Coddling of the American Mind

Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff's book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, presents an uncomfortable idea that our current parenting and educating techniques are hurting our youth. They present three ideas that as the core of this theory:

• Young people are antifragile- our helicopter parenting results in children who are not able to deal with challenges and believe themselves to be vulnerable and thus require more protections. The authors site this move in the adults towards safetyism is making children more vulnerable and less able to handle the ups and downs of the real world. They recommend that we prepare children for the road rather than smooth the road for the children. They encourage free range parenting where children are taught the skills to handle problems and free play rather than regulated play.
• All people are prone to emotional reasoning and confirmation bias- We reason with our hearts and best believe those that agree with us. Why has "fake" news become so powerful? Because we have not taught the critical analysis of information. The political polarization is a symptom of both this and the next idea.
• All people are prone to dichotomous thinking and tribalism- We all believe in a black or white world. We are either right or wrong. No one wants to be wrong so we hang with people who will agree with us rather than those who challenge us to think more deeply.

 The authors discuss how colleges and universities that used to be centers for diverse thought now cater to closed mindedness. Speakers are censored. Students learn that people who disagree with them are promoting violence against them and thus should be stopped from speaking. The authors strongly oppose colleges and universities from preventing controversial speakers present. Free speech should allow the discussion of diverse viewpoints and the freedom to agree with whichever point is best defended. No, we are not talking about promoting white supremacy through violence toward others. But the freedom to express potentially disagreeable ideas. Our students need to be seen as strong enough to handle unpleasant speech and violence cannot be seen to be merely saying hurtful things. They argue for teaching discourse, rhetoric and critical thinking so that people can identify their own values rather than merely accepting those presented to them.

If we cannot debate the merits of an idea with integrity, we cannot call ourselves a civilized and thoughtful society. We need to put down our devices, talk to one another and explore the universe both physically and intellectually so that we can grow. Our children need this freedom as well.