Book Review: 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

Written by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in 2018

The Raccoon: The Coddling of the American Mind explores a series of interrelated epidemics that have emerged on college campuses in the past few years: anxiety, depression, protests against controversial speakers and against free speech, trigger warnings, and socio-political witch hunts. Lukianoff and Haidt provide specific anecdotes and data to outline the extent of the issues and introduce what they believe to be the three Great Untruths that allow these problems to proliferate. The authors then analyze the Great Untruths from the perspective of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and discuss the six societal trends that helped spread these problematic mindsets. Finally, the authors outline paths to reform our society and reverse these trends on the personal, parental, educational, and governmental levels.

UNMASKED: Needless to say, this book is comprehensive. ‘Coddling’ is incredibly well-researched and elaborates fully on every idea proposed, as well as opposing views and data. Lukianoff and Haidt argue a major cause of today’s polarity and violence is the tendency of students, professors, liberals, and conservatives to attack the weakest point of others’ arguments; in doing so, they set a standard for themselves to handle their book’s claims and proposals without bias, and they deliver on this promise. By the time I reached the last page of ‘Coddling,’ every loose end and question I had come up with had been answered, and, if another reader remains unsatisfied, the authors include extensive additional material to corroborate and expand on their information.

As for the actual content of the authors’ argument, ‘Coddling’ is uniquely effective at uncovering every angle of the mental health and free speech crises. In particular, the authors discuss evidence that the quality and quantity of children’s free play has decreased in the last decade, and that this negatively impacts not just their development but also our understanding of conflict resolution, subtly changing the political dialogue; I was enthralled by how far these consequences can reach and how I could recognize some of that deficit in my own behavior. Due to this depth, although the book concentrates on college campuses, everyone can benefit from an understanding of the forces shaping Millennials and “iGen” as their future coworkers, fellow citizens, and voters.

Strengths:

• The book’s language is not as dense as my own descriptions. ‘Coddling’ is difficult to summarize only because it contains so much information, but the authors take care to outline their ideas and repeat the more abstract claims.
• ‘Coddling’ does not preach or speak of an ideal future until the very end, when the author’s tallest beliefs have secure foundations building to those same heights.

Weaknesses:

• The anecdote at the very beginning of ‘Coddling’ is so facetious and poorly-written that I nearly snapped my Kindle in half before even learning what the book was arguing for. The parable unfortunately cannot be skipped, as it introduces terminology that the authors use throughout the book, so I urge you to grit your teeth and push through it.

Rating: 19/20 forced resignations

Ideal Setting: Read this immediately--regardless of your position in life, some chapter will resonate with you--and then keep the appendix list of cognitive distortions and biases handy for daily use, both to catch yourself and to bother your friends and family.