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The Coddling of the American Mind Chapter 4. Intimidation and Violence

Author: Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt Publisher: New York, NY: Penguin Random House. Publish Date: 2019-8-20 Review Date: Status:💥

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On the night of February 1, 2017, the University of California’s Berkeley campus exploded into violence. An estimated 1,500 protesters surrounded the building where Milo Yiannopoulos, a young, British, gay Trump supporter, was

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Yiannopoulos was a skilled provocateur—a master of the art of triggering outrage and then using that outrage to embarrass his opponents and advance his goals.3

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The protesters’ goal was to prevent the speech from happening. Many of them came from local radical anarchist groups that call themselves “antifascists,” or “Antifa.”4 UC Berkeley officials claimed5 that only about 150 of the protesters were responsible for the vandalism and violence that ensued—knocking down a light generator;6 shooting commercial-grade fireworks7 into buildings8 and at police officers;9 smashing ATMs;10 setting fires;11 dismantling barricades12 and using them (as well as bats)13 to break windows; throwing rocks at police officers;14 and even hurling Molotov cocktails.15 The property damage (exceeding $500,000 for the university and town combined)16 was less chilling, however, than the physical attacks on students and others who attempted to attend the speech.

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  1. In the words of Milo Yiannopoulos, “Trolling is very important… . I like to think of myself as a virtuous troll, you know? I’m doing God’s work.” Moran, T., Taguchi, E., & Pedersen, C. (2016, September 1). Leslie Jones’ Twitter Troll Has No Regrets Over Attacking the ‘Ghostbusters’ Actress. ABC News. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/leslie-jones-twitter-troll-regrets-attacking-ghostbusters-actress/story?id=41808886. See also Yiannopoulos’ statement: “A real troll, of course, does aim to provoke. They do aim to cause mild rage. They aim to prank, to goad, to wind people up… . So trolls, my message to you today is: once the election is over, get off your laptops and head down to your local campus.” Yiannopoulos, M. (2016, August 20). Trolls will save the world. Breitbart. Retrieved from http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/08/20/trolls-will-save-world

  2. Scott Crow, former Antifa organizer, explains: “The idea in Antifa is that we go where they [right-wingers] go. That hate speech is not free speech. That if you are endangering people with what you say and the actions that are behind them, then you do not have the right to do that. And so we go to cause conflict, to shut them down where they are.” See Suerth, J. (2017, August 17). What is Antifa? CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/us/what-is-antifa-trnd/index.html

  3. Kell, G. (2017, February 2). Campus investigates, assesses damage from Feb. 1 violence. Berkeley News. Retrieved from http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/02/campus-investigates-assesses-damage-from-feb-1-violence

  4. Lochner, T. (2017, February 1). UC Berkeley: Protesters shut down Milo Yiannopoulos event, clash with police. East Bay Times. Retrieved from http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/01/uc-berkeley-cancels-breitbart-provocateur-milo-yiannopoulos-event

  5. Park, M., & Lah, K. (2017, February 2). Berkeley protests of Yiannopoulos caused $100,000 in damage.CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/us/milo-yiannopoulos-berkeley/index.html

  6. Riot forces cancellation of Yiannopoulos talk at UC Berkeley. (2017, February 1). CBS SF Bay Area. Retrieved from http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/02/01/berkeley-braces-for-protests-at-yiannopoulos-talk

  7. Park & Lah (2017); see n. 7.

  8. Arnold, C. (2017, February 1). Violence and chaos erupt at UC–Berkeley in protest against Milo Yiannopoulos. USA Today College. Retrieved from http://college.usatoday.com/2017/02/01/violence-and-chaos-erupt-at-uc-berkeley-in-protest-against-milo-yiannopoulos

  9. Riot forces cancellation (2017); see n. 8.

  10. Rioters break windows, set fire to force cancellation of Breitbart editor’s UC–Berkeley talk. (2017, February 1). Fox News. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/01/rioters-break-windows-set-fire-to-force-cancellation-breitbart-editors-uc-berkeley-talk.html

  11. RTQuestionsMore (Producer). (2017, February 1). Kiara Robles talks to RT International [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUQdlc8Gc-g&feature=youtu.be

  12. Park & Lah (2017); see n. 7.

  13. CNBC with Reuters and AP. (2017, February 1). Trump threatens UC Berkeley with funds cut after Breitbart editor’s speech is canceled following riot. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/01/uc-berkeley-on-lockdown-amid-protest-over-milo-yiannopoulos.html

