“If students succeeded in creating bubbles of intellectual ‘safety’ in college, they would set themselves up for even greater anxiety and conflict after graduation, when they will certainly encounter many more people with more extreme views.” For older observers, this might bring to mind the Soviet Union, where citizens could be arrested for failing to applaud loudly enough when the ruling party’s leader is mentioned.” “On some campuses, only certain political positions are acceptable, and any deviation must be shamed publicly. Social media has channeled partisan passions into the creation of a ‘callout culture’ anyone can be publicly shamed for saying something well-intentioned that someone else interprets uncharitably.”

Extremists have proliferated on the far right and the far left, provoking one another to ever deeper levels of hatred. “The culture on many college campuses has become more ideologically uniform, compromising the ability of scholars to seek truth, and of students to learn from a broad range of thinkers. “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago) But once mastered, no on can help you as much, not even your father or your mother.” (Buddha, Dhammapada) “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded. “Prepare the child from the road, not the road for the child.” (Folk Wisdom, origin unknown) Top 40 Quotes from The Coddling of the American Mind There is a lot more in this book that I have found very interesting, especially the description and analysis of the reasons and consequences of recent violent college campuses disputes. The authors believe that this parenting “style”, what they call “paranoid parenting” may be a contributing factor in some of the campus speech disputes, because students are now used to fearing anything that may prove emotionally challenging and often overreact.

One of the main points argued in the book is that children are damaged by a well intentioned culture of “safetyism” where parents overprotect them from harm, but in doing so, the parents prevent their children from developing the necessary skills of resiliency.

Coddling of the american