This page is a collection of notes, concepts, and sentences from the book "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
It starts with a short summary of the main ideas shared in the book. It also provides a table of contents if you want to jump across different sections based on the title of the chapter.
<aside> 💡 **There have been 3 bad ideas (Untruths) becoming widely adopted in society in the last couple of years: what doesn't kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; life is a battle between good and evil people. These Great Untruths have been manifesting with evidence on college campuses, where the 'call out culture' has been dominating many students' opinions. The roots of these bad ideas are to be found in six determining factors, among which paranoid parenting, the decline of free play in children, and the apparently widespread belief that one has to be 'safe' not just physically, but also emotionally. To acknowledge the situation and take responsibility as a society is probably the way forward towards reversing the virtuous cycle of bad ideas in action and become, overall, a wiser society in which healthy debate is fostered and children are raised with an awareness of the importance of letting them do their experiences and, sometimes, feel 'unsafe' in the short term.
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"This is a book about 3 Great Untruths that seem to have spread widely in recent years:
According to the authors, these Great Untruths are causing problems for young people, universities and liberal democracies. Teen anxiety, depression, and suicide rates have risen sharply in the last few years (to name some examples).
Dictionary definitions of 'coddle' emphasize the aspect of overprotection. For example, 'to treat with extreme or excessive care or kindness'. "The fault lies with adults and with institutional practices, hence our subtitle: - How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure-".
While comfort and physical safety are boons for humanity, they also bring some costs. "We adapt to our new and improved circumstances and then lower the bar for what we count as intolerable levels of discomfort and risk.