Misoponos

“This book synthesizes the teachings of many disciplines to illuminate the causes of major problems besetting college students and campuses, including declines in mental health, academic freedom, and collegiality. More important, the authors present evidence-based strategies for overcoming these challenges. An engrossing, thought- provoking, and ultimately inspiring read.”

—Nadine Strossen, past president, ACLU; professor, New York Law School; and author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not

Censorship

“We can talk ourselves into believing that some kinds of speech will shatter us, or we can talk ourselves out of that belief. The authors know the science. We are not as fragile as our self-appointed protectors suppose. Read this deeply informed book to become a more resilient soul in a more resilient democracy.”

—Philip E. Tetlock, professor, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Superforecasting

“This book is a much-needed guide for how to thrive in a pluralistic society. Lukianoff and Haidt demonstrate how ancient wisdom and modern psychology can encourage more dialogue across lines of difference, build stronger institutions, and make us happier. They provide an antidote to our seemingly intractable divisions, and not a moment too soon.”

—Kirsten Powers, CNN political analyst, USA Today columnist, and author of The Silencing

“A compelling and timely argument against attitudes and practices that, however well-intended, are damaging our universities, harming our children, and leaving an entire generation intellectually and emotionally ill-prepared for an ever more fraught and complex world. A brave and necessary work.”

—Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Emeritus Chief Rabbi of UK & Commonwealth; professor, New York University; and author of Not in God’s

Name

“Objectionable words and ideas, as defined by self-appointed guardians on university campuses, are often treated like violence from sticks and stones. Many students cringe at robust debate; maintaining their ideas of good and evil requires no less than the silencing of disagreeable speakers. Lukianoff and Haidt brilliantly explain how this drift to fragility occurred, how the distinction between words and

actions was lost, and what needs to be done. Critical reading to understand the current campus conflicts.”

—Mark Yudof, president emeritus, University of California; and professor emeritus, UC Berkeley School of Law

“I lament the title of this book, as it may alienate the very people who need to engage with its arguments and obscures its message of inclusion. Equal parts mental health manual, parenting guide, sociological study, and political manifesto, it points to a positive way forward of hope, health, and humanism. I only wish I had read it when I was still a professor and a much younger mother.”

—Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO, New America; and author of Unfinished Business

BY GREG LUKIANOFF

Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate

Freedom from Speech

FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus (With Harvey Silverglate, David French, and William Creeley)

BY JONATHAN HAIDT

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

All Minus One: John Stuart Mill’s Ideas on Free Speech Illustrated (With Richard Reeves and Dave Cicirelli)

PENGUIN PRESS

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

penguinrandomhouse.com

Copyright © 2018 by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and

allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Excerpt from “Professors like me can’t stay silent about this extremist moment on campuses” by Lucía Martínez Valdivia. Reprinted with the permission of the author. First published in the Washington Post, October 27, 2017.

Excerpt from Your Six-Year-Old: Loving and Defiant, by Louise Bates Ames & Frances L. Ilg. Copyright © 1979 by The Gesell Institute of Child Development, Louise Bates Ames and Frances L. Ilg. Used by permission of Bantam

Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Form on this page from Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders, Second Edition, Robert L. Leahy, Stephen J. F. Holland, and Lata K. McGinn. Copyright © 2011 by Guilford Press. Reprinted with

permission of Guilford Press.

ISBN 9780735224896 (hardcover)

ISBN 9780735224902 (ebook)

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any

responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Version_1

http://penguinrandomhouse.com

Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. FOLK WISDOM, origin unknown

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. But once mastered, no one can help you as much, not

even your father or your mother. BUDDHA, Dhammapada1

The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN, The Gulag Archipelago2

For our mothers, who did their best to prepare us for the road.

JOANNA DALTON LUKIANOFF

ELAINE HAIDT (1931–2017)

CONTENTS

Praise for The Coddling of the American Mind Also by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haid

Title Page Copyright

Epigraph Dedication

INTRODUCTION | The Search for Wisdom PART I

Three Bad Ideas CHAPTER 1 | The Untruth of Fragility: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker CHAPTER 2 | The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always Trust Your Feelings CHAPTER 3 | The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life Is a Battle Between Good People and Evil

People PART II

Bad Ideas in Action CHAPTER 4 | Intimidation and Violence CHAPTER 5 | Witch Hunts PART III

How Did We Get Here? CHAPTER 6 | The Polarization Cycle CHAPTER 7 | Anxiety and Depression CHAPTER 8 | Paranoid Parenting CHAPTER 9 | The Decline of Play CHAPTER 10 | The Bureaucracy of Safetyism CHAPTER 11 | The Quest for Justice PART IV

Wising Up CHAPTER 12 | Wiser Kids

CHAPTER 13 | Wiser Universities CONCLUSION | Wiser Societies Acknowledgments

Appendix 1: How to Do CBT Appendix 2: The Chicago Statement on Principles of Free Expression

