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.

Book Review: The Adventure Zone

The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins

Written by Griffin, Clint, Justin, and Travis McElroy and Carey Pietsch

The Raccoon: Adapted to a graphic novel from the podcast of the same name, The Adventure Zone follows a portion of the writers’ Dungeons and Dragons campaign, in which a human fighter, a dwarf cleric, and an elf wizard embark on what appears to be a simple rescue mission. The heroes quickly themselves in over their heads in a conflict larger than they had ever imagined.

UNMASKED: As far as I know, The Adventure Zone is the only book of its kind to exist, making it difficult to evaluate. The story is an improvisation: while the characters’ quest and setting may have been planned and written in advance by Griffin, any authorial control stops there. The three main characters were each played by Clint, Justin, and Travis respectively, and the outcomes of their every action were created by the combined effort of what they intended to do and Griffin’s interpretation of one or more unpredictable dice rolls. As the four authors initially recorded their sessions for a podcast, The Adventure Zone is further complicated by virtue of it being a transcribed oral history; Pietsch was faced with the challenging tasks of determining which dialogue was crucial and ascribing concrete appearances to images that were different in every author and listener’s head. The fact that this book could be compiled together is in and of itself a miracle.

Despite and perhaps because of these constraints, The Adventure Zone still tells a strong story with distinct, well-rounded characters and entertaining action scenes. More importantly, the book is filled with humor, with each McElroy brother bringing his unique wit to every character choice and line of dialogue. While the book concludes at the start of a new chapter, a sequel is thankfully in the works, as readers will be left wanting more of these crazy heroes.

Strengths:

• Griffin as the Dungeon Master (DM) is integrated well, being featured in humorous moments such as trying to articulate the noise a certain creature makes or encouraging the party to not split up, and otherwise not appearing in the book.
• As a whole, the writers balance their existence as characters in a story and players of a game very effectively, maintaining an immersive but light-hearted experience.

Weaknesses:

• While newcomers to Dungeons and Dragons will still understand the story and appreciate its humor, the book is definitely tailored to readers who are familiar with the game’s mechanics and quirks.

Rating:

Ideal Setting: Read this when you want to journey far away, but not so far away that you would have to study Tolkien languages to get by.

Book Review: Do No Harm

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery

Written by Henry Marsh in 2016

The Raccoon: In Do No Harm, renowned neurosurgeon Henry Marsh takes a captivatingly honest look at his career, exploring the intricacies of the brain and how doctors steel themselves psychologically in the face of crises and catastrophic mistakes. Along the way, Marsh also reflects how a growing bureaucracy, advanced technology, and differences between cultures have come to affect how we approach saving a life.

UNMASKED: In Arrival, perhaps my all-time favorite film, humans encounter aliens who have a completely different understanding of time, which is reflected in their language. The “heptapods” write with circular ink emissions that form parts of multiple words simultaneously until the sentence circle is completely fleshed out, as opposed to our linear method of expressing one word at a time. The end result, however, is the same in both languages, and a complex message is still communicated with either structure.

Do No Harm flows in the language of Arrival. The book lacks an explicit narrative; the story moves back and forth in time and without thematic transition, and, following the first few chapters, which explain many introductory concepts and procedures in neurosurgery, the bulk of Do No Harm could be completely reordered with no consequence. As Marsh’s tone is that of a memoir, it was difficult to remind myself that the book is not meant to be a story, and for readers who prefer organization, this may come as a challenge.

By the end of Do No Harm, however, after a journey that wanders multiple threads and career periods simultaneously, Marsh brings the reader to a complete understanding of the intricacies of brain surgery and neuroscience. His descriptions of complex procedures and anatomy are easy to digest, yet never lose sight of how awe-inspiring the brain can be. Furthermore, his stories about operating in Ukraine, training students and being a student in training, and the range of monumental and minuscule struggles involved in working in a hospital, lend insight on so much more than what is just inside our heads.

Strengths:

• Marsh is clearly an expert on this subject; reading Do No Harm feels equivalent to taking a course in neurosurgery, and it is a perfect resource for anyone deciding whether this career path is right for him/her.
• The book is also a unique exploration of how humans, especially doctors, feel and act in the face of death and seemingly impossible choices.

Weaknesses:

• Marsh provides slightly less detail on a few aspects of his career that he personally found to be nuisances, but which are still interesting to the reader.

Rating: 19/20 aneurysm clips

Ideal Setting: Read this after your next operation, to remain blissfully unaware of your doctors’ fallibility and then to be reassured that they share your anger with how long you were kept waiting.

Book Review (Rucksack): Originals

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

Written by Adam Grant in in 2016

The Raccoon: Psychologist Adam Grant tackles the myths surrounding creativity and success, outlining the actual habits and mindsets that allow entrepreneurs and other “originals” to affect change.  Citing multiple studies and historical examples in each chapter, Originals teaches us how quantity creates quality, why procrastination is often helpful, and how younger siblings end up taking more risks. Through these revelations and numerous others, Grants changes how one views and interacts with the world.

