Sociology paper

Running head = REVIEWED WORK: THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND 1

REVIEWED WORK: THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND 2

Reviewed Work: The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

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REVIEWED WORK: THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND BY GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT

INTRODUCTION

The culture of “safetyism” has encroached into our colleges, coddling the students and making them so emotionally weak that they cannot face the real-life emotional frustrations after graduation. In their book, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explain how colleges have increased rules aimed at curtailing the perceived emotional offense on students and reducing microaggressions. These regulations require professors to start by “trigger warning” before covering a topic that may be emotionally offensive to the students. Some of these microaggressions are caused by very trivial cases thus force everyone in the campus to think twice before saying anything. By belaboring of political correctness of the word and emphasizing that every word used in the campus must be emotionally welcomed, a culture of emotional thinking, as opposed to critical thinking, is nurtured in the college students.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

Lukianoff and Haidt identified three main problems that encourage emotional thinking and demystify the prerequisite critical thinking among college students. The three great untruths, “What doesn't kill you makes you weaker; Always trust your feelings; and Life is a battle between good people and evil people,” are the major causes of cognitive distortions on college students (Lukianoff and Haidt 2018). These three untruths make the students fragile, encourage them to adopt emotional reasoning, and engrain in their psyche the idea that it is always them against the evil ones. Students are encouraged to report or aggressively react to any statement that emotionally unwelcome because, in colleges, “emotional reasoning is now accepted as evidence” (Lukianoff and Haidt 2018). This book is premised on the thesis that the idea of protecting youths from any harm on their feelings will weaken both their emotional and intellectual capabilities to an extent that these students will not able to involve in any conversation with trigger words, even in their future endeavors.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Greg Lukianoff is a graduate from Stanford Law School, and currently the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The main purpose of FIVE is to foster civil liberties in education within the United States. With the background in law and experience in civil liberties, Lukianoff has published various related articles in various newspapers and online periodicals. In this book, Lukianoff has brought forth his legal and civil right expertise. Jonathan Haidt holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. Haidt has written several books and articles relating to social psychology, moral theories, and social intuitionism. Haidt has contributed to this book by bringing for this expertise in social psychology and morality.

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

The book takes an approach of theoretical and .logical arguments coupled with real-life examples. The authors point out several trivial cases where professors or students have faced punishment for speaking out trigger words. They also provided a historiographical analysis of the rise of severe emotional and psychological problems. Lukianoff and Haidt pointed out on the 1980s when the rice in insecurity prompted the parents to start overprotecting their children. This has distorted their cognitive behavior thus making their feelings more fragile. The authors believe that to ensure critical thinking among the college students, they should be less strict on political correctness and emphasize on free speech.

STRENGTH

As an academic writing, this book’s major strength is the extensive use of real-life examples of the use of trigger words and how such acts have landed the “culprits” into trouble with the college administration. The authors use examples of books that students have complained to cause microaggresions due to their sensitive political, racial, or violent contents. The authors used examples which are trivial and would make the readers question the authenticity of such restrictions. For example, asking for the disbandment of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” because it talks about racial aggression, shows how unnecessary and destructive the coddling of college students can be.

WEAKNESS

The greatest weakness of this book is that it discourages students from speaking out. To Lukianoff and Haidt, a student who speaks out about a political insensitive statement is emotionally week and has a distorted cognitive behavior. The authors are encouraging the students to embrace the status quo and not to come up with ideas that will result in the betterment of their social and emotional wellbeing. The authors believe that students should not react to socially and politically sensitive issues such as reiterating a rape event without considering the fact that there can be a recovering rape victim in the class or using racially insensitive statements in a multiracial environment. If the authors’ proposal of only focusing on critical and logical thinking, without any consideration to the emotional impact, were to be adopted, college students and lecturers will have all the freedom to misuse such legislative gaps.

CONCLUSION

“The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt warns against the idea of protecting youths from any harm on their feelings will weaken both their emotional and intellectual capabilities to an extent that these students will not able to involve in any conversation with trigger words, even in their future endeavors. The authors believe that there should be less political correctness and more freedom of speech in colleges.

Reference List

Lukianoff, Greg, and Jonathan Haidt, 2018. The coddling of the American mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure. Penguin, New York.