In its September 2015 issue, The Atlantic released an article entitled “The Coddling of the American Mind.” It first came to my attention as it spread on social media with viral efficiency, spurred on by posts, re-posts and captions that promised it was more than simple click bait. Really it was the captions that drew me in, especially those from fellow Brown students that, though simple, belied a sense of almost complete agreement.
Simply stated, the article is a criticism of the increasingly omnipresent and omnipotent authority that politically correct (PC) culture has on American college campuses. The authors, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, decry a university system in which intellectual ideals have fallen under the unforgiving yoke of that now all-powerful declaration: “I am offended.” They decry the creation of safe spaces — and the special sensitivity they engender — as oppressive agents that retard the educational process, shut down discussion and leave us fundamentally unprepared for a world rife with myriad uncomfortable, unsavory and unapologetically held beliefs. In short, they describe the modern college student in damning phrases: emotionally fragile, self-righteous, sheltered, out of touch with reality.
While the authors of the piece provide salient reasons for their discontent, they are too violently reactive and view the issues at hand as too black-and-white. Their suggestions run too quickly out of control; in their haste they forget something of those they are trying to help.
The article, almost immediately, brought to mind the events of Oct. 29, 2013. That was the day the Taubman Center for Public Policy hosted then-New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly. That was the day a group of protesters shouted Kelly down, horrified by his support of supposedly racist policing tactics like stop-and-frisk. That was the day a committee was spawned (that most Brunonian of traditions) and Christina Paxson P’19 penned, “Protest is welcome, but protest that infringes upon the rights of others is simply unacceptable.” That was the day that perhaps something of education’s openness fell victim to personal offense.
I remember my distinct sense of frustration in the moments and weeks following that one October day. An almost tangible sensation of disappointment hung about me; These protests stood uncomfortably close to the very sorts of silencing and dehumanizing against which they were pitted. I am sure I thought that the very sort of liberalism Brown so prides itself on was layered and inflicted with the same bullish, unyielding groupthink it had risen so ardently against.
The Atlantic piece is largely concerned with the diagnostics of moments like this one. The authors point to us — the students — as the problem. Their findings offer simple, grounded solutions to the problem of ourselves. Those solutions are couched in psychological research; they are concerned with desensitizing, de-magnifying and de-emphasizing. Those solutions are squarely centered on us, imploring us to, in essence, get over ourselves.
It is here, where we are asked to cast something of ourselves aside, that the practical considerations put forth by the authors stumble somewhere far short of inclusive. They suggest a sort of practicality that removes, with discriminatory eyes, parties that are more likely to face distressing remarks and realities — in essence homogenizing the student body. The solutions offered espouse something like a more uniform, more antiquated educational order that places, at its core, the experiences and lives of those most likely to be defined as normal in our culture. For theirs is the life most likely to be rid of a sense of otherness, realized and reinforced by the words, actions and biases of their peers. Theirs is the life best suited to that newer demand: to get over oneself.
It is restrictive, counterproductive and unintellectual to push relentlessly at the deepening of the educational experience without broadening who exactly is eligible for its benefits. This is the danger of the authors’ suggestion; they treat the who of education without addressing the what. Inadvertently, their solutions undo something of the civil rights advancements made since the advent of the PC movement. Yet I very much agree that an education ought to be a thing primarily of intellectual — as opposed to sentimental — cultivation overseen by a given institution. I agree that we ought to forgo the broad censorship of topics and materials purely for fear of the emotions they engender. I agree that this is how we thrust at the ideal education.
The line that needs to be walked is a very thin one — one with nuances and details overlooked by the authors of “The Coddling of the American Mind.” We need to have safe spaces, adequate terminology, trigger warnings. We need to spend the time to delicately define ourselves, our issues. Ideally these discussions add to, rather than detract from, the intellectual conversations of the day. But we must continue to work such that these declarations of selfhood don’t become declarations of self-obsession. Our airwaves should never be dominated with the utter totality of egotism.
Events like those that took place Oct. 29, 2013 should have no place in higher education. But I am somehow more comfortable with the ugliness of that day’s reality than the sterile elitism inherent in the alternatives on offer. We should not undo the good works of the PC movement in the name of a more pure education, just as we should never champion deaf close-mindedness in the name of morality.
Sean Blake ’17 can be reached at sean_blake@brown.edu.
