
Well-Meaning Bad Ideas Spoiling a Generation - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/70/variables/the-well_meaning-bad-ideas-spoiling-a-generation
======
dcre
For a counterpoint, read this scathing review by Moira Weigel of his book The
Coddling of the American Mind:

 _Like Trump, the authors romanticise a past before “identity” but get fuzzy
and impatient when history itself comes up. “Most of these schools once
excluded women and people of colour,” they reflect. “But does that mean that
women and people of colour should think of themselves as ‘colonised
populations’ today?” You could approach this question by looking at data on
racialised inequality in the US, access to universities, or gendered violence.
They don’t. They leave it as a rhetorical question for “common sense” to
answer.

Their narrow perception of history severely limits the explanations Lukianoff
and Haidt can offer for the real problems they identify. Can you understand
the “paranoia” middle-class parents have about college admissions without
considering how many of their children are now downwardly mobile? How are
college teachers supposed to confidently court controversy when so many of
them have zero security in jobs that barely pay above poverty wages?_

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/20/the-
coddling-o...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/20/the-coddling-of-
the-american-mind-review)

~~~
moosey
I have never been thoughtful enough to realize that the exclusions mentioned
(women, POC) throughout US history fit the definition of 'identity' or
'identity politics' so well. I'm always impressed when someone comes up with
such a rock solid example that points out _specific_ hypocrisies. Normally,
using hypocrisy to counter someones argument is a logical fallacy, but the
omissions present, and the effects of historical politically enforced
inequalities must be taken into account when discussing these issues
philosophically, especially when dealing with those who suggest that this is
only a contemporary issue.

This issue is only contemporary in the fact that we are still burning far too
much energy knocking down these doors in the first place, or trying to keep
them open, when it comes to women's rights, and the issues present in "The
Color of Law". I'm impressed.

~~~
stcredzero
_the omissions present, and the effects of historical politically enforced
inequalities must be taken into account_

I say this as a lifelong Democratic party member and voter. (Until recently.)
In 2019, inequality is propagated through differences in access to effective
educational environments. It's the Democratic party which opposes school
vouchers and funding increased choice in education for disadvantaged
neighborhoods. I know that such choice is an important issue for inner city
parents. I've been approached by an inner city mother asking how she could get
a coding education for her son.

As was mentioned in the Watergate scandal, always "follow the money." (Or
eyeballs. Or fame. Or votes.) Who benefits from disadvantaged neighborhoods?
Who benefits from encouraging large populations to refuse to assimilate into
their host society?

~~~
aidenn0
I'm opposed to school vouchers because I feel like the most likely outcome is
to move private schools from the 1% to the 10%, and as upper-middle class
parents abandon public schools, the political will to improve them will
decline.

I've seen cases where school choice was marginally improved, and what happened
was that the parents who had the largest combination of motivation and time
moved their kids, which caused what was left of the school to become
ghettoized, because those were the same parents who would volunteer in the
classroom, run the PTA, seek out donors for particular programs &c.

It's possible that larger changes would result in improvements even though
smaller changes result in serious problems, but I don't see larger changes
coming soon, and school voucher programs do not appear to be large enough to
accomplish this goal.

We may be stuck in a very pessimal middle ground right now; it seems likely
that significantly increasing school choice would improve things from where we
are, but also seems likely that the exact opposite approach of banning private
schools and assigning kids to public schools by lottery would also improve
things, as that could motivate the wealthy and connected to improve schools
that poor kids are equally likely to end up in.

~~~
ls612
Saying "not everyone can give their children better opportunities, so no one
can give their children better opportunities" is one of the crappiest
arguments against charter schools. It's pure and simple envy and a desire to
hurt those more fortunate.

~~~
aidenn0
Not wanting to subsidize a wealthy parent's child's tuition is a desire to
hurt them?

~~~
stcredzero
_Not wanting to subsidize a wealthy parent 's child's tuition is a desire to
hurt them?_

Not wanting to subsidize a poor parent's child's education just because a
wealthy parent's child might exploit it seems either spiteful, or desiring of
too much perfection in a complex system.

