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Mehrsa's Reviews > The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
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This is a very narrow and small-minded book parading as a big thoughtful one. It says it is about the American Mind, but the data and the theory only support "the coddling" of a very narrow subset of the American mind: upper middle class college kids born after 1995 that got to college in 2013. As far as that group is concerned, this is really good advice. I totally agree with his three untruths--your feelings are not necessarily true, the world is not good and evil, and adversity does not make you weak. I also agree that children need lots of free play and that social media is bad for kids and they are over-protected. There is nothing to disagree with here (even though I sometimes chafe at "when we were kids..." arguments)
HOWEVER, using this group's specific problems, the authors make vast over-generalizations. The few anecdotes highlighted are meant to be examples of a deeper problem, but to me, they are the sum total of the problem. Left leaning students are behaving very badly toward conservative speakers. At most, there are 10 or so highly publicized events that seem to play on a loop among conservatives and intellectual dark web types. And there are no defenses to these behaviors, but it hardly represents our nation. And they provide no data whatsoever that it does. It's too soon to even tell that the next generation will be like this one.
And for people who seem to care a lot about both sides arguments, they seem to leave out a lot of counter-examples. Here are a few:
1. They talk about the metoo movement once in the beginning. Is that not a product of this "call out" generation? None of us "old" women had the "balls" to speak truth to power like these young women do. Good for them.
2. And the Parkland teens and all the ways in which this generation is more compassionate and engaged than we were. My generation (I'm 40) thought it was cool not to care about anything. My middle school kid stays up after school making protest signs and watching political debates. Is that not progress?
3. The authors also focuses on one particular subset of an entire generation (left-leaning, and mostly women and LGBT or Trans students asking for safe spaces). They leave out that Gamergate and the trolls and the alt right are also made up of this generation. Why not talk about them at all? Seriously. They are literally the same age and except for one aside in the entire book that "the right does it too" there are no examples at all of the right doing the thing they are decrying. It seemed like a half-assed "both sides" argument without support.
4. Do you know how many books I've read written by old people decrying the hippie generation of the 60s (Alan Bloome's Closing of the American Mind is an example)? Bloome was talking about Haidt and Luianoff. Boy do they grow up fast.
5. It makes me sad that more people will read this book than will read books highlighting actual big problems like inequality. The authors give a nod to the fact that inequality should definitely be remedied, but they would rather you do it the right way and not call it "social justice."
Again, I agree with all the parenting advice and the cognitive behavior advice, but this is not a self-help book. It's meant as a polemic and it strikes at the wrong target.
HOWEVER, using this group's specific problems, the authors make vast over-generalizations. The few anecdotes highlighted are meant to be examples of a deeper problem, but to me, they are the sum total of the problem. Left leaning students are behaving very badly toward conservative speakers. At most, there are 10 or so highly publicized events that seem to play on a loop among conservatives and intellectual dark web types. And there are no defenses to these behaviors, but it hardly represents our nation. And they provide no data whatsoever that it does. It's too soon to even tell that the next generation will be like this one.
And for people who seem to care a lot about both sides arguments, they seem to leave out a lot of counter-examples. Here are a few:
1. They talk about the metoo movement once in the beginning. Is that not a product of this "call out" generation? None of us "old" women had the "balls" to speak truth to power like these young women do. Good for them.
2. And the Parkland teens and all the ways in which this generation is more compassionate and engaged than we were. My generation (I'm 40) thought it was cool not to care about anything. My middle school kid stays up after school making protest signs and watching political debates. Is that not progress?
3. The authors also focuses on one particular subset of an entire generation (left-leaning, and mostly women and LGBT or Trans students asking for safe spaces). They leave out that Gamergate and the trolls and the alt right are also made up of this generation. Why not talk about them at all? Seriously. They are literally the same age and except for one aside in the entire book that "the right does it too" there are no examples at all of the right doing the thing they are decrying. It seemed like a half-assed "both sides" argument without support.
