The Coddling of the American Mind
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure is a 2018 book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. It is an expansion of a popular essay the two wrote for The Atlantic in 2015. Lukianoff and Haidt argue that overprotection is having a negative effect on university students and that the use of trigger warnings and safe spaces does more harm than good.
Authors
Jonathan Haidt
United States
English
September 4, 2018
352
Release[edit]
The book reached number eight on The New York Times hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list.[19] It spent four weeks on the list.[20]
Reception[edit]
Edward Luce of the Financial Times praised the book, saying the authors "do a great job of showing how 'safetyism' is cramping young minds."[21] Writing for The New York Times, Thomas Chatterton Williams praised the book's explanations and analysis of recent college campus trends as "compelling".[22] Historian Niall Ferguson and journalist Conor Friedersdorf also gave the book positive reviews.[23][24]
Writing for The Washington Post, Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, gave the book a mixed review. He questioned the book's assertion that students today are "disempowered because they've been convinced they are fragile," but said that the authors' "insights on the dangers of creating habits of 'moral dependency' are timely and important."[25] Moira Weigel, writing for The Guardian, criticized Lukianoff and Haidt for insisting that "the crises moving young people to action are all in their heads."[1]