------
wccrawford
I read a fair bit of it, and then started skimming. It seems to me that they
think the 'bad idea' is how people are classified. They think that young
people are learning that the underdog is always good and the people in power
are always bad.

Instead, I think they hit on the real problem accidentally: Binary choices
aren't real. Life isn't just black and white, good and bad, wrong and right.
It's all grey area with almost _nothing_ falling into the very extremes.

Being unable to recognize that people are complex is what people today are
lacking, I think.

~~~
autokad
I think the article hit on that a lot

"To take 18-year-olds, and rather than try to turn that down and say “okay
hold on, don’t be so moralistic. Let’s try to give people a chance. Let’s
judge people as individuals.” That was the great achievement of the 20th
century—to make progress there. Instead in the 21st century to say, “okay
welcome to campus. Here are five or six dimensions; we’re going to teach you
to see men, maleness, masculinity as bad, everyone else is good. White is bad,
everyone else is good. Straight is bad, everyone else is good.” This is
Manicheism. This is ramping up our tendency to dualistic thinking."

~~~
jessaustin
Sure that's the rhetoric. Most people don't take that completely seriously,
however. (Lots of people make an exception when it benefits them to do so.)
Those who take this rhetoric seriously most of the time, can be mostly
avoided.

------
lgleason
At some point I really hope that data, science, facts and reason can prevail
over the craziness that has taken over university campuses and society as a
whole. Most reasonable people believe in the spirit of social justice etc.,
but the activists have turned it into a zero sum power grab that has very
little to do with the stated mission. The irony is that the level of hypocrisy
on that side is at the same levels as the religious person who commits all
sorts of horrible acts while fervently preaching against people who are
engaged those horrible acts.

~~~
psweber
I find is surprising that this stuff gets discussed on HN at all, and then I'm
more surprised that comments like your own aren't the highest voted.

Every reasonable person agrees that (lower case) social justice is our goal.
Let's use a scientific approach to get closer to making it a reality.

~~~
Joe-Z
One of the author's points is that it's a fallacy to believe people can be
explained / lead purely by rational thinking or facts. Emotions play a huge
part in human life and realities like this will always need to be taken into
consideration when deciding on policy.

I agree, proper research needs to be done and unbiased facts need to be found,
but thinking once you have this you will get everybody on board with your new
idea because it's "scientific" is unrealistic.

EDIT: to clarify, by "the author" I meant the author of the book, not the
Nautilus-article

~~~
psweber
Totally agree. The goal part isn't scientific. Our emotions lead us to decide
the kind of world we want to live in. I think there is more agreement there
than conventional and social media are leading us to believe.

------
skywhopper
It's not surprising when you see a book title that includes the word
"coddling" what the subject matter is going to end up being. But this
psychologist has a very carefully crafted approach to get you to think you
agree with most of what he says.

If you check out the answers, the subject of the interview always follows a
very specific pattern: given a question "what about <this "liberal" idea>?" He
starts by saying, "oh, it's a great insight, and based on something entirely
true", then he moves onto "but of course it gets oversimplified and
misapplied", and then he starts throwing out blatantly false strawmen like
"then you get to 'men are bad' and 'whites are bad'" as if that's just another
fact that proves that the original idea being discussed is actually a terrible
one. Of course, the fact is not true, but if it were true it _would_ be a bad
thing, but by that point in the answer you are primed to go along with his
until-that-point entirely reasonable rhetoric.

It's impressive, really, but it's ultimately the same toxic BS that the ideas
he's talking about are trying to fight against. This is just twisted logic to
provide a false path to help you conclude that the privileged are actually the
oppressed. It's disturbing, but alas it's nothing unique. This sort of
argument has been getting more and more refined very quickly. There's some
interesting psychology going on here, but it's not what this person wants you
to believe.

