So we looked at the problem outlined by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff in their book, The Coddling of the American Mind. We saw that by embracing the three great untruths of fragility, emotional reasoning, and us-versus-them, outrage and hostility have spread across American academia. But before we can discuss these problems and the right response to them, we need to better understand where they came from.
The short answer to how we got here, is that people started to believe these untruths and that led to some radical behavior. But Haidt and Lukianoff want something a little deeper and a little more concrete. To that end, they offer these six trends as explanatory threads for understanding the current landscape:
- Rising political polarization and cross-party animosity
- Rising levels of teen anxiety and depression
- Changes in parenting practices
- Decline of free play
- Growth of campus bureaucracy
- Rising passion for justice in response to major national events combined with changing ideas about what justice requires
Before we get into these and what exactly they mean, I’ll pass on two caveats the authors include: first, not all of these are relevant for all those who exhibit the three untruths. Second, almost all of these root in some sort of good intention, an attempt to do something beneficial, but as Haidt and Lukianoff will show, they’ve each gone awry in some way.
The first explanatory thread is rising political polarization, a topic discussed before on this blog. The country is splitting in regards to politics in a way unlike anything else. And whether right or wrong, academia generally finds itself on the social and political left. So as professors and even students shift more leftward, universities are increasingly antagonized and viewed with skepticism from the right.
The next thread deals with Jean Twenge’s research on iGen, the newest generation. Though in the past, this generation has often been confused with Millennials, this group is distinct, growing up more slowly than Millennials, achieving fewer developmental milestones such as having a job, getting a driver’s license, drinking alcohol, going on a date, or having sex. And while for some that may seem like a good thing, in reality, this represents a major growth stunt. Additionally, this generation is facing unprecedented mental illness, including depression and anxiety. This is especially true for girls. While boys generally have a higher suicide rate (and it has increased in the last decade), the suicide rate for girls has doubled since 2007. This drastic increase is likely due to social media, social comparison making it especially acute for girls. The entry of iGen (born in 1995) onto to college campuses coincides with the rise in “safetyism” and the other problems discussed in this book (beginning in 2013).
Taking a small step even further back, many of these generational issues can be traced to constantly present parents and children’s lack of unsupervised time, a crucial developmental experience. Though the country has become safer than ever in recent years, unreasonable fear of abduction begun in the late 80s still plagues many parents. And the more parents fear for the safety of their children, even if unfoundedly, the more children believe they are in danger. Even for those parents who don’t give into this fear, laws have been put in place in many states that make it hard for parents to give their children any sort of independence. It is worth noting that this criticism doesn’t usually apply to working class families, though children in those environments are often exposed to other (more serious) forms of severe adversity.
Similarly, children not having time for free-play has negatively affected their social and even physical formation. Free-play is unstructured, organic time for children to play and must be had without the ends in mind. Free-play has declined due to fear (discussed above), test prep and emphasis on academics, and technology (social media and smartphones), yet it has remained a crucial skill for citizens of a democracy. The effectiveness and momentum of democracies depend on the “art of association,” the ability for citizens to work out differences without appeal to higher authority—something that is learned through free-play.
The next thread involves how universities’ attempts to protect themselves and protect their students through expanded bureaucracy has backfired. Haidt and Lukianoff explain how professors use to play a prominent role in the leadership of universities, but in recent decades, colleges have become increasingly corporatized by increasing their bureaucracy. Their model has been “better safe than sorry,” seeking to avoid liability, which has led to counterproductive methods for treating students, infringements on free-speech, and re-orienting students to view their environment as dangerous.
The last thread is founded on the reality that the current times are truly exceptional, particularly in regards to politics. In response to such dramatic events, there have been increased calls for justice. It is at this point that the book delves into a somewhat technical discussion of justice. Haidt explains that most people’s sense of justice is based on distributive justice and procedural justice. To understand distributive justice, most look to equity theory, that “things are perceived to be fair when the ratio of outcomes to inputs is equal for all participants.” The other half of justice is procedural justice, how justice decisions are being made and how people are treated along the way. When both of these are met, you have what is called proportional-procedural justice—removing barriers to equity of opportunity and ensure that everyone is treated with dignity. Yet, recent pleas for justice have increasingly called for equal outcome. And often, procedural fairness is ignored or circumvented to achieve this equality of outcome. The authors call this equal-outcome justice and, according to them, this defies most’s intuitive sense of justice. In this section they also discuss how correlation does not necessarily mean causation and how this is important to understanding outcome gaps.
Of all these factors, I think I’m most optimistic regarding the parenting ones. While the academic arms race is circular and may pose a continuing threat to child development, I think parents are becoming increasingly aware of the many developmental issues facing the nation’s youngest—they are becoming more aware of the effects of constant media and the need for greater independence. This course-correcting is in part because millennials making up a greater percentage of America’s parents, and they have first-hand experience with the problem.
On the flip side, I’m probably least optimistic regarding the political polarization problem. While I hear more people acknowledging the problem (that’s progress), the nation as a whole does seem to be moving back together. The antagonism only grows stronger on both sides.
The university bureaucracy thread is interesting because it in particular comes out of a desire to do good. Malcolm Gladwell (who may make an appearance in each of these posts despite having nothing to do with the book) has made an impassioned case for universities being protectors—check out his podcast, “Burden of Proof.” If schools have good intentions but are failing, what then is the right course of action? It is clear that Haidt and Lukianoff would prefer that professors retake a greater role in the leading of the universities, but is this really the best answer for everyone?
Still, I think the final thread is the trickiest one: opportunity-based justice or outcome-based justice? By the authors’ very language, it is apparent that proportional-procedural justice (what they advocate for) is not definitely the right approach. They don’t make an ethical argument that opportunity justice is better but rather argue from the perception of the majority. Most people, including those on the left, see opportunity-based justice as most fair. Is that enough to say it is right? This issue and others will have to be put off one more week for our final discussion of The Coddling of the American Mind.
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