  14. “The demonstrators caused an estimated 400,000 to $500,000 elsewhere, according to Downtown Berkeley Association CEO John Caner.” Kutner, M. (2017, February 1). Inside the black bloc protest strategy that shut down Berkeley. Newsweek. Retrieved from http://www.newsweek.com/2017/02/24/berkeley-protest-milo-yiannopoulos-black-bloc-556264.html

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One man carrying a sign saying “The First Amendment is for everyone” was hit in the face, leaving him bloody.17 Others also suffered bloodying blows to the face and head as protesters attacked with fists, pipes, sticks, and poles.18

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  1. Freedman, W. (2017, February 1). VIDEO: Trump supporter pepper sprayed at Milo protest. ABC 7 News. Retrieved from http://abc7news.com/news/video-trump-supporter-pepper-sprayed-at-milo-protest/1733004

  2. Mackey, R. (2017, February 4). Amid the chaos in Berkeley, a grinning face, covered in blood. The Intercept. Retrieved from https://theintercept.com/2017/02/04/amid-chaos-berkeley-grinning-face-covered-blood

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The mob got its way. The speech was canceled. Police issued a “shelter-in-place” campus lockdown order24 and escorted Yiannopoulos to an undisclosed location.25

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  1. UC Berkeley Campus Police tweeted: @UCBerkeley Milo event cancelled. Shelter in place if on campus. All campus buildings on lockdown. # miloatcal. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/ucpd_cal/status/826978649341440000?lang=en

  2. Riot forces cancellation (2017); see n. 8.

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The fact that some Berkeley students and residents reacted strongly to an anticipated speech by a pro-Trump provocateur does not prove that they are closed-minded or fearful of every idea they don’t like. But it’s important to take a close look at the February 1 riots at UC Berkeley, because they marked a turning point—an escalation of conflicts over campus speakers. Berkeley and its aftermath were the start of a new and more dangerous era. Since then, many students on the left have become increasingly receptive to the idea that violence is sometimes justified as a response to speech they believe is “hateful.” At the same time, many students on the right have become increasingly eager to invite speakers that are likely to provoke a reaction from the left.

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Some early reports claimed that the violent, mask-wearing “black bloc” protesters were outside agitators, not students from UC Berkeley.27 It is impossible to know how many Berkeley students took part, because the university never undertook a public investigation into the riots to determine precisely who the black bloc protesters were. One UC Berkeley employee bragged on social media about beating Jennings—even posting a photo of Jennings unconscious on the ground—and several Berkeley students admitted that they had participated.28 One student who wrote about having joined Antifa explained in an op-ed that “black bloc tactics” (dressing in black, wearing black gloves, and masking faces) were used that night “to protect the identities of the individuals in the bloc,” and asserted that “behind those bandanas and black T-shirts were the faces of your fellow UC Berkeley [students].”

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  1. Zoppo, A., Proença Santos, A., & Hudgins, J. (2017, February 14). Here’s the full list of Donald Trump’s executive orders. NBC News. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/here-s-full-list-donald-trump-s-executive-orders-n720796

  2. Helsel, P. (2017, February 2). Protests, violence prompt UC Berkeley to cancel Milo Yiannopoulos event. NBC News. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-violence-prompts-uc-berkeley-cancel-milo-yiannopoulos-event-n715711

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The failure of UC Berkeley to openly discipline any of the students who engaged in violence or vandalism during the mayhem29—even those who publicly admitted participating—and the fact that the police arrested just one person that night (for failure to disperse)30 seems to have taught the protesters an important lesson: Violence works. Unsurprisingly, the Antifa activists built on their success by threatening more violence in response to campus invitations to conservatives David Horowitz, Ann Coulter, and Ben Shapiro.31

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  1. Lawrence, N. (2017, February 7). Black bloc did what campus should have. The Daily Californian. Retrieved from http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/black-bloc-campus. See also a similar claim: Meagley, D. (2017, February 7). Condemning protesters same as condoning hate speech. The Daily Californian. Retrieved from http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/condemning-protesters-condoning-hate-speech

  2. When we contacted the UC Berkeley Office of Public Affairs, it refused to disclose whether any students had been disciplined by the university in connection with the protests, citing federal privacy laws. It later clarified that, in the month of February, two students were arrested: one for vandalism and one for failure to disperse. As far as we can tell, no students were punished by the university in any way, so there was no punishment that would act as a deterrent for future violent protests.

