The Coddling of the American Mind: Malcolm Gladwell Leads a Conversation with Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff & Lenore Skenazy

From the 92nd Street Y in New York City comes a wide-rang­ing con­ver­sa­tion fea­tur­ing Mal­colm Glad­well, Jonathan Haidt (NYU), Greg Lukianoff (Foun­da­tion for Indi­vid­ual Rights in Edu­ca­tion), and Lenore Ske­nazy (founder of the Free-Range Kids move­ment). Here’s a quick sum­ma­ry of the ground they cov­er:

Civ­il dis­course is in decline, with poten­tial­ly dire results for Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy.

On col­lege cam­pus­es across Amer­i­ca, vis­it­ing speak­ers are dis­in­vit­ed, or even shout­ed down, while pro­fes­sors, stu­dents, and admin­is­tra­tors are afraid to talk open­ly, for fear that some­one will take offense. Polit­i­cal dis­cus­sion on social media and tele­vi­sion has devolved into a wave of hyper-par­ti­san noise. A gen­er­a­tion of over­pro­tec­tive par­ents are reluc­tant to let their chil­dren play out­side with­out super­vi­sion. How did we get here? And how can we change the way that we engage with one anoth­er?

Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s The Cod­dling of the Amer­i­can Mind sounds the depths of this gen­er­a­tional cri­sis. Join us for a live­ly dis­cus­sion with the authors, pres­i­dent of the non-prof­it Let Grow and founder of the Free-Range Kids move­ment Lenore Ske­nazy, and #1 New York Times best­seller Mal­colm Glad­well on how we as cit­i­zens can engage with one anoth­er across the polit­i­cal spec­trum.

If it’s not already clear, the con­ver­sa­tion is based on Lukianoff and Haidt’s book The Cod­dling of the Amer­i­can Mind: How Good Inten­tions and Bad Ideas Are Set­ting Up a Gen­er­a­tion for Fail­ure. Ske­nazy is the author of Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Chil­dren (With­out Going Nuts with Wor­ry). If you sign up for a free tri­al with Audi­ble, you can down­load copies of both books.