The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff. This book is the result of their very popular article in The Atlantic magazine.
Jonathan is a social psychologist and professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business and he is focusing on the psychology of morality and moral emotions. Greg is an author and activist and is currently serving as President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Jonathan and Greg reveal how the following ideas became established after 2013: students’ feelings are always right, students should avoid pain and discomfort, and finally students should look for faults in others and not themselves.
They also address three specific untruths that are part of a larger philosophy in which students are certainly portrayed as fragile who must be protected and supervised by adults.
However, by setting aside all good intentions, they indicate untruths actually harm students by teaching them the opposite of the basic foundation of wisdom.
Admittedly, much of this is driven by social media. In fact, look at our recently finished mid term elections. In fact, candidates for public office actually campaigned stating students were identifying as cats and brining litter boxes to school.
