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

by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

Book Overview

New York Times Bestseller - Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction - A New York Times Notable Book - Bloomberg Best Book of 2018 - One of Bill Gates's Top Five Books of All Time

"Their distinctive contribution to the higher-education debate is to meet safetyism on its own, psychological turf . . . Lukianoff and Haidt tell us that safetyism undermines the freedom...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735224919
• ISBN13: 9780735224919
• Release Date: August 2019
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Almost every page is worth the price of the book, but...

This book is well organized, beautifully written, fun, and easy to read. Almost every page is packed with insight from research and the authors' own experience. I urge everyone to read this book, especially anyone involved with education in any way. Having said that, chapter 11 about social justice is perplexing. Throughout the book, the authors discuss the role that students, parents, and school faculty and administration play in the theme of the book, coddling the minds of young people. This chapter hardly addresses the role of schools, particularly faculty and administration, in social justice on campuses. Specifically, I expected that it would cover the role of Critical Theories. It's not as if the authors are unaware, as they have a section earlier in the book named "Modern Marcuseanism" in which they briefly discuss Crenshaw and intersectionality, but they completely neglect all the other influential thinkers that followed in the Marcusean school, like Derrick Bell, Angela Davis, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paulo Freire, Richard Delgado, or even Ibram Kendi, all of which are highly relevant to the modern social justice movement. Indeed, in chapter 11 it's as if the authors are afraid to discuss relevant topics like DEI -- the chapter begins with five pages of discussion that is not on topic, before the authors seem to feel compelled to tell the readers that they are not Republicans, in a paragraph that, between the lines, reveals that they are well aware of the influence of illiberal beliefs in social justice. Although the chapter has some good discussion, the authors unfortunately deprived the readers of some relevant insights that they must have with respect to Critical Theories including its derivative movement, DEI, and its effect on social justice attitudes on campuses today. It is quite shocking and disappointing.

How two professors demonstrate why they are responsible for students with sloppy brains.

If one wants to know why so many colleges students suffer from "broken brain syndrome," this book gives the answer in two words: "College Professors." Replete with performative contradictions, authors Lukianoff and Haidt condemn certain literary devices and speech behaviors and offer alternative principles to encourage "civil" speech. But to make their argument, they employ the very behaviors they condemn and violate the very principles they purport to advocate. The authors appear to be entirely oblivious to their errors and contradictions, as they unwittingly build an "us v. them" environment that condones violence in an attempt to avoid reality. Relying on self invented realities that don't otherwise exist, these authors strap on a pair of blinders and boldly charge through an explanation of how everyone else (but them) has lost the ability to think critically. As college professors, they then ask the final question: "Where are college students learning all these bad thinking patterns?" This book gives the answer. This is an excellent book, but not for the reasons the authors intended – this book is an exposé of sloppy thinking, logical fallacies, performative contradictions, and willing blindness. But it does not expose these traits in the author's subjects (college students), it exposes these traits in those who are teaching the subjects – the professors themselves. This is an important book that should be mandatory reading in every college class taught by wise a instructor who can deconstruct the language of the authors to reveal the abject foolishness that exists in the teaching staff of Universities and Colleges today.

Very eye-opening and thought-provoking

I do love this book’s apolitical approach to dissecting how the American political climate has become so tense and polarized. I would recommend this to everyone who is baffled by the current political climate and wants to learn how they can help.