#Non-fiction The Coddling of the American Mind

• Author: G. Lukianhoff, J. Haidt
• Ttile: The Coddling of the American Mind
• Published: 2018  (352 pg)
• Trivia: 2018 shortlist National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly reading plan
• #TBR 2019   5/43

 

Introduction:

1. This is a book for anyone who is confused by
2. what is happening on college campuses today,
3. ….or is concerned about the growing inability of
4. Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

 

Topics:

1. Rising political polarization (harassment by off campus right wing groups)
2. Rise of teen depression and anxiety (especially women)
3. Helicopter parenting (overprotective)
4. Decline of free play (now…play is alone with computers, gaming)
5. Rise of campus bureaucracy (eliminate courses from syllabus to avoid complaints)
6. Rising passion for justice after major national events (campus politically engaged)

 

Conclusion:

1. This book details some problems of progress (list of topics).
   
2. I was very impressed by
3. Part 3: How did we Get Here?
4. Just because we feel offended does not automatically
5. mean the other person is an aggressor/bad person.
6. While reading this chapter I kept in mind the
7. political climate in USA.
8. I know the presidential campaigns 2020 will probably
9. be very nasty…now I know what to look for!
10. #MustRead

 

USA:

1. Regardless of political persuasion,
2. Americans today are deeply susceptible to a renunciation of reason
3. …and celebration of ignorance.  (ouch!)
4. They know what they know without reading,
5. …discussing or engaging those who might disagree with them.

 

TRUMP BASE

1. They reject calm logic, eager to embrace the
2. alternative news that supports their prejudices.
3. SVP: Read: Strangers in Their Own Land (A. Hochschild)
4. Americans must relearn how to engage civilly with one another,
5. something hard to do with a bullying president as a role model.

 

SAD BUT TRUE…

1. Gone are the days of moving speeches and well referenced debate.
2. We have no Vidal and Buckley exchanges.
3. Where are the Adlai Stevenson’s, the Dirkesens’s and Kennedy’s.
4. A few hundred characters  (tweet) or a
5. ten second sound bite is what we get…
6. shutting down the other side
7. instead … of defeating with logic and reason.
   

 

TRENDS

1. American politics is driven LESS by hope
2. and more by the untruth of “US vs THEM”.
3. THEY must be stopped at all costs.

 

CONGRESS:

1. Norms for civility and bipartisanship
2. between the two parties (Rep-Dem)
3. …have nearly disappeared.

 

VOTERS:

1. Years before this stark polarization
2. voters rushed to the polls to choose
3. their favorite candidate of their beloved political party.
4. Today….it is the hostility towards the OUT party that
5. make people more inclined to vote.
6. In other words….
7. Americans are motivated to get off their couches
8. and get involved in political action
9. not by LOVE for their party’s candidate
10. but by HATRED for the other party’s candidate.

 

2010s

1. Via Twitter and Facebook voters
2. …encase themselves in an echo chamber.
3. Filter bubbles are search engines
4. …and You Tube algorithms
5. designed to give you more
6. …of what you seemed be interested in.
7. This leads conservatives and liberals
8. into disconnected ‘moral network’ backed up by
9. contradictory informational worlds.

 

ISOLATION

1. Physical and electronic isolation
2. …from people we disagree with
3. allows the forces of…
4. bias
5. group think
6. tribalism
7. …to push us further apart.

 

 

Political Map 1960 – Presidential race JFK vs Nixon

 

Prognose of political map 2020