~~~
kryogen1c
>and then he starts throwing out blatantly false strawmen like "then you get
to 'men are bad' and 'whites are bad'"

These are sincerely held beliefs increasing in popularity around the world.
Take, for example, the evergreen state college controversy in the USA where
black people decided white people shouldnt come to college one day.
Governmental and corporate boards are increasingly forcefully including women
to achieve "equal" representation, regardless of measured abilities.

~~~
krapp
>Take, for example, the evergreen state college controversy in the USA where
black people decided white people shouldnt come to college one day.

That's not exactly what happened[0], and it wasn't because "black people"
believed "whites are bad."

And... attempting to extrapolate from a single data point into some global
anti-white belief is absurd to say the least. If anything, the global rise in
populism, anti-feminist and anti immigrant sentiment points to the opposite
trend.

>Governmental and corporate boards are increasingly forcefully including women
to achieve "equal" representation, regardless of measured abilities.

Attempting to correct systemic gender bias is not an expression of a belief
that "men are bad". One can argue about the effectiveness or fairness of such
programs but you're being purposely disingenuous as to their nature and
rationale.

[0][https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/22/evergreen-
sta...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/22/evergreen-state-
cancels-day-absence-set-series-protests-and-controversies)

~~~
kryogen1c
> >Take, for example,

> And... attempting to extrapolate from a single data point

Im not extrapolating from a single data point. I said "for example", and then
gave an example. Here are some more:
[https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/heres-the-full-
recordin...](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/heres-the-full-recording-of-
wilfrid-laurier-reprimanding-lindsay-shepherd-for-showing-a-jordan-peterson-
video) [https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-the-
Grievance/244753](https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-the-Grievance/244753)

> If anything, the global rise in populism, anti-feminist and anti immigrant
> sentiment points to the opposite trend.

I am not aware of any such sentiments. Have any data points?

> >Governmental and corporate boards are increasingly forcefully including
> women to achieve "equal" representation, regardless of measured abilities.

> Attempting to correct systemic gender bias is not an expression of a belief
> that "men are bad".

This is begging the question. I do not accept your premise that systemic
gender bias exists, and even if I did im sure we would disagree about the
extent that it does.

Gender differences exist individually and statistically across populations.
There is no reason gender outcomes should be equal in all, or even most,
cases. Your argument is that there exists a _global_ system disciriminating
against race and gender?

~~~
krapp
It's not _my_ premise. I can accept the latter can be reasonably argued, but
that systemic gender bias doesn't even exist?

>>If anything, the global rise in populism, anti-feminist and anti immigrant
sentiment points to the opposite trend.

>I am not aware of any such sentiments. Have any data points?

You want me to provide "data points" on populism, the alt-right, MRAs and neo-
reactionists, the xenophobia resulting from Syrian refugees into Europe and
Mexican immigrants into the US, the narrative of the rural white male feeling
isolated and alienated by a multicultural society which apparently led to
Trump's election, and that campaign's unprecedented support by white
nationalists?

No, I'm not wasting my time litigating that. If you've been completely unaware
of the existence of these social and political trends, you can do your own
research. At this point that's like asking someone to first prove the that the
earth is round before they'll even discuss transportation safety.

I can tell this is not going to lead anywhere constructive, so I'm bowing out.

------
twotwotwo
For the author's summary of the book's thesis, Ctrl-F "six intersecting or
interacting threads."

If you're trying to explain what's different about this generation, and you do
_not_ spend much time thinking about the rising costs of housing, higher
education, and healthcare and the erosion of job security and benefits that
many folks had in previous generations, you missed something. Weigel makes a
lot of good broader points but I feel like that's an _especially_ painful
omission given the empirical and social-science gloss Haidt and his co-author
are putting on their book. This is like explaining the past few generations in
the US without mentioning the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II...

Stories about how the younger generation is worse go back forever, and seem to
be easy sells for various reasons--the world's always changing in ways that
can be confusing and hard to keep up with, so a relatively tidy explanation
that says the older generation's right and the kids are full of silly ideas
can be comforting to some.

------
throwaway123x2
I really like his ideas, if not his writing (or speaking?) style.

I especially liked the bit about how society today is more rational (better?)
because of guaranteed dissent that was part of the scientific revolution, and
we're taking that away with safe spaces and the like.

