Haidt’s latest offering
This new book by Jonathan Haidt seems very promising. It’s entitled The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.
Now, I’m not sure the people coddling the American mind have such good intentions. But this is from a review of the book:
“The authors, both of whom are liberal academics — almost a tautology on today’s campuses — do a great job of showing how ‘safetyism’ is cramping young minds. Students are treated like candles, which can be extinguished by a puff of wind. The goal of a Socratic education should be to turn them into fires, which thrive on the wind. Instead, they are sheltered from anything that could cause offence. . . Their advice is sound. Their book is excellent. Liberal parents, in particular, should read it.”
I have a great deal of respect for Haidt, who’s done some great work. He is, among other things, one of the founders of Heterodox Academy, and he’s got some excellent videos on YouTube. Some of his biggest strengths are his calm and evenhanded tone, his clarity of thought, and his liberalism (or previous liberalism; he’s somewhat of a middle-of-the-roader now, as far as I can tell). The liberalism gives him some extra bona fides among liberals, an important audience to reach.
I haven’t read the new book, but I bet it’s good. Its title is of interest, too, in its echoes (deliberate, I’m almost certain) of Allan Bloom’s masterwork Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students.
I have an audio copy of the book. I do a lot of driving and that is a good way to spend the time.
IMO, a great part of the problem is that to many parents,view raising children as raising younger carbon copies of themselves;m a vicarious way to ensure their own continuity (and academicians are ersatz parents). Conversely, my thought is that the goal good parenting is to raise their sons and daughters so that the children reach a point that they no longer need the parents. This is the job of good teachers, too. It is a humbling rather than a self-aggrandizing experience.
I’m all for Haidt. However, I think his objects are congruent with those of the National Association of Scholars and allied organizations, who’ve made no headway in the last generation (one of whom, Eugene Genovese’s Historical Society, has dissolved). The culture of academe is so smug it’s impervious to reform from within. Politicians have to blow it up and appoint Wm. Bratton-type figures to build something worthwhile from the rubble.
Art Deco
The culture of academe is so smug it’s impervious to reform from within.
That would be my opinion. Anyone who disagrees with the progressive orthodoxy of academe is usually dismissed as “anti-intellectual.” As if “intellectuals” who present research that cannot be replicated should be listened to!
In an “upgrade” of Heterodox Academy- Haidt’s website- some 6 months ago. accessing the website went from a matter of a second or two to ~20 seconds. (Firefox, Windows 7). Which means I no longer look at it.
There were some rather interesting comment threads at Heterodox Academy. Such as one in response to Haidt’s talk at Lakeside- the elite private school in Seattle that Bill Gates attended. It was more than amusing to hear a student at that elite school, a student who happened to be black and female, to use “privilege” to dismiss others. As if a student at an elite school like Lakeside was in no way “privileged.”
courtesy of a PowerLine commenter on some other subject today, but it fits
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