The Coddling of the American Mind

An explanation of today's college kids and why they are so unable to withstand the Left. Mostly common sensical with a good bunch of documented cases.

A very balanced take on the political climate surrounding universities

I have a lot of thoughts on this book and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I think of it.

The authors do a decent job analyzing both sides of the political divide in modern America (although, I think one could say that things are more right-leaning, since the majority of the book discusses college campuses and the left opposing the right).

In short, I agree with the major points of this book. I do think that we need to disagree with the three “Great Untruths” (which are as follows:
1. The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn't kill you makes you weaker.2. The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings.3. The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life is a battle between good people and evil people.)
I find the book's main concept to be mostly agreeable. I can see their side and see how safetyism is a component in modern life, however, the book seemed to be speaking in a completely idealistic version of our society.. yes, idealistically, we could listen and debate one another about certain topics and have civil discourse about topics, yet, what does that matter if we continue to pass laws and have policies that make life difficult for individuals.

Additionally, from the other perspective, which the authors don't mention or consider, it could be argued that when students shut down or get a speaker disinvited to speak, the students are simply pushing back against the opinions of the person, and, if we are keeping an open-mind on both sides of the divide, people should listen to them just as much as they should that speaker.

I enjoyed many of the concepts of this book, however, I think it is flawed. The arguments seem to stem from the disagreement of our current and then found psychological and philosophical reasoning that backed up the disagreement without mentioned, considering, or refuting the other side of the argument. Why is it that the “liberal college students and faculty members” need to allow for a diverse range of speakers (I know that the authors aren't totally advocating for this, however, the majority of discussion on this point in the book was focused primarily on liberal or left-leaning individuals and topics), yet it's never talked about that right-leaning individuals (church-goers, politicians, townspeople, etc.) need to listen and learn about other ways of life and have an open-mind on things–again, I know the authors did criticize and discuss both sides, however, the majority of their arguments and anecdotes were focused on universities and left-leaning individuals.

Again, I am still trying to figure out what I think of this book.

The authors use several outlying anecdotes as if those represent what is happening on all college campuses. They lack data for the first half of the book, purely anecdotes. And even when they do use data in the second half or so, they often say things like “maybe” and “probably” when stating causality.

They pretty much only talk about problems on the left even though they claim the problems are on both sides. There is one chapter where they discuss extremism on the right, but it is only a small portion of the overall book.

The solutions they posit are almost all reasonable, but there is no proof that they will actually solve the “problems” they identify.

It is also clear that they don't fully understand some of the things they discuss like microaggresions and anti-racism because they make many misleading or completely untrue statements.

Finally the authors decry both fragility and catastrophizing when they do those things many times throughout the book. They come across as fragile white men who don't want anything to change. They also constantly talk about all the possible worst case scenarios about what might happen if the things continue the way they see it going.

Overall it is written in a way that is easy to read, but their logic and data are too weak and obviously biased to make the book any good.

The authors make their points so clearly. It isolated and characterized a lot of the nagging pains I have when listening to some of the people I meet in daily life. Specifically it calls the recent pc leftist culture out for being — in a select few instances — hypocritical (eg. violent power-grabs), counterproductive (eg. over-parenting), and immature (eg. safe spaces).

Haidt read the audiobook and did a fantastic job. The book got repetitive at times, so I was able to speed some parts up and know when to tune back in because the reading voice is so clear even at high speeds.

The tone of the book was studiously non-melodramatic. This tone itself spoke to me, it said, “don't try to argue against my points with fallacious over-emotional self-protectiveness.” Aka “I am the fatherly voice of reason; and your bedtime is not up for discussion so stop whining.”

Compared to the other Haidt book I read (twice) about cultural moral axes (called The Righteous Mind), this one was less mind-blowing. I recommend folks read that one first (or instead), though this was a great book too.