  3. Bodley, M. (2017, February 2). At Berkeley Yiannopoulos protest, $100,000 in damage, 1 arrest. SFGate. Retrieved from http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/At-Berkeley-Yiannopoulos-protest-100-000-in-10905217.php. See also: Berkeley free speech protests: Arrests, injuries, damages since February. (2017, April 25). Fox News. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/25/berkeley-free-speech-protests-arrests-injuries-damages-since-february.html

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The “Milo riot” at UC Berkeley caught the attention of the national and international media, not only because of its scale but because of its symbolism. This was, after all, the very place where the campus free speech movement started. In 1964, when left-leaning students demanded the right to advocate for political causes and hear controversial political speakers, Berkeley student Mario Savio, the leader of the movement, famously spoke of freedom of speech as “something that represents the very dignity of what a human being is.”32 Savio had marched with the civil rights movement in Mississippi the summer before, and, inspired by the power of their peaceful tactics, he began working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when he returned to campus. It was that activity that first brought him into conflict with university authorities, leading up to his impassioned activism for free speech.33 The fact that in 2017, Berkeley students were protesting to shut down a speech—and even using vandalism and violence to do it—seemed ironic to many observers. Particularly troubling were the ways in which some Berkeley students justified the violence.

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  1. In 2016, at California State University, Los Angeles, the university president canceled a speech about diversity by conservative Ben Shapiro, requiring that, instead, he “appear as part of a group of speakers with differing viewpoints on diversity” (something that had not been required of any other recent speakers). Eventually, the president relented, but at the event, students locked arms to prevent people from getting in. Some who tried to enter were pushed to the ground. After UC Berkeley failed to prevent violence on campus in February 2017, and Ben Shapiro was scheduled to speak there later in the year, threats of violence in response to his presence required approximately 600,000. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/us/california-today-price-tag-to-protect-speech-at-berkeley-600000.html

  2. Cohen, R. (2017, February 7). What might Mario Savio have said about the Milo protest at Berkeley? The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/what-might-mario-savio-have-said-about-the-milo-protest-at-berkeley

  3. Ashenmiller, J. (2013). Mario Savio. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mario-Savio

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A few days after the riot, The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s leading student newspaper, ran five op-eds under the headline VIOLENCE AS SELF-DEFENSE,34 all of which offer examples of the Great Untruths and illustrate the cognitive distortions we described in chapter 2.

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  1. Senju, H. (2017, February 7). Violence as self-defense. The Daily Californian. Retrieved from http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/violence-self-defense

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Here’s one excerpt from an essay titled “Condemning Protesters Same as Condoning Hate Speech”:

If you condemn the actions that shut down Yiannopoulos’ literal hate speech, you condone his presence, his actions and his ideas; you care more about broken windows than broken bodies. I can’t impeach Trump, and I can’t stop the alt-right from recruiting nationwide. I can only fight tooth and nail for the right to exist in my hometown. So it’s time for those waiting in the center to pick a side.35

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  1. Meagley, D. (2017, February 7). Condemning protesters same as condoning hate speech. The Daily Californian. Retrieved from http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/condemning-protesters-condoning-hate-speech

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Taken at face value, the author seems to be engaging in a number of cognitive distortions. The most evident is catastrophizing: If Milo Yiannopoulos is allowed to speak, there will be “broken bodies” on our side. I might lose my “right to exist.” Therefore, violence is justified, because it is self-defense. The author also engages in dichotomous thinking: If you condemn my side’s violence, that means you condone Yiannopoulos’s ideas. You must “pick a side.” You’re either with us or against us. Life is a battle between good people and evil people, and if you disagree with us, you’re one of the evil people.

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The other essays are similar in appearing to employ multiple cognitive distortions to justify physical violence as a reasonable way to prevent a speech. Some of the essays offer Orwellian inversions of common English words. For example, from another essay: “Asking people to maintain peaceful dialogue with those who legitimately do not think their lives matter is a violent act.”36

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  1. Dang, N. (2017, February 7). Check your privilege when speaking of protests. The Daily Californian. Retrieved from http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/check-privilege-speaking-protests

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you can see why people might think that calls for peaceful dialogue with Yiannopoulos are misguided or counterproductive. It is not irrational, in our nasty political climate, to worry that some of the things he might say could lead to online harassment or even physical harm to innocent people.

