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

by Jonathan Haidt

Many university students are learning to think in distorted ways, and this increases their likelihood of becoming fragile, anxious, and easily hurt.

That means seeking out challenges (rather than eliminating or avoiding everything that “feels unsafe”), freeing yourself from cognitive distortions (rather than always trusting your initial feelings), and taking a generous view of other people, and looking for nuance (rather than assuming the worst about people within a simplistic us-versus-them morality).

“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.”5

“Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.”

I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

Nothing is of more importance to the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of a state: much more so than riches or arms, which, under the management of Ignorance and Wickedness, often draw on destruction, instead of providing for the safety of a people.