Jonathan Haidt

If you go to the website for the book, anxiousgeneration.com, we have all kinds of activities for parents and teachers and Gen Z. We have writing on my sub stack after babble.com by Gen Z. That's why this is so different from any previous tech panic is that the kids themselves see the problem.

If you go to the website for the book, anxiousgeneration.com, we have all kinds of activities for parents and teachers and Gen Z. We have writing on my sub stack after babble.com by Gen Z. That's why this is so different from any previous tech panic is that the kids themselves see the problem.

Yeah, it's definitely a continuation.

Yeah, it's definitely a continuation.

So it began when Greg Lukianoff, who is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, noticed that all of a sudden around 2013, 2014, it was actually the students who were demanding protections from speech, from books, from speakers, shut this down, ban this, stop this person from speaking. And he came to me and said, something's wrong.

So it began when Greg Lukianoff, who is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, noticed that all of a sudden around 2013, 2014, it was actually the students who were demanding protections from speech, from books, from speakers, shut this down, ban this, stop this person from speaking. And he came to me and said, something's wrong.

Something's really different about students today. It wasn't like this in 2012. something's changed and they are more fragile. They want more protection from words, books, speakers. They think speech is violence. And at the time we thought that these were millennials, because that was the name for the young generation, millennials.

Something's really different about students today. It wasn't like this in 2012. something's changed and they are more fragile. They want more protection from words, books, speakers. They think speech is violence. And at the time we thought that these were millennials, because that was the name for the young generation, millennials.

And so we wrote an article on this in Atlantic, like laying out what we think is happening. Something is teaching these students to think in these distorted ways that are like cognitive distortions. And then in 2015, so the article comes out August, 2015, in October, 2015, or November, 2015, everything blows up beginning at Yale, the Halloween costume protests, all sorts of things.

And so we wrote an article on this in Atlantic, like laying out what we think is happening. Something is teaching these students to think in these distorted ways that are like cognitive distortions. And then in 2015, so the article comes out August, 2015, in October, 2015, or November, 2015, everything blows up beginning at Yale, the Halloween costume protests, all sorts of things.

Universities undergo a kind of a cultural revolution, really some very similar, a lot of similarities to the Chinese cultural revolution of pulling down everything high, pulling down everything old, a kind of a revolutionary young people's movement, shaming professors, spitting on professors, all that sort of stuff. Now, so what's the continuity today?

Universities undergo a kind of a cultural revolution, really some very similar, a lot of similarities to the Chinese cultural revolution of pulling down everything high, pulling down everything old, a kind of a revolutionary young people's movement, shaming professors, spitting on professors, all that sort of stuff. Now, so what's the continuity today?

One of the worst things that the leaders did back then, the university presidents, is they did nothing. Students would shout down speakers. No one was ever, ever punished for shouting down speakers, even when they used intimidation. Claremont McKenna did punish some students in 2018, but hundreds and hundreds of shout downs, no one ever punished.

One of the worst things that the leaders did back then, the university presidents, is they did nothing. Students would shout down speakers. No one was ever, ever punished for shouting down speakers, even when they used intimidation. Claremont McKenna did punish some students in 2018, but hundreds and hundreds of shout downs, no one ever punished.

The message was, oh, as long as you're protesting for social justice, you can break the rules. You can use intimidation. You can shout people down. You can bang on glass and make people afraid for their lives. You can do those things because it's for a good cause. And besides, we're actually kind of afraid of you too. So that was the precedent that was set.

The message was, oh, as long as you're protesting for social justice, you can break the rules. You can use intimidation. You can shout people down. You can bang on glass and make people afraid for their lives. You can do those things because it's for a good cause. And besides, we're actually kind of afraid of you too. So that was the precedent that was set.

And that, I believe, was the beginning of one of the greatest brand destructions in American history. Higher ed used to have one of the greatest brands in the world. Elite higher ed was the envy of the world. Now it's a laughingstock. Harvard is a punchline in jokes around the world, certainly in America.

And that, I believe, was the beginning of one of the greatest brand destructions in American history. Higher ed used to have one of the greatest brands in the world. Elite higher ed was the envy of the world. Now it's a laughingstock. Harvard is a punchline in jokes around the world, certainly in America.

And so it was because there was fear, there was lack of leadership and we permitted intimidation rather than persuasion. Universities must be about persuasion. You can never win an argument by saying, if you don't agree with me, I'm gonna hurt you, I'm gonna destroy you socially. We can't allow that, but we did. And so now along come the protests.

And so it was because there was fear, there was lack of leadership and we permitted intimidation rather than persuasion. Universities must be about persuasion. You can never win an argument by saying, if you don't agree with me, I'm gonna hurt you, I'm gonna destroy you socially. We can't allow that, but we did. And so now along come the protests.