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But if asking for peaceful dialogue is violent, then it seems that the word “violence” is taking on new meanings for some students. This is another example of concept creep. In just the last few years, the word “violence” has expanded on campus and in some radical political communities beyond campus to cover a multitude of nonviolent actions, including speech that this political faction claims will have a negative impact on members of protected identity groups.

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Outside of cultures of safetyism, the word “violence” refers to physical violence. The word is sometimes used metaphorically (as in “I violently disagree”), but few of us, including those who claim that speech is violence, have any difficulty understanding the statement “We should reduce incarceration for nonviolent offenses.” However, now that some students, professors, and activists are labeling their opponents’ words as violence, they give themselves permission to engage in ideologically motivated physical violence. The rationale, as an essay in the Berkeley op-ed series argued, is that physically violent actions, if used to shut down speech that is deemed hateful, are “not acts of violence” but, rather, “acts of self defense.”38

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  1. Overpass Light Brigade. (2016, December 14). Hate’s insidious face: UW–Milwaukee and the “alt-right.” Retrieved from http://overpasslightbrigade.org/hates-insidious-face-uw-milwaukee-and-the-alt-right

  2. Lawrence (2017); see n. 28.

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This is not an uncommon view on many campuses. Almost one in five students surveyed in a 2017 Brookings Institution study agreed that using violence to prevent a speaker from speaking was sometimes “acceptable.”39 While some critics challenged the sampling used in that study, findings in a second study by McLaughlin and Associates were similar; 30% of undergraduate students surveyed agreed with this statement: “If someone is using hate speech or making racially charged comments, physical violence can be justified to prevent this person from espousing their hateful views.”40

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  1. Villasenor, J. (2017, September 18). Views among college students regarding the First Amendment: Results from a new survey. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/09/18/views-among-college-students-regarding-the-first-amendment-results-from-a-new-survey. For criticism, see: Beckett, L. (2017, September 22). “Junk science”: Experts cast doubt on widely cited college free speech survey. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/22/college-free-speech-violence-survey-junk-science. For Villasenor’s response, see: Volokh, E. (2017, October 23). Freedom of expression on campus: An overview of some recent surveys. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/10/23/freedom-of-expression-on-campus-an-overview-of-some-recent-surveys

  2. McLaughlin, J., & Schmidt, R. (2017, September 28). National Undergraduate Study. McLaughlin & Associates. Retrieved from http://c8.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/NATL%20Undergrad%209-27-17%20Presentation%20%281%29.pdf

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If that sounds reasonable to you, just think about what the statement implies after concept creep and emotional reasoning expand the meaning of “hate speech” and “racially charged.” In a call-out culture, almost anything that is interpreted by anyone as having a negative impact on vulnerable members of the community—regardless of intent—can be called hate speech. The Columbia University linguist John McWhorter describes how the term “white supremacist” is now used in an “utterly athletic, recreational” way, as a “battering ram” to attack anyone who departs from the party line.41 McWhorter himself (who is African American) has been called a white supremacist for questioning received wisdom on matters related to race.42 But if some students now think it’s OK to punch a fascist or white supremacist,43 and if anyone who disagrees with them can be labeled a fascist or white supremacist, well, you can see how this rhetorical move might make people hesitant to voice dissenting views on campus.44

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  1. McWhorter, J. (2017, June 30). A Columbia professor’s critique of campus politics. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/a-columbia-professors-critique-of-campus-politics/532335

  2. “The idea is that if you go against a certain orthodoxy, then it isn’t only that you disagree, but that you also wish white people were still in charge, that you want people of color to sit down and shut up.” See: McWhorter, J. (2016, November 29). The difference between racial bias and white supremacy. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/4584161/white-supremacy

  3. Stack, L. (2017, January 21). Attack on alt-right leader has internet asking: Is it O.K. to punch a Nazi? The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/politics/richard-spencer-punched-attack.html

