Why Should You Read The Coddling of The American Mind?

The Coddling of The American Mind is about ideologies in universities that are harming students and damaging their prospects of creating fulfilling lives. The book’s subtitle encapsulates the content in the book:  “How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure”. But overprotection is only one of the larger trends that we call problems of progress, referring to bad consequences produced by good social changes. 

This book explores the 3 great untruths that seem to have spread in America: 

• The Untruth of Fragility
• The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning
• The Untruth of “Us vs Them”

Something that is untrue usually contradicts ancient wisdom, refutes modern psychological research on well-being, and even harms the individuals and communities who embrace it. 

Combined with the policies and political movements that draw on them, these great untruths are causing problems for young people, universities, and liberal democracies. As a result, problems like teen anxiety, depression, and suicide rates have risen sharply over the last few years.

Three bad ideas 

In 2009, Jonathan Haidt’s son had his first day at preschool in Charlottesville. But before he took his first step in, the parents had to attend a mandatory orientation session where the teacher explained the rules and procedures. Judging by the time spent on discussion, the most important rule was “no nuts”. There was an absolute prohibition on bringing anything containing nuts into the building because of the risk to children with peanut allergies. No legumes, peanuts, or peanut butter allowed. In addition, the school also banned anything produced in a factory that processes nuts, adding more snacks to the list. 

As the list of prohibited substances grew, Haidt asked the question to the other parents, “Does anyone here have a child with any kind of nut allergy?”. Haidt thought that being aware of the kids’ actual allergies will avoid the risk more effectively. But if there was no kid in the class with an allergy, then maybe they could’ve lightened up a bit. Jon’s question annoyed the teacher who ignored the suggestion. 

Peanut allergies were rare among children up until the mid-1990s. One study found out that 4 out of 1,000 children under 8 years old had an allergy; but by 2008, the number had tripled to 14 out of 1,000. Nobody knew why American children were suddenly more allergic to peanuts. 

The logical and compassionate response to that rise was obvious. Kids were vulnerable, so protect them from peanuts and anything that has been in contact with any kind of nuts. Why not? What is the harm?

It was later discovered that peanut allergies were surging precisely because parents and teachers had started protecting children from exposure to peanuts back in the 1990s. The LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) studied over 640 infants and the results were stunning. Among the children who were protected, 17% had developed a peanut allergy. Meanwhile, in the group that had deliberately been exposed to peanut products, only 3% had developed an allergy. 

The case study makes perfect sense. The immune system is a miracle of evolutionary engineering. It can’t anticipate all the pathogens and parasites a child will encounter, so it is designed to learn rapidly from early experience. The immune system is a complex adaptive system that is dynamic. It requires exposure to a range of foods, bacteria, and even parasitic worms in order to develop its ability to mount an immune response to real threats while ignoring non-threats. 

Vaccination uses the same logic. Childhood vaccinations prevent illnesses by exposing children to threats in small doses, and it gives the children’s immune systems the opportunity to learn and protect the body. Development psychologist, Alison Gopnik, explains this notion succinctly. Children don’t get exposed to the microbes they once did because of excessive hygiene and antibiotics and too little outdoor time. This may lead them to develop immune systems that overreact to substances that aren’t actually threatening, causing allergies. In the same way, by shielding children from every possible risk, we may lead them to react with exaggerated fear to situations that aren’t risky at all and isolate them from adult skills that they will one day have to master. 

Teaching kids that failures, insults, and painful experiences will do lasting damage is harmful in and of itself. Human beings need stressors in the form of physical and mental challenges, or otherwise, we will deteriorate.  

•  The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker 

In Antifragile, Nassim Taleb explains how systems and people can survive the inevitable black swans of life. He asks us to look beyond resilience and recognize that some things are antifragile. Many of the important systems in our economic and political life are like our immune systems.  Systems that are antifragile become rigid, weak, and inefficient when nothing pushes them to respond vigorously. In fact, they require stressors and challenges in order to learn, adapt, and grow. 

The foolishness of overprotection becomes apparent as soon as you understand the concept of antifragility. There’s even an old saying that illustrates that: Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. But these days, we’re doing the opposite. We’re trying to clear anything that might upset children, not realizing that in doing so, we’re repeating the peanut allergy mistake. 

• The untruth of emotional reasoning: always trust your feelings 

 A prime example of how some professors encourage mental habits that are similar to cognitive distortions is their promotion of microaggressions. Popularized by Derald Wing Sue, a professor at Columbia, microaggressions were defined as brief and commonplace verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities. Whether intentional or unintentional, it communicates hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults towards people of colour. 

But when unintentional slurs are included, it’s dependent on the listener’s interpretation. The original essay included examples that may have misconstruction: 

• A Caucasian asking to teach words about an Asian’s “native language”= “you are a foreigner” 
• A white person saying, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” = an implicit statement that people of colour are disadvantaged because of their race 
• “America is a melting pot” = an injunction to “assimilate to the dominant culture” 

You could interpret these statements as tiny acts of aggression, but there are other ways to interpret these statements too. Should we then teach students to interpret these kinds of things as an act of aggression? Is the student better off embracing that feeling and labelling himself a victim of a microaggression? Or is he better off asking himself if a more charitable interpretation might be warranted by the facts? 

