Dear Readers,
Courtney and I have participated in many Q&As that follow screenings of The Coddling of the American Mind movie. Below I’ve responded to a couple of pointed questions that have come up during the course of our tour.
I thought you might find the framing of the questions illuminating, and I think they reflect the thinking of many (but probably not most) students as well as faculty and administrators.
How would you respond to these questions? Let me know in the comments section.
All the best,
Ted
How would you respond to the criticism that the movie itself is an act of privilege in that if someone feels they are in a racist or transphobic environment with real or urgent harms, challenges to their perspective could be invalidating or hurtful. In other words, how do you respond to the idea that the film could be criticized as an act of privilege made by those who benefit from free speech?
The key word is “feels.”
People who feel like they’re in danger should investigate their feelings. Feelings might point to something real, and they might point to something false. If they point to something real, then by all means do something about it. But if they’re pointing to something false, we just make ourselves miserable if we treat them as if they’re something worth worrying about. In these cases, the hurt is something we inflict on ourselves.
It’s kind of like my smoke alarms. When they go off, I drop everything and investigate. Something really bad could be happening, but so far the causes have been benign: It’s usually some overzealous cooking, and one time a humidifier set them off.
Greg and Jon address this idea with their Second Great Untruth, which, in the movie, we refer to as “Always trust your feelings.” Our feelings might be right, but they might also be wrong. So we shouldn’t always trust them.
Always trusting our feelings would be kind of like treating every smoke alarm like the house is actually burning down. That would introduce a whole lot of unnecessary anxiety into our lives.
And since we humans are prone to cognitive distortions like catastrophizing, we often hear false alarms. Was that person insulting me or did I misunderstand what was said?
Unfortunately, many adults—often unwittingly—teach students that they should always trust their feelings. The University of Michigan used to tell students that “the best evidence of bias is your own feelings.” That kind of advice isn’t kind or compassionate. It’s just an invitation for students to make themselves anxious and depressed.
The second part of the question asks, “How do you respond to the idea that the film could be criticized as an act of privilege made by those who benefit from free speech?”
Well, I confess I do benefit from free speech. But so does just about everyone.
I bet each one of us holds at least one problematic belief. To the extent that we can express those beliefs without being punished by the government or pounded by an online mob, we benefit from a culture of free speech.
Russians can be arrested for whispering “no war.” But if we can criticize our government without fear of punishment, we benefit from freedom of speech. If we can choose our religion, or no religion, without fear of punishment, we benefit from freedom of speech.
Somehow campuses have turned freedom of speech upside down. It’s not a tool of oppression. It’s a tool that fights oppression.
If you’re rich and powerful, you’ll always get to have your say. We need freedom of speech to make sure people with minority viewpoints can have their say too.
From women’s rights to gay rights and civil rights, these movements gained ground thanks to free speech.
Here’s how Greg Lukianoff put it in The Coddling movie:
The great John Lewis would say that if it wasn't for the First Amendment, the civil rights movement would have been a bird without wings. And what he meant by that was that it just wasn't possible to have the kind of demonstrations to have the kind of activism when the government had the power to shut you down.
Think of an issue that you care deeply about—injustice, the environment, poverty, and so on. Whatever it is, it benefits from a culture of free speech. We might think we know all the answers, but unless we consider other points of view, we’re just fooling ourselves.
We all have blindspots, and other people help us see what we can’t see by ourselves. That’s important because the solution to the problem we’re passionate about could be hiding behind one our blindspots. So we can’t say we’re committed to justice or any other worthy goal, unless we’re committed to free speech.
How would you respond to the criticism that you have chosen to cast people from racialized minorities and a person with an invisible disability to defend or illustrate the writing and perspectives of white men? Can you counter this accusation—that as much as the film says the woke mob ideology harms and exploits minorities—that the film is simply doing the same kind of exploitation or harm?
The color of Greg and Jon’s skin has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of their positions. Audiences have to deal with the ideas on their own merits. And plenty of black people agree with Greg and Jon’s thesis.
Take my good friend Karith Foster. Greg and Jon include her story in their book and she hosted our film’s premiere. She agrees with the book — does that make the ideas suddenly better? Of course not.
Our interview subjects aren’t “defending the perspectives of white men.” They are expressing their own opinions. The irony here is that universities and other culture-producing institutions like the media often silence minority opinions that don’t conform with progressive orthodoxy.
These institutions are overwhelmingly run by what the British polling organization More in Common calls Progressive Activists. Progressive Activists are overwhelmingly white. Sometimes minorities agree with progressives, but for the most part they don’t.
Consider black people. Surveys show that most oppose racial preferences and defunding the police. But you won’t hear much about that on your typical college campus or in your typical newsroom.
Microaggression training is enforced by many progressive activists who apparently never bothered to ask black people if they could speak for them. Yes, some black people are offended by common so-called microaggressions like “America is the land of opportunity.” But 94 percent are not.
Related:
Black People Never Wanted to Defund the Police: “What’s at Issue is the White Progressives’ Belief That They’re Helping Us”
Minorities Don’t Like Racial Preferences: 5 Ways the Media Hides the Truth
Our Problematic Nation: America Isn’t Down with DEI
From Zero to Netflix: Look How Fast “Microaggressions” Became Pop Culture Dogma
Our movie gives voice to minority perspectives that are often suppressed in academia and elsewhere.
One interview subject, a black woman (and Substacker!) named
, told me, “I have also noticed that the microaggressions that I was introduced to through college don't really relate to my interactions with African Americans. I know a lot of my friends themselves don't find certain things to be offensive, the way that the woke mentality would have you think they are offensive.”So could I just say, “Microaggression training is pushed by a bunch of white people, therefore it’s bad?” Of course not.
Microaggression training is bad because it contradicts ancient wisdom and modern psychology. It’s bad because it makes people miserable. The skin color of its supporters has nothing to do with it.
Kimi sums it up well: “It's like the people with the power get to dictate what we experience and then silence our voices when we say that we don't experience that.”
Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His recent work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and the new feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Stream the very first “Substack Presents” feature documentary here.