Notes References

Index About the Authors

T

INTRODUCTION

The Search for Wisdom

his is a book about wisdom and its opposite. The book grows out of a trip that we (Greg and Jon) took to Greece in August of 2016. We had been writing about some ideas spreading through

universities that we thought were harming students and damaging their prospects for creating fulfilling lives. These ideas were, in essence, making students less wise. So we decided to write a book to warn people about these terrible ideas, and we thought we’d start by going on a quest for wisdom ourselves. We both work on college campuses; in recent years, we had heard repeated references to the wisdom of Misoponos, a modern-day oracle who lives in a cave on the north slope of Mount Olympus, where he continues the ancient rites of the cult of Koalemos.

We flew to Athens and took a five-hour train ride to Litochoro, a town at the foot of the mountain. At sunrise the next day, we set off on a trail that Greeks have used for thousands of years to seek communion with their gods. We hiked for six hours up a steep and winding path. At noon we came to a fork in the path where a sign said MISOPONOS, with an arrow pointing to the right. The main path, off to the left, looked forbidding: it went straight up a narrow ravine, with an ever-present danger of rockslides.

The path to Misoponos, in contrast, was smooth, level, and easy—a welcome change. It took us through a pleasant grove of pine and fir trees, across a strong wooden pedestrian bridge over a deep ravine, and right to the mouth of a large cave.

Inside the cave we saw a strange scene. Misoponos and his assistants had installed one of those take-a-number systems that you sometimes find in sandwich shops, and there was a line of other seekers ahead of us. We took a number, paid the 100 euro fee to have a

private audience with the great man, performed the mandatory rituals of purification, and waited.

When our turn came, we were ushered into a dimly lit chamber at the back of the cave, where a small spring of water bubbled out from a rock wall and splashed down into a large white marble bowl somewhat reminiscent of a birdbath. Next to the bowl, Misoponos sat in a comfortable chair that appeared to be a Barcalounger recliner from the 1970s. We had heard that he spoke English, but we were taken aback when he greeted us in perfect American English with a hint of Long Island: “Come on in, guys. Tell me what you seek.”

Jon spoke first: “O Wise Oracle, we have come seeking wisdom. What are the deepest and greatest of truths?”

Greg thought we should be more specific, so he added, “Actually, we’re writing a book about wisdom for teenagers, young adults, parents, and educators, and we were kind of hoping that you could boil down your insights into some pithy axioms, ideally three of them, which, if followed, would lead young people to develop wisdom over the course of their lives.”

Misoponos sat silently with his eyes closed for about two minutes. Finally, he opened his eyes and spoke.

“This fountain is the Spring of Koalemos. Koalemos was a Greek god of wisdom who is not as well-known today as Athena, who gets far too much press, in my opinion. But Koalemos has some really good stuff, too, if you ask me. Which you just did. So let me tell you. I will give you three cups of wisdom.”

He filled a small alabaster cup from the water bowl and handed it to us. We both drank from it and handed it back.

“This is the first truth,” he said: “What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. So avoid pain, avoid discomfort, avoid all potentially bad experiences.”

Jon was surprised. He had written a book called The Happiness Hypothesis, which examined ancient wisdom in light of modern psychology. The book devoted an entire chapter to testing the opposite of the oracle’s claim, which was most famously stated by Friedrich Nietzsche: “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”1 Jon thought there must be some mistake. “Excuse me, Your Holiness,” he said, “but did you really mean to say ‘weaker’? Because I’ve got quotes from

many wisdom traditions saying that pain, setbacks, and even traumatic experiences can make people stronger.”

“Did I say ‘weaker’?” asked Misoponos. “Wait a minute . . . is it weaker or stronger?” He squeezed his eyes shut as he thought about it, and then opened his eyes and said, “Yes, I’m right, weaker is what I meant. Bad experiences are terrible, who would want one? Did you travel all this way to have a bad experience? Of course not. And pain? So many oracles in these mountains sit on the ground twelve hours a day, and what does it get them? Circulation problems and lower-back pain. How much wisdom can you dispense when you’re thinking about your aches and pains all the time? That’s why I got this chair twenty years ago. Why shouldn’t I be comfortable?” With clear irritation in his voice, he added, “Can I finish?”

“I’m sorry,” said Jon meekly.

Misoponos filled the cup again. We drank it. “Second,” he continued: “Always trust your feelings. Never question them.”

Now it was Greg’s turn to recoil. He had spent years practicing cognitive behavioral therapy, which is based on exactly the opposite advice: feelings so often mislead us that you can’t achieve mental health until you learn to question them and free yourself from some common distortions of reality. But having learned to control his immediate negative reactions, he bit his tongue and said nothing.