~~~
Latty
I don't see how safe spaces are at odds with that. Just because people want to
have _some_ space where they can relax doesn't mean that disagreement is
impossible.

There are just less private spaces now, and we have more of an understanding
that some people find it extremely hard to find those spaces, so actively
ensuring they exist is important for them.

The idea that we have to let people show "dissent" about someone's identity
and life by harassing people _literally all the time_ seems obviously wrong to
me.

~~~
theorique
No one is arguing that people should be harassed "literally all the time" (or
ever).

Some of the more egregious deployments of "safe spaces" in universities
happened in response to controversial campus speakers who were deemed to have
views that were threatening to some students. According to some campus radical
leftists, the very _presence_ of such speakers was "violence" and a literal
"threat" to marginalized students.

Of course, the students could simply refuse to attend the talks of speakers
they didn't like, but that wouldn't make as dramatic a statement as creating
an explicit "safe space" where they could congregate.

~~~
claudiawerner
>According to some campus radical leftists, the very presence of such speakers
was "violence" and a literal "threat" to marginalized students.

And why shouldn't they have a point? If it could be shown, or at least it is
plausible, that violence against marginalized students could occur due to a
speaker inciting such action or even bringing out groups for it, doesn't that
give some case for refusing the admission of such people to campus?

In general I have not seen any reason to consider speech as much different
from action, except on the principle that the harm caused is entirely caused
by the victim (e.g a hearer) themselves, which seems implausible according to
our intuition in a variety of circumstances. In fact, the bifurcation of
speech and action seems to trace its way back to a Cartesian mind-body
dualism, which is generally rejected by neuroscientists and philosophers
today.

~~~
edmundsauto
Why stop there? What if it could be shown to be plausible that blocking
speakers on campus increases tensions and escalates violence because of the
suppression of people's views? It doesn't stretch credulity that right wingers
are more mad about restricting the expression of their beliefs than they are
about the subject itself. For evidence, watch a sample of Fox News -- they're
often indignant and "righteously upset" over "being told what to think or
say".

~~~
claudiawerner
That is obviously also a possibility; I'm not arguing that they should be
silenced by default, only that it is possible and should not be beyond the
reach of a society's purview to do so. For the moment, it seems more plausible
that violence erupts due to persuasion and incitement, which is why (for
instance) there are already laws against incitement but not against
illegalising speech lest it cause high tensions. I assume this question can
also be answered empirically.

~~~
edmundsauto
In the tension between freedom of speech and preventing harmful speech, I
wonder if we're approach a Nash equilibrium, or if it's more of an
accelerating oscillator.

------
temp-dude-87844
These movements come in waves, and it's a mistake to suggest that the recent
developments are troubling or unnatural. All ideas are ultimately interpreted
according to the norms of the time the interpretation is voiced, so perhaps in
a few decades of this, it won't seem so aberrant and counterproductive to a
class of privileged intellectuals anymore.

But the unintended consequences will shape out future. Escalations typically
hollow out the middle, where people with little investment in the topic might
find themselves having to choose sides, and angering the other.

Different people have different priorities. Many are more concerned about
their immediate families and their careers, and they will try to conform to
localized expectations to avoid conflict. Corporations and bureaucracies
readily adopted outward signs of support for this movement, and people are
doing the same. Their true beliefs are made known privately, or at the ballot
box.

People of conviction, on the other hand, will have no such qualms. Savvy
nationalists and ethnic supremacists will find it easy to pivot their platform
towards a broader vision of societal norms, and some will branch out into
economic policy as we've already seen in Europe. They may find a receptive
audience among younger members of groups that have been told that their group
is problematic, and who may want no part in a movement that has left no place
for them.

~~~
0815test
> These movements come in waves, and it's a mistake to suggest that the recent
> developments are troubling or unnatural. ...

