff as a country.”
— Jonathan Haidt
Jonathan Haidt (@jonhaidt) is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Jonathan received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. His research examines the intuitive foundations of morality and how morality varies across cultural and political divisions. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis and the New York Times bestsellers The Righteous Mind and The Coddling of the American Mind (with Greg Lukianoff).
He has given four TED Talks, and in 2019 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since 2018 Jonathan has been studying the contributions of social media to the decline of teen mental health and the rise of political dysfunction. He is currently writing two books: Kids in Space: Why Teen Mental Health Is Collapsingand Life after Babel: Adapting to a World We Can No Longer Share.
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Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#644: Jonathan Haidt — The Coddling of the American Mind, How to Become Intellectually Antifragile, and How to Lose Anger by Studying MoralityThis episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 3.8% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account. That’s more than fifteen times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov.
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Want to hear an episode with someone who was once Jonathan Haidt’s intellectual enemy, but later became a friend? Listen to my most recent conversation with Sam Harris in which we discussed cleaning and reassembling the gun of mindfulness, navigating time and in-between spaces on different psychedelics, new insights about fear, worthwhile nonprofits, the most important four-word sentence you can be asking in abundance right now, and much more.
#433: Sam Harris on Psychedelics, How to Cope During a Pandemic, Taming Anxiety, and MoreWhat was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Jonathan Haidt:The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt | AmazonThe Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt | AmazonThe Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt | AmazonAll Minus One: The Illustrated Ideas of John Stuart Mill | Heterodox AcademyAfter Babel | Jon Haidt | SubstackHeterodox AcademyPerspectives | The Constructive Dialogue InstituteWhen Adults Step Back, Kids Step Up. | Let GrowJonathan Haidt | TED TalksBhubaneswar | Incredible IndiaJonathan Haidt on the Pandemic and America’s Polarization | The AtlanticEthnography: Challenges and Opportunities | Evidence-Based NursingWhat Is Female Genital Mutilation? 7 Questions Answered | UNICEFWhat About “Female Genital Mutilation?” And Why Understanding Culture Matters in the First Place by Richard A. Shweder | DaedalusHenry Crown Fellowship | The Aspen InstituteShooting an Elephant by George Orwell | The Orwell FoundationMoral Relativism | Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyMoral Monism vs. Moral Pluralism | RedditDancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreich | AmazonMoral Foundations TheoryAnthropocentrism | WikipediaMoral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion by Jonathan Haidt | EdgeResponse to Jonathan Haidt | Sam HarrisEmergence | Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyRoop Kanwar: Last Known Case of Sati In India & Its Relevance Today | Feminism In IndiaThe Bhagavad Gita | AmazonThe Rise and Fall of Nicolae Ceausescu, “the Romanian Fuehrer” | FEE StoriesJonathan Haidt: Gratitude to Psychedelics | LondonRealMichael Pollan — Exploring the Frontiers of Psychedelics | The Tim Ferriss Show #365How Psychedelics Can Transform End-Of-Life Care | SlateThe Alice in Wonderland Omnibus by Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel | AmazonIs Individualism vs. Collectivism the New Left vs. Right? | FEE StoriesY CombinatorKeep Your Identity Small | Paul GrahamThe Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs | AmazonA.J. Jacobs — How to Be Less Furious and More Curious | The Tim Ferriss Show #588Who Are Ashkenazi Jews? | My Jewish LearningWho Are Sephardic Jews? | My Jewish LearningLinguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) | Pennebaker Conglomerates, Inc.The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris | AmazonThe Pleasure of Changing My Mind | Sam HarrisEvolving Minds | Making Sense with Sam Harris #31Safe Space | Making Sense with Sam Harris #137A Conversation with Jonathan Haidt | Making Sense with Sam Harris #204Complex Dynamic Systems Theory | WikipediaHow Facebook Ruined Comments (at Least for Me) | TimeLife After Babel (Overview) | Jonathan HaidtEpistemology | Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyFoundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)The Halloween Costume Controversy at Yale’s Silliman College | The AtlanticThe Moral Spectrum: When Freedom’s Just Another Word for Comfortable Homogeneity | The HumanistWhy the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid | The AtlanticNYT Opinion Editor Resigns after Outrage over Tom Cotton Op-Ed | PoliticoChicago, Where Fun Comes to Die | The New YorkerThe Best Anti-Fragility Speech Ever Came From a Surprising Source | FEE StoriesBrian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase — The Art of Relentless Focus, Preparing for Full-Contact Entrepreneurship, Critical