Bringing this series to an end, let me first describe how Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff end their cultural commentary, The Coddling of the American Mind, offering several modes of moving forward, and then turn to discuss some of the issues and critiques of their work.
Haidt and Lukianoff’s last section is entitled, “Wising Up,” and they look at how we as a nation can begin to deal with some of these issues they’ve outlined in the book. They first address parenting practices and how change must start with the raising of children and this newest generation.
The greatest service we can offer our youth is by reversing the acceptance of the great untruths. They provide in their place three insights from ancient wisdom:
- “Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.”
- “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.”
- “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”
Together, these insights will overturn the untruths of fragility, always trusting your feelings, and viewing the world as a battle between us and them.
Beyond these, they offer other helpful areas for improvement regarding childrearing. They suggest that we help schools oppose the untruths (e.g., by discouraging the use of the word “safe” for anything besides physical safety), we limit and refine our children’s device time, and we support a new national norm: a year or two of service or work before college.
The authors next move into a chapter on building wiser universities. For them, this first involves entwining your university’s identity with freedom of inquiry (e.g., by supporting the Chicago Statement on academic freedom), reorienting college admissions of these principles (e.g., by picking students that have shown the ability to live independently or demonstrate viewpoint diversity), preparing students for productive disagreement and debate, and focusing on inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness.
In both of these chapters, on developing wiser children and wiser universities, Haidt and Lukianoff list several examples for each of their broader suggestions—I encourage you to check out the book if for nothing else but to check those out. Their final chapter, “Wiser Societies,” is a brief statement that in all of this, they do not wish to be catastrophizers but optimistic. To that end, they share a few more examples of ways they see things already improving.
I want to end the series by responding to some criticisms of The Coddling of the American Mind as well as offering some of my own. Over the previous few weeks, I brought up a few issues and pushed them off until this week, and I linked to Malcolm Gladwell’s panel interview with the Haidt, Lukianoff, and Lenore Skenazy—let’s build on those discussions for a healthy understanding of the current American milieu.
The first question is why should we care—or more specifically, why does the commotion caused by a small minority at elite universities or Twitter users matter? This complaint seems fair, especially given that the authors admit that only 5-8% of students are responsible for the problems described. But it’s important to point out a few things—first, it has always been the case that a smaller, inner circle can steer the will of a larger group. Similarly, it has always been the case that students and professors coming out of the elite schools have held a disproportionate amount of sway over public opinion. Yet even if these facts were not the case, the reality is that this vocal minority has proven its ability to strongarm those in authority to bend to its will, even if those in authority and the majority do not agree.
The next sort of criticism arises from the sentiment, why not? Why not be safe rather than sorry? Surely professors are able to teach around these sensitive issues (i.e., topics deserving of “trigger warnings”); there is almost certainly a way to discuss any academic subject without resorting to something viewed as taboo by one or more students. So why not just do that? This same reasoning could extend to the proliferation of college bureaucracy and “safetyism”—is it really such a bad thing to demand safety and caution, even if just means preventing that 1 in 1000 suicide or traumatic experience?
I’m generally sympathetic to this criticism—when all else is equal, why not err on the side of caution? The problem in the authors’ view is that it’s not always equal. Regarding teaching tactics, Haidt has said that rather than lose hours of their life responding to potential complaints and lawsuits, many teachers have chosen to avoid controversial topics altogether. This then disservices whole cohorts of students who never breach these sensitive though crucial subjects.
A final criticism is that many of these small issues that Haidt and Lukianoff have called us to rise above and in someways ignore are truly issues—they do matter. This can be seen in the Civil Rights movement of the 60s as well as the #MeToo movement of the last few years. Not everything that’s wrong can be traced to some sort of legal discrimination; often it is the consequence of pervasive prejudice and hidden feelings. Gladwell illuminates this further:
“What doesn’t kill you makes you [stronger].” Well, that’s sort of what we said to the people who were victimized by Harvey Weinstein. We said we to them, well you should get over it, you got some things out of it… The second thing, “Always trust your feelings—a bad idea.” Well, that was also what we did in the case of those women who were victimized… We told them their feelings didn’t matter, that the hurt that they carried in many cases years and years and years that had an extraordinary impact on their lives was something that was of no concern to the broader culture, and that Harvey Weinstein should continue to be able to make great movies because that’s a secondary thing. Three: “Life is a battle between good and evil people—a bad idea.” Harvey Weinstein is an evil person, by the way, and so are a lot of other people—Les Moonves is not a good person.
The immediate response to this is that Haidt and Lukianoff don’t disagree. They fully appreciate the gravity of less tangible evils, of microaggressions and unspoken cultures. However, their main point is in regards to intent. They place great moral importance on the intention of the actor. Did the offender intend to offend? In the case of Weinstein, a clear and resounding yes. Yet, Haidt would point out, a lot of what their book is dealing with is the response to outrage culture on the college campuses that are trying their hardest to be inclusive and forward-thinking—if there is anywhere we can be certain the intent to do wrong was not there, it’s on these campuses.
Still, I think the criticism holds. The injustice and suffering at the heart of these hidden sins is great enough to warrant cultural change. And while a progressive West Coast campus may not need to be as concerned, the nation must remain on guard. In other words, the warning given by Haidt and Lukianoff may not be as timely for much of the country. We are not totally beyond these insignificant faux pas.
As a whole, I very much enjoyed The Coddling of the American Mind and found its thesis perceptive. While at times the authors may overstate their case, that there is nothing to be concerned about, generally they recognize these caveats and present their argument with nuance. In as much as this book plays into the wider societal shift to recognize the problems of overbearing parenting and children forgoing free-play, I think its effects are already being felt. And in as much as The Coddling of the American Mind is a discerning description of academia and polarity, I can only hope its message is heard sooner rather than later.