FAIR Los Angeles Book Club #06 – Jan. 25, 2023

"The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure" by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

The FAIR LA Book Club will return in January 2023 with a discussion of Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt's book The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. The discussion will be led by FAIR Los Angeles member Carmen Viliesid. Greg Lukianoff is a journalist, author, and president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Before joining FIRE, he worked for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He has written for notable newspapers such as the LA Times, Boston Globe, and New York Post. Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist at NYU's Stern School of Business and is an instrumental researcher in Moral Foundations Theory: a social psychological theory which interprets moral reasoning as a product primarily of instinct and emotion rather than reason and logic. The Coddling of the American Mind arose out of a 2015 article both authors wrote for The Atlantic, called "How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus." Jonathan Marks of Commentary magazine writes that Lukianoff and Haidt "[have met] safetyism on its own turf" and that in this book they unfold how "safetyism undermines the freedom of inquiry and speech that are indispensable to universities." Come join the discussion of their book on January 25th.