UNMASKED: Fans of Malcolm Gladwell know what to expect: a book that latches onto an idea--in Grant’s case, what distinguishes creative people from conformists--and runs with it, finding every possible application of the concept in both science and society until the reader is thoroughly convinced that this one thing drives our entire world. Even if only one chapter of Originals resonates with you, your entire worldview may still change as a result.

Of course, one would be hard-pressed to not find something impactful in every chapter. Originals reads as a collection of smaller books, each containing an introductory anecdote, outline, and 3-4 subsections with their own research, stories, and key takeaways. While Grant includes an “Actions for Impact” guide at the very end, reiterating the book’s concepts as specific and concrete habits, the ideas are presented so effectively the first time that this section is largely unnecessary. That being said, it proves useful when one inevitably decides to revisit the work.

Strengths:

• Originals does not extrapolate; Grant only speaks to the ideas directly proven by the data.
• Every anecdote feels personal, as if one was speaking to each subject--Carmen Medina, Jackie Robinson, and Martin Luther King Jr., among others--at a bar. Along with supporting Grant’s theme, each story holds as much detail and meaning than a chapter from a biography would.
• The scope of Originals is just right. Grant does not pretend that a sprinkle of risk balancing and strategic nonconformity will reverse climate change or establish a colony on Mars, nor does he shy away from claiming that these tactics played a major role in the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the success of the Serbian Otpor! movement. In short, Originals is ambitious but not all-encompassing or dogmatic.

Although I have tried, as Grant suggested, to play my own devil’s advocate, I cannot find anything wrong with this book.

Rating: 20/20 younger-sibling comedians

Ideal Setting: Read this whenever you are worried that every good idea has already been taken. Originality is a mindset and a habit, and one that is needed now more than ever.

Book Review (Canon): Emergency Contact

Emergency Contact

Written by Mary H.K. Choi in 2018

The Raccoon: Choi’s debut novel brings us inside the heads of Penny, a college freshman and aspiring writer, and Sam, a college dropout saving up to become a filmmaker.  After Penny helps Sam through a panic attack, the two agree to become each other’s “emergency contact,” and their budding phone friendship sheds light on what it actually means to grow up.

UNMASKED: Emergency Contact is not the book that my generation deserves, but the one that it needs. The novel is a slow-burn romance which burns so slowly that there is time for actual plot and character development unrelated to Penny and Sam dating, but rather helping them reach the stage of their lives when they can have a real relationship. Moreover, the themes tackled in the novel are widely meaningful, rather than just meaning the world to the characters.

That being said, Emergency Contact is still a YA novel.  One cannot deny that the romance is predictable (including the additional male love interest), no character ever truly hits rock bottom, and one moment of honest communication completely solves a harsh, long-term problem.  What makes Choi’s work stand out is that she does not rely on these tropes to carry the story, and the novel stays compelling through a mix of humor and realistic, tough decisions.

Strengths:

• The menu of options Penny creates in her head whenever she faces a stressful situation are consistently hilarious.
• Penny and Sam are written very differently; it is possible to open to any random page and immediately know who is narrating.

Weaknesses:

• With references to current phenomenons such as SoulCycle and Hamilton, Emergency Contact will likely not age well.

Rating: 18/20 outfits

Ideal Setting: Read this whenever you begin to worry that you are addicted to your phone.  I mean, you probably still are, but that doesn’t mean you should completely reject it as a way to open up to people.

Book Review (Rucksack): Sapiens

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Written by Yuval Noah Harari in 2011

The Raccoon: As the title promises, Harari traces the history of homo sapiens from our earliest days alongside Neanderthals to developments in the next few decades that may change the definition of “human” again, all in under 500 pages.  Organized conceptually rather than chronologically, the book vastly increases one’s understanding of society as a whole. As long as you are willing to work through its dense pages, Sapiens is a must-read and undoubtedly the most useful and informative book of our time.

UNMASKED: The following quote is annoyingly long despite my removal of several internal sentences.  For better or worse, Harari cannot be quoted out of context; he deals in strong passages rather than stand-out phrases.  Moreover, I want to illustrate here how the author builds ideas, which he typically does over the course of several pages.

“...the human brain has been adapted to store and process only particular types of information. In order to survive, ancient hunter-gatherers had to remember the shapes, qualities and behaviour patterns of thousands of plant and animal species. …[they] also had to bear in mind the opinions and relations of several dozen band members…

“But when particularly complex societies began to appear… a completely new type of information became vital--numbers. Foragers were never obliged to handle large amounts of mathematical data… So human brains did not adapt to storing and processing numbers. Yet in order to maintain a large kingdom, mathematical data was vital. It was never enough to legislate laws and tell stories about guardian gods. One also had to collect taxes…

“This mental limitation severely constrained the size and complexity of human collectives. …For thousands of years after the Agricultural Revolution, human social networks remained relatively small and simple.

