The "Stunning Fragility" & Vindictive Political Correctness of Today's Students - Jonathan Haidt 

Boy is Haidt right on the unsupervised play. I wouldn't trade that aspect of my childhood for anything. I was a warrior, head of state, solider, cop, spy, explorer, and many other things in adult-free land of play time- I sought position and sometimes led the pack but other times stepped aside to champion my friends to their successes. I sought to gain wealth through violence and learned that hitting hurts and so do bites. And so, where violence failed, I negotiated - sticker collections, baseball cards, and candy. I formed alliances that led to victory in street hockey, baseball, and nighttime hide & seek. I learned that being alone was an afternoon in the sun catching tadpoles, and in that, to cherish my own company. I was wild and happy.

Your job as a parent isn’t to protect a child, it’s to build an adult

Teach kids to overcome adversity, not avoid it all together

If this video offends you, this is about you.

The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling. --Thomas Sowell People seek emotional vindication in their argumentation, so they will much rather use a slurr to shut a conversation down

This is one of the best, most intelligent conversations I've heard about the suffocating monster that "correct thought" has become. We need much more of this.

The unsupervised play thing is key, I believe. Kids never get any privacy...To wander around with no fixed plan and squander a whole day, losing track of the time before returning home at dusk, is a luxury that a whole generation has been deprived of...tragic!!

This was a great discussion. I'm a Christian and I'm constantly learning from people with different beliefs. It may not change my beliefs but helps me to understand myself and my fellow man/woman better.

Man, I am just soooo happy to hear intellectuals seeing what some of us "out here" have been lamenting for years.

We are raising fragile narrow minded kids who delude themselves as open minded tolerant people.

I wonder about the sanity of these students when they reach 25-30-40 years of age. All these ideological seeds planted by others will rot in the darkness, having nowhere to go.

"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is. He confuses it with feeling." -Thomas Sowell

isn’t it ironic that they ones shouting the loudest preaching for diversity, literally HATE diversity and reject it at all cost? both funny and frightening...

It's making students "less wise"? No, it's making them downright moronic. Nothing quite as painful as watching these students, many with an IQ in the 120s or 130s or even 140s, demonstrating a radically stunted capacity for rational thought. The secondary school teachers and college professors who produce this stunting should be defendants in a few aggressive class action lawsuits. They're doing more damage to the country than even the worst corporate banksters or polluters.

As a teacher I quit teaching because you have to deal with the fragile egos of the students who hate to be called out about not doing school work on time and have all bunch of excuses why they didn't do it. You can't be straightforward with people anymore because they get offended very easily.

"Helicopter parents creating bubble-wrapped children"

The posting of phone numbers to report people makes NYU sounds like Soviet Russia, Saddam’s Iraq, or Mao’s China.

Read Jonathan Haidt's book. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Worth every cent

"That's a slur not an argument." Haidt realizes what people like Stefan Molyneux have been saying about the left for years.

Why are these kids discrediting instead of debating? Because they know they'll lose.

We live in an era when every conceivable point of view can be found online but only 1 can be found at universities or in the MSM. Obsolescence leads to extinction. Every time.

"more and more deans" -- translates into "higher and higher tuitions"

Diversity is absolutely fine and dandy as long as you believe in what I believe.

Thank you for this. From the bottom of my heart.

Such a breath of fresh air

Thank you for sharing these voices and viewpoints, and doing so in an intelligent and respectful manner. Our great conversation needs all these views so much right now!

I used to be a left wing person and when I became more right wing in my beliefs I am suddenly attacked, I am now a racist and a misogynist. Its insane. I am the exact same person!

Great discussion and urgently needed to be mainstreamed. Thanks.

I unfortunately took a gender study class, I could barely tolerate the 90 minutes of BS the LBGTQLMNOP professor would spout her during her rant. I am older than most students, so I am able to disagree. I remember walking out of one "session" and I heard a young man say, "I didn't know I did that." In response to lecture. He was confused. I wanted to tell him, it's because he doesn't do "that." And, "that" was making women feel objectified, the professor should be sued for making this young man feel shame of some other thing that she projected onto her student.

What strikes me most about this is that it was recorded in April 2017; I write this in August 2020. Now their observations are even more relevant and the situation in universities moving towards the desperate.

My colleague recently got attacked and bullied online for holding a bday party on the week of BLM. She was called a racist, narcissist, hypocrite, all the nasty things... i felt so bad for her. She turned her bday into a fundraiser for BLM and apologized but people were still so angry. They wanted to cancel her for good. These bullies don’t see what they are doing wrong... hopefully one day they get what they deserve.

Making students less wise...... He's too polite, he means, making students more stupid. 😁😁😁

What a great conversation and revelation about the failures of well intentioned parenting.