4. Do you know how many books I've read written by old people decrying the hippie generation of the 60s (Alan Bloome's Closing of the American Mind is an example)? Bloome was talking about Haidt and Luianoff. Boy do they grow up fast.
5. It makes me sad that more people will read this book than will read books highlighting actual big problems like inequality. The authors give a nod to the fact that inequality should definitely be remedied, but they would rather you do it the right way and not call it "social justice."
Again, I agree with all the parenting advice and the cognitive behavior advice, but this is not a self-help book. It's meant as a polemic and it strikes at the wrong target.
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Comments Showing 1-50 of 85 (85 new)
Another great review! Do you actually read a new book every 2 or 3 days?
Michael wrote: "I have just started reading this book. I am not looking for confirmation bias, but to be mentally challenged. A couple of my favorite "issue books" are "The New Jim Crow" and "Just Mercy,:" but I..."
Right, which is why I read books I disagree with. The two you mentioned are good ones too.
These guys, Jordan Peterson, and the rest of the circle they frequent are quite simply just right-wing apologists who insist on calling themselves “Classic British Liberals”. Their rhetoric is nauseating at this point
Wait, if you call caring about inequality “social justice,” does that hurt the authors’ precious feelings?
Darius: Agreed. I'm very tired of the sanctimonious Right referring to themselves as Classic(al) Liberals, as if the past two hundred years and its attendant semantic shifts never happened.
Mehrsa, you overgeneralize yourself when you state "none of us 'Old' women had the balls..." Perhaps you and your set didn't, but me and mine did! Certainly not the environment to get the press they get now, but don't make assumptions because you didn't see. The level of anger with this almost proves the good and evil untruth is alive and well.
I will be 40 next year. I thank the stars I’m of the X generation (bad joke). Anyway, after reading the reviews, I’m not sure I can stomach what sounds like right-wing apologetics that went into the text. It’s not that I’m far left; I actually stand in the middle on some subjects. I lean mostly left, but find myself embarrassed by far left behaviors and some of their dogmatic ideologies. But after skimming this book, I can’t agree with your summary more. From the little I read, the book seems to “subtly” condemn left-leaning children of the Z generation but not the right-leaning. We must not forget that these lefty extremists did not become extreme without provocation. Even if I don’t agree with all their ideologies or behavior, I understand why they came about. It bothers me that the “highly intelligent” minds that went into this book would not be a tad less bias.
Darius: Do they call themselves classical liberals? I've read other books of Haidt's, but not this one, and I though that he identified as a centrist.
Also, Mehrsa, it's interesting what you say about the authors trying to generalize problems occurring in one group to the rest of society. In fact, I wonder to what extent they generalize even within that group. I certainly believe that there is a lot of bad behaviour stemming from very bad character formation on the Left. But at the same time, the problem may be much less widespread than media coverage may suggest.
I was recently watching a program with Steven Pinker, who was also very concerned about the "campus free speech issue" until he looked at some numbers. Apparently, data suggests that support for freedom of speech is at an all-time high among students right now — we just happen to hear about the loudest voices on the news, not the most numerous.
Philippe-Antoine wrote: "Also, Mehrsa, it's interesting what you say about the authors trying to generalize problems occurring in one group to the rest of society. In fact, I wonder to what extent they generalize even with..."Absolutely. I have worked at a huge university for 10 years and I have never heard of such a thing happening. We've had controversial speakers come and the students respectfully listen and some voice polite disagreement. My students are not at all the way he describes i-Gen even though they are part of that generation
My town appears to have a little more of a political trigger-finger. Protests led the University of Ottawa to cancel a talk by Sarah Palin a few years ago. I saw Peter Singer speak back in 2012 or so and there were protesters. A recent talk by Jordan Peterson received the same treatment. In the latter two cases, though, it was just a handful of students that were laughably uninformed and didn't really affect anything.