The potential for offence taking is almost unlimited. How should you prepare these students to engage with one another in the most productive and beneficial way? Would you give them a day of microaggression training and encourage them to report them when they see one? 

The microaggression concept reveals a crucial moral change — the shift from ‘intent’ to ‘impact’. In the past, we held people morally responsible for acts they intended to commit. However, some activists say that bigotry is only about impact; the intent is not necessary. If a member of an identity group feels offended or oppressed by the action of another person, then according to the impact versus intent paradigm, the other person is guilty of an act of bigotry. As explained in an essay at everydayfeminist.com, “In the end, Does the intent of our action really matter if our actions have the impact of furthering the marginalisation or oppression of those around us?”. 

If you preach that intention doesn’t matter, you are telling students that whoever says or does the things they find offensive as ‘aggressors’. You are fostering feelings of victimization, anger, and hopelessness in your students. 

• The Untruth of “Us vs Them”: life is a battle between good and evil people 

A protest always implies a claim of injustice. When a group does it together, they jointly construct a narrative about what is wrong, who to blame, and how to make things right. 

A student named Olivia — with parents who emigrated from Mexico to California — wrote an essay in a student publication about her feelings of marginalization and exclusion. She noticed that Latinos were better represented in blue-collar staff, like janitors and gardeners, than administrative and professional staff. The realisation was painful and she felt like she had been admitted to fill a racial quota. 

Mary Spellman, the Dean of Students at CMC sent a private email two days later: 

 “Olivia. Thank you for writing and sharing this article. We have a lot to do as a college and community. Would you be willing to talk with me sometime about this issue? They are important to me and the staff, and we are working on how we can better serve students, especially those who don’t fit our mould…. I’d love to talk to you more.” 

What do you think of this email? Cruel? Or Kind? 

If a student of Olivia’s position was in the habit of questioning their first reaction, looking for evidence, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, that student might get past her initial flash of emotion and vail herself. That isn’t what happened. Instead, Olivia posted Spellman’s email on her Facebook page, along with the comment “I just don’t fit that wonderful CMC mould. Feel free to share!” 

Her friends did share the email and the campus erupted in protest. Two students went on a hunger strike, vowing that they would not eat until Spellman was gone. The university did not fire Spellman, but Spellman resigned in the face of escalating anger and national news coverage. 

A basic principle of moral psychology is that “morality binds and blinds”, which is a useful trick for a group gearing up for a battle between “us” and “them”. In tribal mode, we go to blind arguments and information that challenge our team’s narrative. Any kind of intergroup conflict — real or perceived — turns the tribalism up. 

So what happens to a community such as a college when distinctions between groups are not trivial and arbitrary? And when they are emphasized rather than downplayed? What happens when you train students to see others and themselves, as members of distinct groups defined by race, gender, and other socially significant factors? 

Two kinds of identity politics 

 Identity politics is a contentious term, but its meaning is simple. According to Jonathan Rauch, “Political mobilisation organised around group characteristics such as race, gender, and sexuality, as opposed to party, ideology, or financial interest.” Politics is all about groups forming coalitions to achieve their goals. If cattle ranches, wine enthusiasts, or libertarians banding together to promote their interests is normal politics,  then women, African Americans, or gay people banding together is normal politics too. 

But how identity is mobilised makes an enormous difference. For the group’s odds of success, for the welfare of the people who join the movement and for the country.

• Common-humanity identity politics 

 Dr Martin Luther King epitomised this notion when he was trying to fix a gaping wound. Part of King’s genius was that he appealed to the shared morals and identities of Americans by using the unifying languages of religion and patriotism. He repeatedly used the metaphor of family, referring to people of all races and religions as brothers and sisters. A variant of this ennobling common humanity approach played a major role in the movement that won marriage equality for gay people.

• Common-enemy identity politics 

 The common humanity form of identity politics can be found on many college campuses. But recently, a new form has arisen; It is to mobilize multiple groups against a common enemy. Identifying a common enemy is an effective way to enlarge and motivate your tribe. This is a left and right phenomena, but recently big on the left. 

For example, a Latino student in December 2017 wrote an essay titled Your DNA Is AN Abomination. The student argued that whiteness is a construct used to perpetuate a system of racist power: 

Through a constant ideological struggle in which we aim to deconstruct whiteness and everything attached to it, we will win. White death will mean liberation for all… Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn’t exist. You are both the dominant apparatus of the planet and the void in which all other cultures upon meeting you die. 

The mainline of argumentation falls squarely in the large family of Marxist approaches to social and political analysis. That “groups struggle for power”. Within this paradigm, when power is perceived to be held by one group over others, there is a moral polarity. The groups seen as powerful are bad, while the groups seen as oppressed are good. 

Wising up the American Mind 

Something is going awry on many college campuses, which is evident through the growth of call-out culture, the rise in efforts to disinvite or shut down speakers, and in changing norms about speech. The same goes for American teenagers, as we can see in the increasing statistics of depression, anxiety, and suicide. 

In summary, the new culture of safetyism and vindictive protectiveness is harmful to both students and universities. So what can we do to change course? 

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