Wow. Fantastic views. Thanks for sharing this.

Wow, you don't often see the Regressive Left / SJW / PC / cultural Marxist trend discussed in this type of forum. Amazing stuff.

What scares me the most is that there is no dialog, therefore it's very difficult to show them the errors of their ways.

So true about unsupervised play - more than that, we had a whole life separate from our parents' knowledge in terms of what was going on amongst the kids. We spent hours outside quite free and unmonitored, in the town or in the country. Kids can't do it now.

We need more conversations like this.

A short and very substantial video...one of the best on this topic.

Someone is finally speaking logic.

"That's a slur, not an argument." Unfortunately, slurs overwhelm all arguments. "The object of a political debate is not to defeat an opponent in an argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth." -Lenin "Conservatives have a tendency to try to win every debate with logic and recitations of facts which all too often fail to get the job done because emotions and mockery are often just as effective as logic." - Saul Alinsky

The cost for a year at Middlebury College to $71,830, including $55,790 for tuition and $16,040 for room and board. There is an additional mandatory student activity fee of $426. I propose that Middlebury students transfer to a community college and donate their $72,000 to needy students .

We fight for free range chicken, and other animals but not free range kids in schools. The point of all education is to be exposed to all sorts of ideas and people to understand ourselves and others.

I want more of this.

Intolerance in the name of tolerance, go figure!

Yes! Love this! As a democracy we need to better understand each other! This whole "if you're not with us you're against us" mindset has got to go! We also need to stop demonizing each other.

They have really nailed the problem. What a pity they are three white men! (irony)

Colleges and universities should all add this trigger warning to all incoming and returning students. *Attention all students. **_This is an institution of advance learning for adults young and old. This is not a preschool. We will always strive to protect our students from physical harm. But your physical safety is ultimately your personal responsibility._* *_It is the job of this institution to prepare you to successfully navigate through the realities of life. As reality does not offer participation trophies. You must work and earn your rewards. So to do this, you will be exposed to unrestricted ideological differences. There will not be any attemps at censorship tolerated. As this institution respects the right of freedom of political speach. As well as the freedom of association and individual religious freedom. We DO NOT recognize the right to not be offended. As you always have the right to walk away and not listen. There will be ZERO tolerance of interference of the exercise of another's rights. Safe spaces are your private dorm rooms. Not public spaces. As stated above, we strive to protect ftom physical harm. We do not offer protection of your fellings._* *_If you are easily upset by ideologies other than those you personally hold. Perhaps you're not yet mature enough to attend college or university._*

I was recently discussing the victim mentality vs institutional racism. The argument continually leveled at me was " you don't understand because you don't experience racism because you're white. You're privilege blinds you to examples of your privilege. " I would try to counter that by offering examples of African Americans with similar beliefs to me. The response I got was " those people are isolated examples and have bought into the white mentality." Essentially I can't use my own experiences as an argument because I'm white and I can't use minority experiences that support my position because those minority individuals have " bought into the white mentality."

"it's a new SJW Religion " .....Nailed it!

I love listening to Haidt, and Peterson on identity politics and related topics. Thanks for the video.

The child raising rule of the boomer generation: be home when the street lights go on. I had a brilliant father who bought me and my brother an old boat with a 25hp outboard engine. We were out all day fishing, crabbing and exploring. Learned about engines and life along the river. We would not do anything really stupid.

I had never heard of Haidt before. Brilliant guy, I'll have to watch more of him.

George Orwell: ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ Appendix **THE PRINCIPLES OF NEWSPEAK** Extract Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles in the Times were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried out by a specialist. It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are concerned here. The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought - that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc - should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum. Remind you of Political Correctness?

Ironically there is a lack of diversity within school diversity programs.

‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity’ WB Yates

We stopped teaching Civics in High School.

This horror is happening in exactly the same and for the same reasons in the UK. How on earth do we change this - without being arrested for being racist, homophobic, etc.?

In my elementary and high school, a small group of bullies held most of the students in a state of fear. There was no oversight to speak of and daily violence was the rule. I was a favorite target for their abuse. When my arm got broken by one of them, I quit high-school. I am not saying I never had any trouble outside of school, but the outside world at least offered me the possibility to choose my colleagues, and walk away permanently from my detractors. What is going on is most certainly exaggerated, and it amounts to bullying in turn, now we can add mobbing. Although I generally agree with the argument, perhaps this behavior is also a result of not enough oversight or protection. I also think the erosion of the family in the US has contributed, I am a case in point, my mother evicted me when I was 15. Parents who were perhaps themselves evicted too soon unwilling or ignorant of the need for boundary setting and moral guidance their children are now demanding violently from society. I think these kids are suffering from the sense of personal injustice... their lost childhood, the lack of tabu, identity trellis etc. But this sense of unfairness has been harnessed... co-opted for other agendas. I think the way this sense of abandonment is channeled and expressed will backfire sadly, and the root cause will not be addressed.