Darius wrote: "These guys, Jordan Peterson, and the rest of the circle they frequent are quite simply just right-wing apologists who insist on calling themselves “Classic British Liberals”. Their rhetoric is naus..."After having fallen into (and thankfully crawled out of) the intellectually bankrupt & disingenuous cesspit of the "IDW," I've learned that when someone calls themselves a "classical liberal" or a "centrist," it's often some Patreon-grubbing reactionary who always punches left (with on occasional finger-wag to the right) because it's what pulls in the $$ from insecure & primarily white people who want their biases confirmed & told that all societal problems are Someone Else's Fault.
Agree with Karla. They are intellectually fraudulent chiselers. In Academia, among their peers, they are considered to be banal mediocrities, not because the 'others' envy them (as the Petersons and the Paglias of this world claim in self-aggrandisement) but because they are truly nothing but loud-mouth, banal mediocrities. They are also dangerous, as they confer (pseudo)legitimacy -by parading their degrees in front of troubled or as-yet-uncultivated intellects and/or blindly aggressive people- on the socio-political deleterious lies and gossip that flow through alt-right platforms (of which many -sooo many that their self-description as silenced by the 'establishment' crusaders is both calculatingly false and grotesquely ridiculous. And, btw, the financial establishment or the power class are perfectly fine with the alt-right. The latter's relentless scapegoating and pathological construction of enemies is most useful in diverting anger towards those with even less social or structural power than themselves, in effect blocking all serious and productive effort to channel that anger towards reflection on and organised action against the causes of social and economic injustices.
Karla: Surely this description can't apply to Haidt, whose "Durkheimian utilitariansim" gives more weight to the questions of harm/fairness/liberty that he associates with the Left than to the questions of authority/sanctity/loyalty that he associates with the Right? Also, Elizabeth: I agree about Peterson, of course. I don't see how his pseudo-intellectualism, which has no basis in empirical fact, can be placed anywhere near the work of, e.g. Haidt or Pinker, both of whom are taken seriously in their own and related fields...
I've read some good, solid critiques of Haidt & Pinker, and their recent appearances has belied any demand to be taken seriously based on previous efforts.However, it would be refreshing if these supposedly more serious figures would disavow or at least willingly criticize the more flaming grifters that they were all too happy to appear with in the early stages of the "IDW." But the "SJW meanies" circle-jerk is a very profitable cottage industry in the Skepto-sphere & that's where I saw a lot of figures make PR stops to fluff this "campus speech" issue into a full-scale moral panic on the alt-right/right/right-adjacent. When it was really just a handful of shitposters & charlatans (Milo, Ben Shapiro, Youtube "skeptic/classical liberal" celebrities, etc.) turning up in person to shitpost their Greatest Hits and getting the predictable results. Transferring an aspect of the internet to RL isn't an accurate representation of reality, IMO.
Darius wrote: "These guys, Jordan Peterson, and the rest of the circle they frequent are quite simply just right-wing apologists who insist on calling themselves “Classic British Liberals”. Their rhetoric is naus..."I wouldn't be so quick to take the best of the intellectual left and cede them over to the right. Jordan Peterson yes, but Haidt and Pinker are certainly not right wing or conservative.
Perhaps the authors have exaggerated the problem, but it's better to get out ahead of the issue than to wait until after it has spread.It seems like you agree that the examples in the book are egregious, and also with the three untruths and the remedy. You just don't see the examples as representative of most students or colleges. Fair enough, but I think that this is a separate issue from what I see from other commenters, who are adopting the simplistic line that because of the exaggeration the authors are right-wing apologists.
I don't mind the criticism but it does bother me to see Haidt and Pinker and other credible academics mentioned in the same category as the actually-right-wing conservative Peterson. This is actually an example of "dichotomous thinking" Haidt describes in the book, or our need to pigeon-hole people into groups so we can unambiguously like or hate them without having to consider their views.