  4. In fact, we can make a prediction right now, while writing this book in 2017: Most of the negative reviews and responses to this book will at some point note our race and gender and then directly assert or vaguely hint that we are racists or sexists who are motivated primarily by the desire to preserve our privilege. We will then respond in the spirit of Mark Lilla, the author of a critique of identity politics titled The Once and Future Liberal. Lilla, an avowed liberal who wrote his book to help the Democrats start winning elections, responds to repeated name-calling by saying, essentially, “That is a slur, not an argument. Make an argument and I’ll respond to it.” See, for example, Goldstein, E. R. (2016, December 15). Campus identity politics is dooming liberal causes, a professor charges. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/Campus-Identity-Politics-Is/238694

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The letter exemplified the dichotomous thinking of the Untruth of Us Versus Them:

Either you support students of marginalized identities, particularly Black students, or leave us to protect and organize for our communities without the impositions of your patronization, without your binary respectability politics, and without your monolithic perceptions of protest and organizing.59

The students continued: “If engaged, Heather Mac Donald would not be debating on mere difference of opinion, but the right of Black people to exist.” This sentence includes fortune-telling, as the students predict what Mac Donald would say. It also includes a rhetorical flourish that became common in 2017: the assertion that a speaker will “deny” people from certain identity groups “the right to exist.”60 This thinking is a form of catastrophizing, in that it inflates the horrors of a speaker’s words far beyond what the speaker might actually say. The students also called Mac Donald “a fascist, a white supremacist, a warhawk, a transphobe, a queerphobe, [and] a classist.” This is labeling running wild—a list of serious accusations made without supporting evidence.61

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  1. We, Few of the Black Students Here at Pomona College and the Claremont Colleges. (n.d.). Response to Pomona College president David Oxtoby’s “Academic freedom and free speech” email of April 7, 2017. Archive of Pomona Student Petition [Online document]. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_y6NmxoIBLcZJxYkN9V1YfaPYzVSMKCA17PgBzz10wk/edit

  2. Harris, S. (2017, November 17). The spurious move to stifle speech on campus because it is “dehumanizing.” Reason. Retrieved from http://reason.com/archives/2017/11/17/the-move-to-stifle-speech-on-campus-beca

  3. Linguist John McWhorter says that terms such as these are “tools for injury, not just dictionary terms.” McWhorter, J. (2016, November 29). The difference between racial bias and white supremacy. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/4584161/white-supremacy

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Where did college students learn to think this way? We don’t know what courses they took at Pomona, or whether they thought this way before they arrived on campus, but the letter overall shows the influence of the common-enemy identity politics we described in chapter 3, and it makes extensive use of the language of intersectionality. For example, the students end their letter with a demand that the president must send an email

to the entire student body, faculty, and staff by Thursday, April 20, 2017, apologizing for the previous patronizing statement [his defense of academic freedom], enforcing that Pomona College does not tolerate hate speech and speech that projects violence onto the bodies of its marginalized students and oppressed peoples, especially Black students who straddle the intersection of marginalized identities.

As we saw in chapter 3, this kind of identity politics amplifies the human proclivity for us-versus-them thinking. It prepares students for battle, not for learning.

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The most shocking event of all occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia. On the night of August 11, 2017, members of the self-described alt-right, including many neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen, marched across the fabled grounds of the University of Virginia, carrying Tiki torches and chanting neo-Nazi and white supremacist slogans, including “Jews will not replace us.” If you are looking for examples of common-enemy identity politics, it doesn’t get any clearer than this.

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The sight of Nazi flags and the murder of Heyer profoundly shook an already divided nation. It was a moment that brought together many Republicans and Democrats in leadership positions in a forceful denunciation of the white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Yet one voice was conspicuously absent from the conversation: President Trump’s. The president had by that time demonstrated a willingness to condemn many people harshly and promptly, yet he was restrained and slow in his criticism of the white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville. On the day of Heyer’s death, when most Americans were looking to the president to clearly and unambiguously condemn neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, he condemned hatred, bigotry, and violence “on many sides.” Two days later, he read aloud a written statement that offered condemnation, but the very next day, in unscripted remarks, he said that there were “very fine people on both sides.”67 With those three words—“very fine people”68—the president showed that he was sympathetic to the men who staged the most highly publicized march for racism and antisemitism in the United States in many decades.

