Summary Of Coddling Of The American Mind By Jonathan Haidt

The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, is an article published by the Atlantic Journal about the negative effects trigger warnings and microaggressions have on students in college. Trigger warnings are disclaimers about any potential emotional response from a class or its material. Microaggressions are words or actions that have no sinister intentions, but are taken as such. Greg Lukianoff is the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. (47) As the leader of the foundation, Greg Lukianoff has witnessed and fought many legal occasions of trigger warnings and microaggressions resulting in the masking of the freedom of speech. Coauthor Jonathan Haidt is a professor at New York University’s

If the intended audience was exclusively for professors, then the article would have been published in a scholarly journal. The Coddling of the American Mind is not intended for students because it is condescending and disregards their viewpoint. While analyzing the origin of the problem in today’s educational system, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt conclude it began after the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. (45) Baby Boomers are people who were in higher level education during 1970’s, and the Gen Xers attended higher level education in the 1980’s. The authors create a tone for the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers as a “better” time. By referring back to a “better” time the audience experienced, a connection is made between the authors and the audience. The bond is strengthened by the frequent use first person, grouping terms such as “we.” When one feels a part of a group they will be more open-minded to other ideas because they are more susceptible to ridicule otherwise known as peer pressure. Trigger warnings and microaggressions taking away the rights of well-educated adults and professors is one of the

Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Hadit create a condescending tone in The Coddling of the American Mind by using harsh diction, quotation marks, and italicized words. The harsh word choice the authors choose expresses the lack of respect they have for the opposition. For example, when article explains the intentions of trigger warnings the authors add, “You might call this impulse vindictive protectiveness.” (44) Vindictive, meaning revenge, has a cruel and negative connotation which mutilates the opposition: trying to protect students. Also, the harsh tone the diction possesses makes others of the opposing view afraid to voice their opinion because they will appear equally sinister as the colleges who support of the use of trigger warnings. If the opposition is unable to refute the information stated, because they are scared, the audience has only one side of the argument to agree with. To undermine the purpose of trigger warnings, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Hadit insert quotation marks around the words “safe space.” (44) Just like the use air quotes, quotations in this article set a tone of sarcasm and express the author's’ opinion. The authors believe that sheltering from sensitive words, ideas, and topics the colleges do does not create a safe place for them; in fact, sheltering students makes it more dangerous to have an opinion. Italicizing certain words create emphasis. The article