Ryan wrote: "I wouldn't be so quick to take the best of the intellectual left and cede them over to the right. Jordan Peterson yes, but Haidt and Pinker are certainly not right wing or conservative."I agree with you on all points. If you are so far to the Left that vaguely left-leaning centrists like Haidt and Pinker look like Right-wingers, I tend to think that it's time for you to reconsider your views. (Ditto, of course, for Right-wingers thinking of centrists as Leftists, let alone Socialists or Communists).
On a related note, it perhaps bears mentioning that being a conservative (whether social or fiscal) is not in itself a bad thing. It would be nice if we stopped using "Conservative" and "Liberal" as insults and started considering the pros and cons of each other's positions and identifying zones of reasonable and unreasonable disagreement instead — which, of course, is a central theme in both Haidt and Pinker.
For the record, I should probably specify that I say this having always considered my views to fall a little Left of center. (Political Compass actually puts me surprisingly far to Left, which just goes to show how radical you have to be these days for your views to align with the people actually calling themselves Leftists.) As far as economic issues go, I would call myself a social democrat, whereas on identity I lean toward the interculturalist model of social integration.
What a pathetic snivelling pack of ideologically possessed troglodytes you all are. I’d bet you havent delved at all genuinely into anything Jordan Peterson has said. Its laughable that this review is supposed to be about a Haidt book and yet everyone uses it as an excuse to bag Peterson. If Haidt is so respectable, why does he self-evidently have so much time for Peterson. If you want to think seriously about the world, get out of your own echo chambers. Ofcourse, if you dont want that, then fine, just keep deluding yourselves all day long.
Well, you will notice that I specifically said that Peterson's views "have no basis in empirical fact." To the best of my knowledge, this is true. For example, as far as I know, he has never offered any kind of evidence to substantiate either his rather wild claims about gender relations and their effects on society, nor his views on climate change. Regarding the latter, he has explicitly claimed that there is no such evidence and called his view "a hypothesis." This strikes me as highly irresponsible behaviour. Regarding the former, if he has provided any evidence that isn't just a post hoc fallacy, please feel free to indicate where. In the absence of such evidence, his views are little more than conspiracy theories and a wildly sexist worldview. On a similar note, a good way to see how different his (unsupported) approach is to Haidt's (academically rigorous) approach is to compare the methodology of The Happiness Hypothesis with that of 12 Rules for Life.
As for why more respectable figures "have time" for Peterson, there is a rather simple reason. Despite some inflammatory and completely unsubstantiated views, Peterson also holds certain political opinions that are (or at least may be) reasonable. You can be wrong about some things and right about others. This has been the basis of most of his interactions with Haidt about the "free speech" problem.
You will also notice that I have insisted that being "Conservative" is not sufficient for being morally suspect. If I do think Peterson is morally suspect, therefore, it will certainly not be for mere "ideological" reasons, but because I think that he is irresponsibly peddling incorrect views as fact. I will agree with Pinker that "the truth cannot be sexist [or racist or homophobic, etc.]." If I think someone is one of these things, therefore, it must be because I think that he is spouting untruths. Though of course, I can be wrong.
Mark wrote: "What a pathetic snivelling pack of ideologically possessed troglodytes you all are. I’d bet you havent delved at all genuinely into anything Jordan Peterson has said. Its laughable that this review..."Here’s the difference between Haidt and Peterson. Haidt is a respected social psychologist that has contributed valuable original research into the psychology of morality, and his two previous published books are highly referenced and were widely praised upon publication.
Peterson, in contrast, wrote Maps of Meaning in 1999, after 13 years of effort, which was largely ignored for the better part of 15+ years, by Peterson’s own admission. He actually admits this in 12 Rules for Life, so this is coming from the author himself. Peterson’s fame exactly coincides with his YouTube fame, not with his academic work, so that fact in itself should make it fairly obvious the intellectual caliber we’re dealing with here.