You're probably right, but it's not Haidt that's describing any ideologies or
worldviews as "troubling" or "unnatural", other than perhaps wrt. Trumpism at
the close of this interview. If anything, he repeatedly stresses just how
_natural_ it might feel, for example, to demand ideological "safe spaces" in
order to preserve one's quasi-religious worldview and sense of identity from
what's perceived as a very personal attack from outsiders and enemies. What
arguably _is_ "troubling" and indeed outright toxic, is the _consequences_ of
these developments on the workings of our institutions (such as academia and
policy-making) as well as on social cohesion more generally. But these
consequences are far from unavoidable, and Haidt's book is mostly about trying
to avert them.

------
undoware
As a non-American who has spent some years in the U.S., it fascinates me that
you could subject your youth to so many horrors -- student debt, school
shootings, not to mention the present administration -- and yet there is this
profound thirst for psychological explanations other than 'plenty of young
folks are scared of homelessness and hunger'.

The shearing force between the reality of American life and the receding
American dream has become just this enormous.

Big hugs all around. I have a lot of compassion for even the wrong among you.

<3

~~~
EdSharkey
We've all got problems; overall life's super good if you don't believe the
hype.

Hugs back.

------
jkingsbery
I thought this was a pretty well-written article.

One hopefully useful nitpick:

> this social institution that began developing in Europe in the 17th century,
> a community of people who would read scientific treatises and letters and
> then critique each other—that’s what science is. It’s institutionalized
> critique. It’s guaranteed dissent. That makes people smarter.

It's certainly true that science started doing this in the 17th century, but
if you look at how Aquinas in the 13th century did his much of his writing it
was laid out similarly: what is the question? What are all the objections,
stated as strongly as possible? How does the author respond?

From what I've heard/read, writing was of that format, because Aquinas and
other university professors at the time would have a lecture revolve around a
question or hypothesis, and he would have students announce what are the best
objections to the hypothesis, and they would lecture for the remaining time
refuting the best objections raised (and sometimes adding their own).

One might disagree with many of the conclusions that Scholastics came to, or
whether the questions merited such an approach, but the process has been in
place for a while.

------
AftHurrahWinch
I remember this ted talk:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind](https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind)

It is interesting to know that he's decided that "the Republican Party is no
longer the social conservative party", and so Haidt believes that his previous
research on the distinction between conservatives and progressives doesn't
apply to existing Republicans.

> _You’ve written that Republicans understand moral psychology better than
> Democrats. Do you think that’s still true in the age of Donald Trump?_

"...what we were able to show is that conservatives can pretend to be
progressives and they can accurately fill it out as though they were one. But
progressives can’t pretend to be a conservative and fill it out accurately
because they don’t really get the group loyalty, respect for authority, and
sanctity or purity. They don’t really get those so they kind of dismiss those
and they assume that conservatives just like to kill puppies and things like
that.

That was the case for a number of decades. Trump has shifted a lot of things
around. The Republican Party is no longer the social conservative party. I
believe, in other research I’ve published with Karen Stenner, a political
scientist in Australia, Trump is appealing to more authoritarian tendencies.
It’s very hard to see how Donald Trump is a conservative. So the psychology
that I just described a moment ago no longer quite applies. The Republican
Party, I don’t know what’s happening to it, but it is bringing in elements
that are overtly racist. It is bringing in desires for rapid change, which is
not a conservative virtue, generally.

So I think we’re in a time of chaos in which both parties are in flux. What
might come out is we might get ever further away from having a center-left
Democratic Party and a center-right Republican Party, which is what we had for
a number of decades. We might have two much more polarized or ideologically
disparate parties and it could make for some very interesting politics and
even less cooperation than we have now."

