The Coddling Of The American Mind Summary

Dina Ursu
Daugherty
College English
October 3, 2017
Summary and Reaction Essay In September of 2015, the Atlantic came out with an article titled “The Coddling of the American Mind” written by Greg Lukianoff, a Journalist, and Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist. Lukianoff and Haidt have offered harsh critiques of the way college students have been protected by their parents from words and ideas they feel uncomfortable with, and get offended by. These students get trigger warnings, and microaggressions once exposed to an idea that alerts them. Emotional response takes over them and they are not able to communicate properly. Therefore, students take legal action in order to have certain words and subjects banned so that they do not feel offended.

Something that really surprised me is that “Emotional reasoning is now accepted as evidence”(Lukianoff and Haidt). A small definition is: when someone believes that everything they feel and every emotion they have is telling them something important that needs to be acted on. Once somebody feels offended by somebody else and voices it; then it is proof against the person that they said something wrong. Are you telling me that my feelings are proof? For example, I feel like if we are all vegans then we will all be cancer free. With this logic, my feelings are evidence that if everybody in the world is a vegan there will be no disease or sickness. I have found the cure! Where is my award? We let our emotions dominate and rule without regard of how logic or order work, if we use emotional evidence and throw out the justice

Some examples of microaggressions that Lukianoff and Haidt found from administrators at faculty leader-training sessions where, “‘America is the land of opportunity’ and ‘I believe the most qualified person should get the job.’” These statements are common sense. What is not understandable is how these are microaggressions. Colleges have little babies in their schools if they find these offensive in any way. America is a land of opportunity and it is true that when you usually apply to a job, the most qualified person gets the job. If these statements make someone angry they have been coddled to the maximum. It just goes to show how fragile the college population has become. Parents must stop coddling their children, and push them out of their cocoon into