You might be thinking, yeah, his magnum opus Maps of Meaning was ignored, but that’s just because it is so profound and complicated that people just don’t understand it. While that’s the message he probably wants to convey, those that have devoted serious time to the text have not come away very impressed. The thinking is so convoluted that upon deeper analysis most of the text is either not saying anything at all or is so vague as to be open to any interpretation.
If you want an in-depth criticism of Maps of Meaning, check out this link:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/0...
Peterson’s political and religious views aside, it’s his epistemology and second-rate religious philosophy that separates him from Haidt, Pinker, and other serious academics that have established their fame through original research and compelling material rather than via YouTube videos and half-baked religious nonsense. I know he claims to be a scientist, but when asked directly if he believes that Jesus actually rose from the dead, his response was that “there are different kinds of truth.” Enough said.
You atheist types are so terrified of anyone who dares to refuse to reject outright all religious ideas. You can reject petersons views but you cant reasonably call them half baked.His explanation of how the concept of god evolved in the human mind as an abstraction of ourselves and became a foundation of western morality is insightful. He doesnt claim to have the whole truth and I’m no naive fan boy.
I’ll say this though, anyone who pushes back against the poisonous corrupt post modernist philosophy gets some support from me.
Anyhow, my truck originally was with the person who described Haidt’s latest book as ‘verynarrow and small minded’ ... what a joke. If Haidt is small minded, what does that say about this reviewer’s mind which is undoubtedly much smaller by any measure.
I am literally writing a thesis on how religious viewpoints can be integrated into democratic processes. I study religion and was invited to speak publicly at a synagogue last year because of some of my writings. If you will look through my reviews, you will find that I (1) reject religious fundamentalism, (2) equally reject anti-religious atheism, and (3) strongly endorse reflective ("modernized") forms of both belief and non-belief.Peterson's explanation of the development of the concept of God is insightful in the way that a sage on the mountain is insightful. Sounds deep, but not much evidence to back it up. For scientific accounts of the evolution of religion, I much prefer Haidt, Dennett, and Boyer. For fun but groundless theorizing, I think I'll stick to Feuerbach. And while I tend to share your dislike for postmodernism, Jordan Peterson understands it so little that I am embarrassed for him every time I hear him talk about it.
On a related note, I think that Peterson's antagonism to postmodernism is pretty ironic given how much Maps of Meaning reads like a postmodern text and how little regard he has for empirical fact. As a case in point, the claim that "there are many different kinds of truth" could easily have come right out of Foucault.
Fair enough. We’ll have to disagree. Good luck with your research. Sounds interesting.
You fail to mention he does talk about the trolls, the alt-right, and right wing provocateurs.
I read the book and found that you're right that it is narrow in scope, though I would instead say that it's focused. I disagree when you say that the author applies i-generation's problems to the rest of Americans. On the contrary, they state explicitly numerous times that these are issues that impact only i-gen. So, I believe that you're comprehension of the content isn't very good.On top of that I would say your other points are either straw-man arguments or are just plain false:
1) This book isn't about the metoo movement.
2) It's not about political engagement of youth.
3) I don't think people who are considered alt-right like Yiannopoulos et al were born after 1995, so this book isn't about them.
4) This book isn't about the "hippie" generation. It's about i-gen
5) And it's not about inequality.
This review and the comments above are yet another - unnecessary - proof that the academic world is drowning in leftism. This is a great danger for kids going to 80% of US universities: forget the sporadic free speech issues, these places - the classrooms! - are ideological weapons of mass destruction. American intellectuals seem to give for granted that if you are intelligent, you can’t possibly be conservative. How deranged is that? “Good intentions and BAD ideas” is a perfect summary of left-leaning thinking today. Think, lefties. Think!
