#61: The Three Big Lies Poisoning Young Minds – Jonathan Haidt

This is a conversation with renowned moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt about his new book The Coddling of The American Mind, co-authored with Greg Lukianoff. Jonathan is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University, and the author of two acclaimed books, The Happiness Hypothesis and The Righteous Mind.

In an era of microaggressions, call-outs, and trigger warnings, Joe and Jonathan discuss what underpins the new culture of political correctness. They talk about how ‘Three Great Untruths’ have poisoned parenting norms and university campuses – as well as what caused them and what will fix them.

Show notes

Selected links

• Follow Jonathan: Website | Twitter
• The Coddling of The American Mind, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff
• The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt
• The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt
• The Claremont McKenna College protest video
• The Yale ‘Shrieking Girl’ video
• Antifragile, by Nassim Taleb
• ‘Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation’, paper by Timur Kuran and Cass Sunstein
• ‘How did America end up raising Generation Paranoia?’, The Washington Post article by Megan McArdle
• Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
• Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius (The Gregory Hays translation – Joe’s preferred one)
• The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus (scroll down after you click on link)
• ‘Hidden Tribes’ report
• ‘The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority’, by Nassim Taleb
• Moira Weigel’s The Guardian review of The Coddling of The American Mind

Topics discussed

• Where did the idea for The Coddling of The American Mind come from? [12:40]
• What are the three ‘Great Untruths’? [16:15]
• Are there any other Untruths that didn’t make the cut? [17:54]
• Which of the three Great Untruths is the most harmful? [18:16]
• What is ‘Antifragility’? [21:01]
• What is the evidence that play has diminished in American childhood? [26:00]
• What drove the media to exaggerate stories of child abduction since the 1980s? [29:00]
• Why should we not always trust our feelings – and how can the Stoics and Buddhists help us? [32:30]
• Has identity politics become like a religion? [42:42]
• How bad is the problem of fragile progressive activists – is it overblown? [49:16]
• Which universities or institutions should we look to as models for education? [54:54]