~~~
echlebek
You may think you have had a center left democratic party and center right
democratic party in the past, but that's not how other western nations
perceive you - many would say that the democratic party is center right, and
the republican party is far right. Even before Trump.

~~~
int_19h
Center is defined by where the wings are, and that in turn depends on how much
you're looking at. Among developed countries, US is definitely on the right.
But in US politics, Democrats are on the left.

------
shmooth
god - most stuff i listen to from this site has _some_ quality about it -
something i can learn, but this is just garbage. 15 minutes, one quarter of
the way thru -- done.

i didn't know it was just some right-wing psychobabble.

------
Areading314
The writing is very long-winded, lots of words with little content.

------
sonnyblarney
" in every bathroom at NYU, there are signs telling students how to report me
anonymously if I say something that they find offensive"

How can people not be up in arms over this?

~~~
lm28469
Most European countries ignored Hitler breaking every rules of the treaty of
Versailles years before shit hit the fan.

I'm of course not saying this is equivalent to the nazi ideology. Sometimes
you don't see things coming or you ignore them until it's too late.

------
voidhorse
What's up with all these psychologists lately trying to play philosopher,
turning back to the ancients and commenting on normative concepts
(particularly related to morality and politics)?

I'm not against psychologists contributing to discussions on these topics but
sometimes the amount of hubris they seem to have in their approach is a bit
baffling—they all seem utterly convinced their opinion on the topic is correct
and impenetrable—I feel like I rarely see philosophers or political scientists
associated with these moralizing titles, it's always "Psychologist discovers
everything wrong with the world" or "Psychologist claims our morals are a
wreck" etc. etc. Of course, I'm sure my experience is skewed, but it's a weird
phenomenon (perhaps its just the coattails of Jordan Peterson's meteoric rise
and notoriety).

Edit: to clarify, I'm more so against this notion that the American mind is
"coddled". I don't think it's constructive. I think it's an invective meant to
produce division and build allegiances, not to intelligently adjust the path
we're going down. To say the deployment of particular concepts is the result
of "coddling" is of a different nature than calling for increased criticism
and scrutiny in our society.

~~~
lm28469
> trying to play philosopher,

It doesn't have much to do with philosophy though, it's mostly a
psycho/socio/historical analysis. If the people studying these fields can't
comment on modern events I'm not sure who you think should do it.

------
dsfyu404ed
I graduated college around the time safe spaces and the like were starting to
become "a thing". I'm glad I went to a state school in BFE. We (and some of
our professors) at least were able to openly mock a lot of the less than ideal
"cultural developments" that have happened at universities and colleges that
the author has to take seriously in his workplace.

------
exabrial
> Let’s try to give people a chance. Let’s judge people as individuals.” That
> was the great achievement of the 20th century—to make progress there.
> Instead in the 21st century to say, “okay welcome to campus. Here are five
> or six dimensions; we’re going to teach you to see men, maleness,
> masculinity as bad, everyone else is good. White is bad, everyone else is
> good. Straight is bad, everyone else is good.”

Incredible.

------
lambdasquirrel
> In fact, just today, The New York Times announced that it’s going to commit
> to publishing an equal number of letters from men and women, even though 75
> percent of the letter writers are men. Men like to put themselves out in
> public and show off. But The New York Times has committed to this equal
> outcomes social justice, which says we’re gonna treat people unequally in
> order to attain equal outcomes.

> That I think is unfair.

Um, no, it's not unfair. The very idea is that you have a group that is used
to getting its ideas out there, and there is another group that won't open its
mouth because to do so would be a nail sticking out. From a strictly
statistical standpoint, the NYTimes is trying to sample more effectively.

> Most Americans think it’s unfair.

Source?

And, this is not an acceptable standard of good conduct.

~~~
Nomentatus
In your defense, if it could be shown that the most thoughtful female writers
strongly tended to be those most likely to show that off by sending a letter
to the Times, you'd be right. I couldn't say, but I suspect that instead,
extroverts of either sex are most likely to write in.

Re unfair, making doubly sure that women's views were presented about issues
where their perspective is distinct seems fair to me. So your viewpoint could
still go through.

------
DiseasedBadger
Hahaha. No one is going to expose themselves to criticism. This article is
just going to either be a bucket of virtue signaling, or ignored.

I think it's interesting, though.

~~~
fierro
this could be a comment generated by a HN troll bot