The whole world needs to internalize this sort of conversation. It's so obvious to people that aren't totally nuts and people need to vocalize this particularly to people on the Left. Make them understand they aren't being virtuous, they're being pathetically fragile.

Great video

I like the idea of the "Daycare Generation". In the past when a couple had a child, the mother would typically stay at home and look after the child. Now, thanks to the lie fed to women by feminism, women are pressured to abandon the child to a state-vetted stranger (the same state that you wouldn't trust anything else with btw, so why would you trust them with the most precious thing in your life?). So now, instead of these children growing up developing a one-on-one relationship with the person that loves them the most in the world; they're given over to to a stranger who has to care to 12-15 other children, who are all vying for attention. So how do you get their attention? Have a tantrum. So this person has to deal with 15 other children, all of whom are having tantrums and she just wants them to stop; so she gives in and gives them what they want. So these children are taught at a very young age to just throw a tantrum and you'll get want you want. Which explains the current generation of University students.

Yeah! It is the saddest situation ever. It is a transversal to all society. They gather in groups and they demand a safe place, like in a church, were no differences are allowed.They do not differ in terms of their right and left affiliation and/or believes. Confrontation is stimulated because instead of promoting and developing student's and professor's critical thinking, all they do is supplying arguments and narrowing the field of discussion. I do have questions I would like to place to Dr. Murray's theories. If I was a professor at Middlebury College I would have prepared the students to the discussion and lead a proficient debate. Unfortunately, professors are more and more kind of the tribe leaders - don't pretend you have no role in this despicable matter!

I also had those freedoms growing up and it was amazing but I have misgivings about that also. 1 in 5 girls are molested in their childhood and 1 in 20 boys are. The numbers are actually believed to be higher than that. My brother was molested during those hours and hours of freedom and it has negatively effected his life permanently. The perpetrators are often reported as being friends of the family but I have noticed that "friends" of the family can be guiltily spoken code for "the people in the house down the street..." 1 in 5 girls are molested..... that means that roughly 1 in 5 of the daughters of the people who let their children run free daily are putting their children in harms way and I think that is irresponsible and reckless and stupid. 1 in 5 is no joke. Those are really high numbers. The risk is very real and very high and totally avoidable. I dont know what the answer is but I think nuance might be useful here. Fear based helicopter parenting is not the answer but neither is just letting kids roam freely prey to a whole list of predators out there looking for an opportunity. Sexual abuse is supposedly down in recent years-- you can bet SOME of that has to do with parents being more careful. Nuance is the key, not ideology from either side of the parenting debate, both sides religiously blinded by their judgments and pride of perspective.

Imagine a world run by gentlemen like these.

The western cultural revolution, complete with its own version of the red guard.

I recently had a discussion about leadership with a bunch of young women studying just that. We didn't agree, and she said "all women are smart", and I said "I've met some pretty stupid ones in my life....Eva Braun wasn't too smart either". I then left for the restroom. When I came back, the BARTENDER asked me to stay away from their table. They had asked the BARTENDER to get rid of me. Internet behaviour IRL. I told them quickly "You're old enough to drink, but but not old enough to listen to an opposing viewpoint, without calling in your "parents"......this behaviour wont get your far in life, my dear sisters and snowflakes!"

I ate dirt as a kid. I'm not allergic to getting my hands dirty.

I worked on campus for years. I told my son that I thought that political correctness was reaching the Inquisition stage. An offhand remark, a slight deviation in opinion and it was it was "the rack" for you.

That's a slur, not an argument. Brilliant summation of what is not at all a surprising understanding.

I call it revenge based identity politics.

Couldn't agree more. These people know what's up.

Is Frank Bruni the plural of Frank Bruno?? ;)

Very interesting men and they do a excellent job of explaining themselves.

My next step will be to quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he said to a black congregation " we must raise our moral standards. Yes, there is a lot wrong with the white world, but there is alot wrong with the black world too. We can't keep blaming the white man. We must do these things for ourselves. " Perhaps the words of Dr. King will penetrate the circle of protection they've created around themselves.

Excellent video. They are right about it all.

"Free-range kids" haha. Love it.

Great comments from both men. I teach some courses as an adjunct faculty at two Universities and although we don't have some of the problems they discuss I do see the fragility mentioned in students and the reluctance to engage a point of view. This is an enormous problem for our society.