Note: trump is falling victim to the same thing happening on the left. Afraid to speak out due to potential backlash and loss of voters who will all begin to label him as part of the other side

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  1. Nelson, L., & Swanson, K. (2017, August 15). Full transcript: Donald Trump’s press conference defending the Charlottesville rally. Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2017/8/15/16154028/trump-press-conference-transcript-charlottesville

  2. See Jon’s narration and interpretation of these events as an example of sacrilege and taboo violation: Haidt, J. (2017, August 21). Trump breaks a taboo—and pays the price. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/what-happens-when-the-president-commits-sacrilege/537519

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In a widely circulated essay in The New York Times in July 2017, the argument that words can be violence was made by Lisa Feldman Barrett, a well-respected professor of psychology and emotion researcher at Northeastern University.87 Barrett offered this syllogism: “If words can cause stress, and if prolonged stress can cause physical harm, then it seems that speech—at least certain types of speech—can be a form of violence.”

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  1. Barrett, L. (2017, July 14). When is speech violence? The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html

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We responded in an essay in The Atlantic, in which we noted that it is a logical error to accept the claim that harm—even physical harm—is the same as violence.88 Barrett’s syllogism takes the form that if A can cause B and B can cause C, then A can cause C. Therefore, if words can cause stress and stress can cause harm, then words can cause harm, but that does not establish that words are violence. It only establishes that words can result in harm—even physical harm—which we don’t doubt. To see the difference, just rerun the syllogism by swapping in “breaking up with your girlfriend” or “giving students a lot of homework.” Both of these can provoke stress in someone else (including elevated levels of cortisol), and stress can cause harm, so both can cause harm. That doesn’t mean that they are violent acts.

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  1. Haidt, J., & Lukianoff, G. (2017, July 18). Why it’s a bad idea to tell students words are violence. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/why-its-a-bad-idea-to-tell-students-words-are-violence/533970

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Interpreting a campus lecture as violence is a choice, and it is a choice that increases your pain with respect to the lecture while reducing your options for how to respond. If you interpret a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos as a violent attack on your fellow students, then you have a moral obligation to do something about it, perhaps even something violent. That is precisely how trolls manipulate their victims.

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But if you keep the distinction between speech and violence clear in your mind, then many more options are available to you. First, you can take the Stoic response and develop your ability to remain unmoved. As Marcus Aurelius advised, “Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.”89 The more ways your identity can be threatened by casual daily interactions, the more valuable it will be to cultivate the Stoic (and Buddhist, and CBT) ability to not be emotionally reactive, to not let others control your mind and your cortisol levels. The Stoics understood that words don’t cause stress directly; they can only provoke stress and suffering in a person who has interpreted those words as posing a threat. You can choose whether to interpret a visiting speaker as harmful. You can pick your battles, devote your efforts to changing policies that matter to you, and make yourself immune to trolls. The internet will always be there; extremists will always be posting potentially offensive images and statements; some groups will be targeted more than others. It’s not fair, but even as we work to lessen hatred and heal divisions, all of us must learn to ignore some of the things we see and just carry on with our day.

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  1. Aurelius. Meditations, IV:7.

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A second and more radical response opens up when you reject the “speech is violence” view: you can use your opponents’ ideas and arguments to make yourself stronger. The progressive activist Van Jones (who was President Barack Obama’s green jobs advisor) endorsed this view in February of 2017 in a conversation at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Politics. When Democratic strategist David Axelrod asked Jones about how progressive students should react when people they find ideologically offensive (such as someone associated with the Trump administration) are invited to speak on campus, Jones began by noting the distinction we described in chapter 1 between physical and emotional “safety”:

There are two ideas about safe spaces: One is a very good idea and one is a terrible idea. The idea of being physically safe on a campus—not being subjected to sexual harassment and physical abuse, or being targeted specifically, personally, for some kind of hate speech—“you are an n-word,” or whatever—I am perfectly fine with that. But there’s another view that is now I think ascendant, which I think is just a horrible view, which is that “I need to be safe ideologically. I need to be safe emotionally. I just need to feel good all the time, and if someone says something that I don’t like, that’s a problem for everybody else, including the [university] administration.”90

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  1. Haidt, J. (2017, March 2). Van Jones’ excellent metaphors about the dangers of ideological safety [Blog post]. Heterodox Academy. Retrieved from https://heterodoxacademy.org/2017/03/02/van-jones-excellent-metaphors

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Jones then delivered some of the best advice for college students we have ever heard. He rejected the Untruth of Fragility and turned safetyism on its head:

I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.

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Jones understands antifragility. Jones wants progressive college students to see themselves not as fragile candles but as fires, welcoming the wind by seeking out ideologically different speakers and ideas.

Notes

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