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

Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think." ~Hanna Gray

I'm not sure how to begin this review other than to say it was both interesting and disturbing. Having read iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us, I was somewhat aware of what is taking place in universities across the US. The authors of "The Coddling of American Minds write a similar book but giving many more examples of the erosion of free speech on campuses. I'm flabbergasted! How can universities, the very places where freedom of speech was most protected, now be censoring both professors and students in order to not offend anyone? In order to not "harm" students with ideas? Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explain why this is taking place, how we have turned into a culture of fragility and over-protection. It is one thing to not allow hate speech, hateful and truly harmful ideas, as the authors are quick to point out, but quite another to suppress any view that might go against what students believe, in order to not "harm" them by exposing them to alternate points of view.

Why are universities firing professors for bringing up "hot" issues? Why are they banning controversial speakers? Why are they limiting what even the students can say? It all starts with over-parenting and treating children as fragile things that cannot withstand anything. Of course, this comes from a good place -- a good parent does not want their child to be hurt and wants to protect them from all harm. I'm not a parent but I can understand that. We don't want those we love to be hurt or suffer. However, we as society have gone too far, from "protecting" our children from peanuts and thus greatly increasing the number of children with deadly allergies to them, to protecting them from alternate views and conflicting ideas. We don't allow children to grow if we keep them from being exposed to things that challenge them. The authors say that children are not fragile, but anti-fragile. We need to protect them from serious harm of course, but by coddling them and treating even teens as young children, we are hurting their future prospects and making it more difficult for them to succeed in the adult world.

The authors cite numerous examples of this overprotection, both of young children and extending onto college campuses. They list 3 Untruths that now often govern how children are raised and are causing them to be more anxious and depressed than previous generations:

•The Untruth of Fragility: "What doesn't kill you makes you weaker."

•The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: "Always trust your feelings."

•The Untruth of Us Versus Them: "Life is a battle between good people and evil people."


The 3 criteria for an idea to be classified as an Untruth are:

•"It contradicts ancient wisdom."

•"It contradicts modern psychological research on well-being."

•It harms the individuals and communities who embrace it."


I will not expand on these in my review but highly recommend the book for any who is interested. I would like to say though, that I do not wholly agree with the first criteria, that of something being untrue in part because it contradicts ancient wisdom. I would argue that just because something has always been held "true" doesn't mean it is. In fact, just because something has always been held true is reason in itself to challenge the assumption. Society would make no progress if "truths' were never questioned, and each generation merely accepted what the prior ones said. We would still be burning people at the stake, still be stoning people to death for adultery, still be cutting off hands for the theft of bread, still be enslaving people (well, we are in a way, if you look at the prison industry in the US, but that's for another discussion), still be locking up gay people. Sometimes we NEED to contradict ancient wisdom.

That said, I mostly agree with this book and the assertions put forth by the authors. I think there is a fine line at times between hate speech and free speech and I'm still not sure where the line needs to be drawn. Drawn it must be; people must be protected from those who would harm them and incite violence against them. However, people do not need to be protected from merely hearing differing points of view, ie a young person who is taught creationism at home is not emotionally harmed by learning about evolution in a school setting (where facts are supposed to be taught).

As was pointed out to me by a reader of my original (flawed and perhaps somewhat racist or at least racially insensitive) review, "There is a very important distinction between thinking differently and holding a position that is objectively wrong". This is true and this is where the line needs to be drawn. And it needs to be drawn by those at whom hateful and false ideologies are directed and who are thus affected by, not by those who are not. The majority cannot dictate what is allowed to be taken as harmful to the minority.

Objectively false ideas do not need to be entertained, nor should they be.

When it comes to mere differences of opinion though, I love the following advice from the book:

"Argue as if you're right, but listen as if you're wrong (and be willing to change your mind). Make the most respectful interpretation of the other person's perspective. Acknowledge where you agree with your critics and what you've learned from them."