This whole cancel culture movement has the vibe of living in a badly-scripted, super-bitchy, high school corridor locker area. Possibly on the first day of the new school year. It has no higher aspiration than being impregnable to hostility by being nasty first, and only. That has a certain skill-set; just not sure it can travel.

This was 3 years ago...and it’s still relevant.

I don't think children are as anti-fragile as he thinks. Some are very hearty, but some are very sensitive. A stressor that might make one kid stronger will fuck up another. Treating all kids like they're anti-fragile is as problematic as treating them like they're all fragile. But an unobstructed, free range childhood...absolutely. That's a god-damned human right.

I toured Dennison with my daughter and I was shocked how dumb the professors were.

Ivy League? Adult day care?

We must check out what is going on.s. Parents must check on what is being taught to their little children. It is alarming.

Where is Middlebury College, and why would anyone care?

I saw Haidt's point on campus, over a decade ago. I saw it coming and unfortunately I am not surprised, at all. Imagine these attitudes in a human resources department...

An increase in female graduates has something to do with this

*Also a massive problem is UN-Social media and the invention of the Smart-Phone*

By the way, Trump is the greatest president ever.

I’m so glad I finished all my education in 2001 (doctorate, medicine). I don’t have to deal with these whiny little *itches aka students.

There is almost zero diversity of ideas in economics. It's mostly right-wing.

Jonathan Haidt is one of the greatest geniuses of our time

Thank you for the OPEN MIND ! Love your channel !!

I'm a hardcore leftist...and I just SMH at the kids today. While I find Charles Murray disgusting....I would very much support his right to express his views. I served our nation in the USMC and I look at this insanity and have to wonder sometimes at what is really happening on some college campus' around the country.

I left school in the equivalent of mid-10th grade and even in the last 7 years of being immersed in direct community action I still have to navigate the religious zealotry of social justice at every meeting and interaction. My closest friends at least understand and accept me. But I notice Haidt keeps saying the social justice warriors are a minority of students, and that just doesn't line up with daily life for people in many areas. There could be a trend that correlates strongly with rural vs urban areas. But outside of that you just need to look at the public media, government and the pandering to the most toxic ideologies that should be shocking to most people, but is actually the norm. In 2012 I noticed a huge Woodstock-rennessaince style awakening, where a lot of people like myself had thought we were totally alone in being ostracized and bullied by social justice, and being the only ones who disagreed. People started posting videos and found each other. THAT was huge. Frankly the university professors leading the public conversation now seem to be really oblivious to how we got here and what that really is. I'm glad to see Haidt is at least highlighting it as a youth independence crisis, and getting back to the ROOTS of free play and childhood autonomy. When I saw criticizing social justice grow in popularity and become mainstream, it went down in quality in 2 ways; 1: instead of now seeing the importance of youth autonomy and ending child abuse, they actually reinforced child abuse and blamed kids, and 2: the movement was infected with politicization when before it had been non-authoritarian and non-political.

Do you all know the "shark defence"? Always swim at a crowded beach, so if a shark attacks you have less chance of being the chosen victim. I know many parents who know they are fucking up their kids with over-protection, but they don't want to be the first to break the mould. Imagine you are the only person who lets your 10 yo daughter walk home through a crime-ridden neighbourhood. There's a bit of that going on with the unsupervised play. Many people know this is right, but who is brave enough to be a first adopter?

Imagine what it is going to be like, when the students become the lecturers and these lecturers are gone! It is going to be a horror situation.

This is beautiful.

Amazing discussion. Gonna watch this several times.

Here is something that might perhaps explain the "fragility": "If René did not exist, I would not write it again; if it were possible for me to destroy it, I would destroy it. It spawned a whole family of René poets and René prose-mongers; all we hear nowadays are pitiful and disjointed phrases; the only subject is gales and storms, and unknown ills moaned out to the clouds and to the night. There's not a fop who has just left college who hasn't dreamt he was the most unfortunate of men; there's not a milksop who hasn't exhausted all life has to offer by the age of sixteen; who hasn't believed himself tormented by his own genius; who, in the abyss of his thoughts, hasn't given himself over to the "vague of passions"; who hasn't struck his pale and dishevelled brow and astonished mankind with a sorrow whose name neither he, nor it, knows". - François-René de Chateaubriand about his own novella "Rene." They love their own "fragility," an someone who loves it cannot be helped and must be left to soak in his own "loser" status. But here is something else that might explain it in a different light: "I think that this movement is not really about protecting vulnerable students. I think it's just a new way to assert power and control over others. It's a way of asserting your cause without having to bother with evidence and argument. You just shame people, intimidate them, silence them. And you do it with psychodrama. " -Christina Hoff Sommers