Books I Loved: The Coddling of the American Mind Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff

The Coddling of the American had the potential to repair a thinking crisis on American colleges and in the heads of Americans everywhere. I love that it is apolitical with critiques for people on all parts of the political spectrum.

Haidt and Lukianoff center the book around three great untruths. They define a great untruth as having these characteristics. 

• It contradicts ancient wisdom (ideas found widely in the wisdom literatures of many cultures). 
• It contradicts modern psychological research on well-being. 
• It harms the individuals and communities who embrace it.

The three untruths are

• Things that don’t kill me make me weaker
• I can trust my emotions
• Life is a battle between good and evil people

Humanity has until recently believed that our trials and failures make us stronger. We never liked the pain, but we recognized the benefits to us in the long run. But now with the growth of safetyism we fear and avoid all pain, trials, and discomfort of any type, which makes us weaker in the end. We must again embrace the risk and pain if we are to regain our strength.

Emotions cannot always be trusted, so when we trust them uncritically we are bound to make some unwise decisions. Of course we can never remove feelings from the decision process, but it should be in tandem with our reasoning. 

Life is not simply a battle between good and evil. This is a particularly applicable untruth for the evangelical church. We love to think of the church as wholly good and everyone outside evil. We like to think a culture war is an appropriate use of our time and resources. But we are not all good and they are not all bad! This is a great antidote for pride and a boon for connection and trust. 

These untruths are taking hold on our colleges especially, though people of every age are susceptible. America would be far better if Americans of all ages could 

• believe what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger 
• be critical of our feelings, and 
• walk away from the we good- you evil mentality. 

I can’t recommend this book more for anyone but especially for young adults.  Doing these things will be hard but they will be life changing. Start now; wholeness awaits!

I'm always interested in you thoughts; please comment below.