The turn against coddling may not reach our institutions

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1. A take I haven’t written elsewhere

The turn against coddling may not reach our institutions

(via)

The last couple years have witnessed something of a turn against coddling.

Here I mean coddling in the sense it’s used in The Coddling of the American Mind, the influential book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff which argues that a deleterious culture of safetyism has taken hold in American life, first among younger generations online and on college campuses, but then more broadly.

And the turn I have in mind is, well, for one thing, the success of that book and the widespread acclaim Haidt especially has garnered since. But also lots of other things, like the “anti-affirmation movement” essay from Freddie deBoer I linked last week, and the lengthy mea culpa for promoting trigger warnings The Atlantic just ran from feminist writer Jill Filipovic, and the general sense that in our haste to pursue real goods like kindness and care, we have significantly forgotten how to instill other goods like resilience and courage in ourselves and our children.

Where I don’t see this turn happening so much is in institutions, particularly larger institutions with lots to lose.