https://www.theaustralian.com.au/ne...g/news-story/67fc216175551872c8f123061e3c07cd
technology and good intentions undermine mental health of young
Protesters gather in California to disrupt conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.
Protesters gather in California to disrupt conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.
By CLAIRE LEHMANN
12:00AM SEPTEMBER 8, 201820
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When I met professor of psychology Jonathan Haidt in June last year, he spoke about his latest book project in tones of quiet despair. He was worried about the campus unrest that had been making headlines around the US, but he was also concerned that efforts to try and stem the problem were just as likely to make it worse.
Co-authored with Greg Lukianoff — a civil liberties lawyer who represents students and academics who have had their free speech curtailed in the US — The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting a Generation Up for Failure has been released in the US and Britain this week to an overwhelmingly positive reception.
Yet the information that the book presents is not positive at all: it is alarming. It documents a trend of deteriorating mental health in young American adults — attributed to technology, helicopter parenting and a range of misguided ideas that have permeated the American education system as well as the broader culture.
The bizarre behaviours seen on college campuses such as the “no-platforming” of speakers and demands for safe spaces and trigger warnings are explained through the lens of a decline in psychological resilience.
For Australians, the book should serve as a cautionary tale. While there are protective factors that prevent us from having the same problems as the US, there are also parallels.
This week at La Trobe University, Bettina Arndt was prevented from taking questions about the apparent “rape crisis” at Australian universities when students outside her lecture theatre banged loudly on doors and set off the fire alarm. Last month the University of Western Australia cancelled a talk by a critic of transgender activism, Quentin Van Meter, because of “safety concerns”.
Sex therapist, journalist and clinical psychologist Bettina Arndt is confronted by protesters from the Victorian Socialists at La Trobe University before her talk on campus rape culture. Picture: David Geraghty
Sex therapist, journalist and clinical psychologist Bettina Arndt is confronted by protesters from the Victorian Socialists at La Trobe University before her talk on campus rape culture. Picture: David Geraghty
Lukianoff and Haidt identify what they call they call the “three great untruths”: fragility — what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; emotional reasoning — always trust your feelings; and us versus them — life is a battle between good people and evil people.
They explain: “While many propositions are untrue, in order to be classified as a Great Untruth, an idea must meet three criteria: it contradicts ancient wisdom, it contradicts modern psychological research on wellbeing, and it harms the individuals and communities who embrace it.”
They cite the shocking statistics to undergird their claim that mental health in teenagers and young adults in the US is in decline. After 2007 (the year smartphones became ubiquitous), rates of anxiety and depression increased sharply, while rates of suicide doubled in boys and tripled in girls. (Haidt told me earnestly: don’t let your daughter use Instagram.) Infantilising parenting styles also come under fire.
For some watchers of campus culture, the explanation that the demand for trigger warnings, safe spaces and disinvitations is driven by psychological problems is incomplete.
Heather Mac Donald, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute, who was escorted from theClaremont McKenna College in California by police last year because of a threatening student protest, argues that these behaviours arise primarily from ideology and a hunger for power.
Other scholars such as Christina Hoff Sommers have been sounding the alarm about illiberal ideas at universities for decades. John McWhorter of Columbia University has made the argument that anti-racism is becoming the new American religion.
Yet these explanations are not mutually exclusive. Not all young people are the same. Some will naturally be followers, while others will lead.
It is perfectly reasonable, then, to apply Lukianoff and Haidt’s analysis to the followers of these new illiberal movements while applying Mac Donald’s insights to its instigators. When a high proportion of young people are depressed and anxious, it makes it even more likely that megalomaniacal leaders will be able to manipulate them.
Only time can decide which explanation is most penetrating. In the meantime, Lukianoff and Haidt’s book is a lesson in tactical communication.
As they wrap their defence of Enlightenment values in the language of compassion, progressives will find it much harder to ignore.
It will also be much easier for bleeding hearts to digest its more challenging propositions: that the world is not made up of battles between those who are on the right side of history and those who aren’t, and that privileging emotion over reason can, in fact, harm.
Claire Lehmann is the founding editor of Quillette.
She will speak at the Outlook Dinner, presented by The Australian and the Melbourne Institute in Melbourne on October 11 and 12. Register here.
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