The Coddling of the American Mind

How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

By: Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff

Narrated by: Jonathan Haidt

Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Coddling of the America Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, read by Jonathan Haidt.

What doesn't kill you makes you weaker
Always trust your feelings
Life is a battle between good people and evil people

These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. And yet they have become increasingly woven into education, culminating in a stifling culture of "safetyism" that began on American college campuses and is spreading throughout academic institutions in the English-speaking world.

In this book, free speech campaigner Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt investigate six trends that caused the spread of these untruths, from the decline of unsupervised play to the corporatization of universities and the rise of new ideas about identity and justice.

Lukianoff and Haidt argue that well-intended but misguided attempts to protect young people can hamper their development, with devastating consequences for them, for the educational system and for democracy itself.

©2018 Jonathan Haidt & Greg Lukianoff (P)2018 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Excellent...their advice is sound...liberal parents, in particular, should read it" (Edward Luce)

"An important if disturbing book.... Lukianoff and Haidt tell a plausible story" (Niall Ferguson)

"A compelling and timely argument against attitudes and practises that, however well-intended, are damaging our universities, harming our children and leaving an entire generation intellectually and emotionally ill-prepared for an ever-more fraught and complex world. A brave and necessary work." (Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks)

Essential listening for every parent

This book is a life changer for your family. I’m so pleased I now have a concrete method to point to and data to back it up. Bring on anti fragilism!!

Conversation topics

Excellent delivery, engaging, well-researched, good ideas and great for conversation topics! I love it!

A great read for anyone not already a paid up SJW and hence potentially impervious to the contents.

As someone not understanding where all this safe spaces, micro aggressions and etc was coming from, this book is a definite eye opener.

Simply Perfect

This book should be required listening for teens. Performance was great and entertained me. The story the authors put forward is not divisive but one that seeks to unite and understand the reason we maybe in a culture crisis

A significant contribution to education and youth

My favourite book of 2018. Expertly written, widely relevant and imminently practical guidance for educators everywhere. Brilliant.

Nuanced and well researched

Intelligent examination of the current state of public discourse on and off campus, using CBT as a guide. Highly recommended.

Required reading for educators.

This book is balanced, well-researched and profound. It should be mandatory reading for educators of all persuasions.

Evidence free right winger blame ruins the theory

While I highly rate this author, at the time of writing he was still a leftist in the process of being mugged by reality.
He can recognise the causes of the problem but still clings desperately to the idea that leftist ideas are just being used for bad purposes rather than simply being the poison themselves. I think the author knows that all the relevant mechanisms in his theory are all tactics of the left but in order to hedge against the cancellation he knows this would invoke he regularly throws in some blame to the mythical 'rising right-wing' that is somehow everywhere without actually ever being anywhere. This is especially laughable because we are talking about university campuses.
Oh and the book even has some orange man bad with the author pushing the 'very fine people' lie because TDS sells or something.
The author's claim that the left and right have equally contributed to the decline of tolerance and the rise censorship has not aged well at all.
The irony that the author himself is now denounced as right wing by those of his former fellow travellers for the great crime of pointing out how they were contributing to the problem.

But, despite all that, this book does a reasonable job of explaining the rise of safetyism and how it causes the insanity and divisions gripping America.

Eye opening

Really enjoyed this book. Informs and makes you think. Everyone should read this! Haidt at his best.

Deeply Important & Highly Engaging

A master class in reasoning and responsible, compassionate analysis. Haidt and Lulianoff don't attack modern safetyism / PC culture, as many others have, rather they seek to explain its origins, critique its problems and suggestion multiple ways forward.