Forks in the Path, Handling Haters, The Wisdom of Paul Graham, Epigenetic Reprogramming, and Much More | The Tim Ferriss Show #627A Timeline of the George Floyd Protests | The New York TimesCoinbase is a Mission-Focused Company | CoinbaseNetflix to Staff: Quit If You Can’t Work on Content You Disagree With | Business InsiderBuilding the University of Austin | UATXThe Boy Who Cried Wolf | Aesop’s ABCPolitical Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science – Heterodox Academy | Heterodox AcademyOn Liberty by John Stuart Mill | AmazonBuddhism | National Geographic SocietyStoicism Resources and Recommendations | Tim FerrissDaryl Davis | A Black Man’s Odyssey in the KKK Part One | The Jordan Harbinger Show #539Daryl Davis | A Black Man’s Odyssey in the KKK Part Two | The Jordan Harbinger Show #540The Set-Point Theory of Happiness | Changing MindsBSPAGB 3110 – Work, Wisdom, and Happiness at New York University | Coursicle NYUStolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari | AmazonAntifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | AmazonReligion’s Relationship to Happiness, Civic Engagement, and Health | Pew Research CenterDoes Getting Married Really Make You Happier? | Institute for Family StudiesThe Study of Suicide by Émile Durkheim | ThoughtCo.Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger | AmazonWhere Millennials End and Generation Z Begins | Pew Research CenterNYU’s Jonathan Haidt Explains the Problem with Gen Z | VoxFree-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow by Lenore Skenazy | AmazonHere’s Why Fortnite Is the Best New Social Network | Fast CompanyDead Poets Society | Prime VideoCauliflower Ear | Cleveland ClinicWhy Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice | Heterodox AcademyThe Power of Myth — The Hero’s Adventure with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers | The Tim Ferriss Show #456The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) | AmazonMeditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius and Gregory Hays | AmazonThe Enchiridion by Epictetus | AmazonThe Dhammapada | AmazonWhat is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? | American Psychological AssociationSHOW NOTESEditor’s Note: Timestamps will be added shortly.
Richard Shweder.Making sense of assertions in anthropology.Why I invited Jon on the show.Moral relativism.How an emergentist views human rights violations.A turning point: why Jon almost never gets angry anymore.Taking LSD for the first time.My own transformative experience was happening simultaneously.Were my politics influenced or altered by this experience?What being a Jewish atheist means to Jon.From feud to friendship with Sam Harris.Complex dynamical system.How safe spaces and character cancellation took over colleges.Why did the University of Chicago initially resist this trend?What makes businesses more resilient against this trend than colleges?The University of Austin: a catalyst for academic reform?The aim of Jon’s Heterodox Academy.Distilling John Stuart Mill — the patron saint of viewpoint diversity.Aging out of anger and the disarming power of Daryl Davis.How to get smarter, stronger, and more sociable.After Babbel.What the holy and hitched can impart about happiness for the secular and single.What’s happening to Gen Z?Jon and his wife’s free-range parenting style for fostering independence.Group sports vs. individualist sports.A tough coach or teacher tests limits and taps potential.Developing intellectual antifragility.Jon’s billboard.Revisiting practical philosophies when times get tough.Parting thoughts.MORE JONATHAN HAIDT QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“I don’t get mad. I look at systems and I always think, ‘How can we make them better?'”
— Jonathan Haidt
“If I see someone oppressing a whole society or acting in that monstrous way, not for any morally legitimate reason, I think we need to take action.”
— Jonathan Haidt
“I’ve really come to see that a functioning society, it needs a Progressive wing pushing for change and it needs a Conservative wing saying, ‘Slow down,’ tapping on the brakes. William F. Buckley stands athwart history, yelling, ‘Stop.’ You need both in a healthy society.”
— Jonathan Haidt
“Our left is not Liberal. Our right is not Conservative. We’re a mess. But societies need those two impulses.”
— Jonathan Haidt
“What I’ve learned from studying morality is, in a polarization spiral or a culture war, the harder you hit your enemy, the stronger they get. And so you don’t win by punching them really hard. You can never destroy them.”
— Jonathan Haidt
“‘Heterodox’ means there should be a variety of ways of thinking. We need that in order to be successful.”
— Jonathan Haidt
“You really need to seek out criticism. You need to seek out people who differ from you, and then, actually, you’ll get smarter.”
— Jonathan Haidt
“Shared anger is thrilling, and that’s part of what’s driving us off a cliff as a country.”
— Jonathan Haidt
“You get stronger by challenging yourself, by exposing yourself to threats and dangers within limits that you then surmount, and we have to do this with kids.”
— Jonathan Haidt
The post Jonathan Haidt — The Coddling of the American Mind, How to Become Intellectually Antifragile, and How to Lose Anger by Studying Morality (#644) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