What an odd review. Imagine if someone reviewed "The Color of Money", giving it two stars and saying, "Sure it covers a lot of problems and I agree those are bad things but the real problem as I see it is instead X, why didn't Baradaran discuss that more?" Is Mehrsa's argument that inequality is what's causing the breakdown in discourse on elite college campuses? I don't think so, I think she's saying the direction of the elite institutions driving the direction of our institutions in the future is not a problem worthy of a book-length treatment. I hope I'm wrong.I appreciated that Mehrsa flatly agreed the problem happening on *some* campuses is inexcusable. That makes the next part of the conversation much easier going forward. I'm encouraged by the fact that many people in academia say these reports are alien to their own experiences. That's such a good thing. My experience in having political conversations in the last couple of years is very well described by the 3 great untruths described here.
People are apparently too busy to engage with each other's arguments on the merits. "You're so wrong it's not even worth trying" is a common refrain in political discussion today, that's too bad. I do appreciate that she read the book and was generous enough to leave a review of it however.
This review is a great example of the rider on the elephant
For a broad-minded and very powerful book, everyone should read Jonathan Haidt’s “The righteous mind”.
1. All bad. 2. Strong regress to leftism and an illustration of the authors' thesis on political polarization. I take it she's protesting in favor of the evil cause du jour of the left.
3. Degeneracy
4. Bloom wasn't speaking about all of the generation any more than Haidt is, but speaking of the average, or, better, the gestalt of it. In this both books are essentially correct.
5. And here's an example of thinking with feelings. Refer to your first paragraph.
Yeah, there's nothing to agree with in 'The New Jim Crow', so like any Ta-Nehisi Coates book, it's good for disagreeing with, though not necessarily good for challenging your thinking - the two concepts are distinct but not orthogonal.To really challenge your thinking, read Rushton 1994 or Levin 1997.
Lol @ Darius.Haidt thinks any strongly-held opinion is tantamount to mental illness, and Jordan Peterson is quite simply the prophet.
So basically the authors are right but you don't like criticism. :)
A fallacy in the original post and many comments after is the use of "what-about-ism" as an argument for invalidating the original message. The fact that this book does not address trolls or the alt-right is not a bad thing, nor does it mean that the authors don't view them as a problem. The authors just chose to address a very specific problem in a very specific part of society, and they don't in any way claim otherwise (if you read the book). They describe general trends that most young americans face (safetyism) that can result in extreme but rare behavior (protests, witch hunts). This is similar to suicide, homicide, genocide, and terrorism; all of which can have books entirely dedicated to them, despite being rare
The authors went to great lengths to clarify their definition of social justice. By my understanding, they look at it as equality of opportunity, which they wholeheartedly encouraged.
It's not just on college campuses. I have witnessed the same kind of behavior at a "social justice" meeting I went to about mass incarceration. It was vile. People were exactly how Haidt and Lukianoff describe them. There was anti-white sentiment, everything was processed through the lens of race, people were triggered, people were calling for people to be fired for relatively minor things, they defended abhorrent behavior as long as it was someone who could claim to be part of a minority group doing it, they were quick to demonize, they were quick to become outraged, etc. etc. I think that the Mehrsa who wrote the OP is clearly biased in that she is trying to defend the left and oppose the right. I'm not right wing or a "classical liberal," by the way. I will probably vote democrat next time I vote just to pick a "lesser evil" (even though I don't believe in evil). Anyway, I think Mehrsa will be shown to be wrong as the problem is larger than she is claiming based on my experience and the experience of people I know who attend universities (not just the elite ones).
Sometimes reviewers get it wrong. Look what's happening on college campuses and in the world and tell me these authors got it wrong.
I think you made some valid points here. I'm about halfway through the book, and while I am enjoying (a.k.a. largely agreeing with) it, I feel the authors may have themselves fallen prey to a degree of the distorted thinking they correctly identify as so problematic.In their defense, and to a point, even supporting their thesis, I think it's become incredibly hard to gauge the appropriate context for social issues within the broader sphere of universal social media.
