Overview
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff examine three "Great Untruths" that have taken hold in American culture and trace rising anxiety among young people.
Haidt and Lukianoff expanded a 2015 Atlantic essay into a 2018 book arguing that a culture of 'safetyism' on American university campuses is harming students' resilience and undermining rational debate. The book draws on CBT, developmental psychology, and the authors' own reporting on specific campus controversies. It has been highly controversial, celebrated by some and criticised by others as overstating campus-specific concerns.
Key Ideas
Antifragility in humans
Children need exposure to challenges to develop properly.
Cognitive distortions gone mainstream
Catastrophizing has been institutionalized in some educational environments.
Social media amplifies harm
Smartphone-based social media correlates with increased teen anxiety and depression.
Who should read this
Readers concerned about the state of public discourse, particularly around free speech and intellectual resilience on campus. Also useful for parents thinking about how to raise children who can handle disagreement and discomfort. The CBT-style reframing chapters are usable regardless of whether you agree with the cultural diagnosis.
Who might skip it
Skip if you'll find the political framing too partisan. The book is pitched as bipartisan but its diagnosis is sharper on the left than the right, and readers on the left often find it uncharitable. Skip also if you want detailed campus reporting; the specific incidents are sampled, not comprehensively surveyed.
The verdict
A book whose argument I think is partly right and partly overstated. The CBT-derived claim — that protecting young people from difficult ideas can increase rather than decrease their distress — is well supported. The generalisation to American higher education as a whole is stronger than the evidence supports. Read with an awareness of its frame.
"Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child."
— Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind
If you liked this
The Anxious Generation, Haidt's later book on smartphones and mental health. For the opposite view, The Stolen Year by Anya Kamenetz.