“The first to overcome the problem were the ancient Sumerians… some unknown Sumerian geniuses invented a system for storing and processing information outside their brains, one that was custom-built to handle large amounts of mathematical data…

“The data-processing system invented by the Sumerians is called ‘writing.’”

I remember learning in sixth grade that the early Sumerian civilization created the first writing system.  Yet, in all of the years following, I never thought to ask how or why this milestone was completed.  This, I believe, is what elevates Sapiens from a historical text to a mind-altering encyclopedia.  Harari truly begins from a blank slate, delineating every concept from the ground up. Even love and war are treated on par with the Internet; Harari outlines their evolution as emergent properties of human biology and practical necessity rather than assuming that they existed automatically.

To read Sapiens is to witness the rise of humanity in all its glory (and horror), to answer the questions you never knew to ask, and, finally, to see objectively where society is headed based on every cultural and demographic trend.  This is Us.

Strengths:

• Every claim is well-cited; the list of sources makes up the last eighth of the book.
• The author never suggests that Western, Eastern, or Native American civilization, nor any particular religion or ideology, is in any way better than its counterparts. Furthermore, he dives into the praises and criticisms of each one.
• It is impossible to quote or reference Sapiens and not sound smart.

While Harari occasionally appears biased against humans, for acts of cruelty to other humans, other animals, and the planet, I cannot find anything wrong with this book.

Rating: 20/20 self-made gods

Ideal Setting: Drop everything and read this right now.  Kickstart a new Cognitive Revolution in your mind. And a new Agricultural Revolution, just for fun.

CANDY BOX: Questions, Not Answers

An Open Letter to Yuval Noah Harari:

Some time ago I went with my six-year-old nephew Matan to hunt for Pokémon. As we walked down the street, Matan kept looking at his smartphone, which enabled him to spot Pokémon all around us. I didn’t see any Pokémon at all, because I didn’t carry a smartphone. Then we saw two others kids on the street who were hunting the same Pokémon, and we almost got into a fight with them. It struck me how similar the situation was to the conflict between Jews and Muslims about the holy city of Jerusalem. When you look at the objective reality of Jerusalem, all you see are stones and buildings. There is no holiness anywhere. But when you look through the medium of smartbooks (such as the Bible and the Qur’an), you see holy places and angels everywhere.  -You, in an article published on theguardian.com

David and Goliath

I find your writing deeply disturbing.  I have read a handful of your articles and am currently making my way through Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and your ideas have only become offensive the further I go along.

At least you acknowledge this in Sapiens, after dismissing the notion of human rights.

“It’s likely that more than a few readers squirmed in their chairs while reading the preceding paragraphs.”  

Clearly, you empathize with how--

“Most of us today are educated to react in such a way.”

Professor Harari, many contemporary authors demand a level of open-mindedness or even participation from their readers.  You, however, repeatedly reach beyond this, bluntly forcing your readers to question and reject ideas central to their identities if they want to successfully move forward in your work.  It is heartless, arrogant…

And yet there is a notable absence of something in your writing.  You do not attempt to rebuild the bridges you demolish in “the right way.”  What makes you more kind and constructive than any other author is that you refrain from preaching.  You delineate the mechanics of our world and then leave the readers with full agency for what to do with your information.

Contrast this with Neal Shusterman, whose new novel Thunderhead I am reading in tandem with Sapiens.  Although the post-work, AI-governed world of Thunderhead (coincidentally also the topic of your Pokemon article) tries to deal in shades of grey, Shusterman forces clear ethical messages into the plot: all human governments become corrupt, and anyone who enjoys killing is evil.

Why does this matter?  Thunderhead is certainly a more entertaining read--and less likely to incite violent arguments--than Sapiens.  Moreover, it is not necessarily damaging for a person to read only books that preach, as long as the lessons vary from author to author.

The issue is that authors who preach clearly want their work to influence others.  In fact, the aim of most writing, whether informational or fictional, is to communicate a message.  Unfortunately for these authors, Sapiens highlights an important truth: messages by themselves do not lead to change.  A human being will not change her beliefs unless she is first open to the idea that she may not know everything.

Professor Harari, your callous dismissal of all religion is invaluable because you open up your reader to the idea that her worldview is incomplete.  You are not forcing a message down her throat; you are forcing her to think.  As I read Sapiens, I regularly have to stop and decide whether I agree or disagree with your beliefs, because you simply state them as objective facts, present the evidence, and run with them.  I am required to come up with arguments just to make it through a chapter.

The intense level of participation and lack of preaching present in Sapiens make it one of the only books capable of creating both personal and societal change, no matter how hard Thunderhead and its companions may try.  Consequently, although your writing sickens me, I must thank you.  Your bold choices have the potential to create an educated and enlightened public, which is all any society really needs to fix its problems.

Sincerely,

Jonah