You're completely right in terms of how objectively small a portion of the population actually embraces the horrible ideas highlighted in this book; however I think the maxim that's so often cited is that "The Country is Divided", and this view is promoted and reinforced by social media, most notably facebook.
Facebook offers weaponized confirmation bias 24/7; at least so far, we've seen nothing that offers any kind of balancing perspective for its users...something promoting a sort of statistically/empirically driven, "what this really might mean" perspective. "Everyone's talking about" quickly gets conflated with "everyone's experiencing" and confusion can only follow.
As a teacher of those kids, they are spot on. But I don't think it is narrow minded. It is a book about education. And it is a self help book. This is not at all like Closing of the American Mind (which I enjoyed in the 80s). I found this book a good antidote to thinking that "woke" kids are just weird leftist hippie want to be's. It gave me a lot of sympathy for social justice warriors.
Quote: "My generation (I'm 40) thought it was cool not to care about anything. My middle school kid stays up after school making protest signs and watching political debates. Is that not progress?"I am of a similar age and I completely agree. I was frequently absolutely ashamed of other kids my age growing up. Your middle schooler sounds like a very cool, aware person--rock on! You should be proud!
I've just started this book and so far - it sounds a lot like what I see around me. UC Berkeley students and other agitators rioted and caused property damage to prevent the founder of Breitbart senior editor from speaking. There's constant calling out here -- about microaggressions and triggering and people get shamed before they are even engaged in a discussion and it becomes a huge dogpile.
Thanks for the review, but unfortunately you're mistaken. This isn't an issue affecting yuppie, white children. It's an issue that's largely affecting visual minority children socialised to see so themselves as perpetual victims of Racism, Classism, Sexism and beyond.
The researchers zero on on Left leaning students because the overwhelming majority of students and colleges are at the tail end of the Left! They are the students that are both affected by this culture and perpetuating the culture.
Right wing trolls make up a tiny proportion of the overall and already tiny right leaning student body. People on the right tend to be pro-free speech and most certainly aren't the ones participating in de-platforming.
Frankly, your review just seems to be coming from a place of frustration because the data and this books representation of the actual evidence, don't align with your world-view and politics.
Your personal anecdotal evidence and beliefs don't help us, or you see a clearer more objective picture of the landscape.
It mound sound harsh, but the truth is facts don't care about your feelings.
Vladimir wrote: "largely affecting visual minority children socialised to see so themselves as perpetual victims of Racism, Classism, Sexism and beyond. "Curious - as a white male - is it your position that there is no racism, sexism or classism to be experienced and people are only imagining it? This sounds like a sweeping dismissal of all of those things.
I think we must have read different versions of the book or at least approached it with different mindsets. I saw the book as designed for everyone who thinks. I have practiced cognitive behavioral therapy for years helping people come to terms with their cognitive distortions and allowing their emotions to guide their decisions. I also agree with the authors' presentation of trends which lead us astray. I have been seeking ways to understand the caverns which decide us. I think this book helps us understand how we got this way and what we can do about it.
"My generation (I'm 40) thought it was cool not to care about anything. My middle school kid stays up after school making protest signs and watching political debates. Is that not progress?"No.
I wouldn’t call the book “narrow,” because even though it does address a small subset of our country’s population, it’s the small subset that will probably end up controlling most big decisions and institutions, of the trend of wealth controlling everything continues. The authors also spend quite a bit of time discussing internet trolls and provocation by the alt right, so I wouldn’t say that perspective was “left out.”
I agree with you that there’s a lot to love about “iGen” though, and this narrative wasn’t as balanced as it could have been!
A couple of my favorite "issue books" are "The New Jim Crow" and "Just Mercy,:" but I am not sure how reading books like these instead of the one you critique is the answer. You are saying avoid this book. What about both and? I have always encouraged my kids, both Democrats,, to read books they might disagree with. . It sharpens their thinking. This was certainly my experience as as student at Berkeley back in the day.