The Coddling of the American Mind
The Coddling of the American Mind

Author: Greg Lukianoff

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-09-04

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0735224900

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Something is going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen? First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths are incompatible with basic psychological principles, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. They interfere with healthy development. Anyone who embraces these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—is less likely to become an autonomous adult able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to produce these untruths. They situate the conflicts on campus in the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization, including a rise in hate crimes and off-campus provocation. They explore changes in childhood including the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

The State of the American Mind
The State of the American Mind

Author: Mark Bauerlein

Publisher: Templeton Foundation Press

Published: 2015-05-22

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 159947459X

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In 1987, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind was published; a wildly popular book that drew attention to the shift in American culture away from the tenants that made America—and Americans—unique. Bloom focused on a breakdown in the American curriculum, but many sensed that the issue affected more than education. The very essence of what it meant to be an American was disappearing. That was over twenty years ago. Since then, the United States has experienced unprecedented wealth, more youth enrolling in higher education than ever before, and technology advancements far beyond what many in the 1980s dreamed possible. And yet, the state of the American mind seems to have deteriorated further. Benjamin Franklin’s “self-made man” has become a man dependent on the state. Independence has turned into self-absorption. Liberty has been curtailed in the defense of multiculturalism. In order to fully grasp the underpinnings of this shift away from the self-reliant, well-informed American, editors Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow have brought together a group of cultural and educational experts to discuss the root causes of the decline of the American mind. The writers of these fifteen original essays include E. D. Hirsch, Nicholas Eberstadt, and Dennis Prager, as well as Daniel Dreisbach, Gerald Graff, Richard Arum, Robert Whitaker, David T. Z. Mindich, Maggie Jackson, Jean Twenge, Jonathan Kay, Ilya Somin, Steve Wasserman, Greg Lukianoff, and R. R. Reno. Their essays are compiled into three main categories: States of Mind: Indicators of Intellectual and Cognitive Decline These essays broach specific mental deficiencies among the population, including lagging cultural IQ, low Biblical literacy, poor writing skills, and over-medication. Personal and Cognitive Habits/Interests These essays turn to specific mental behaviors and interests, including avoidance of the news, short attention spans, narcissism, and conspiracy obsessions. National Consequences These essays examine broader trends affecting populations and institutions, including rates of entitlement claims, voting habits, and a low-performing higher education system. The State of the American Mind is both an assessment of our current state as well as a warning, foretelling what we may yet become. For anyone interested in the intellectual fate of America, The State of the American Mind offers an accessible and critical look at life in America and how our collective mind is faring.

Closing of the American Mind
Closing of the American Mind

Author: Allan Bloom

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-06-30

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1439126267

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The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites. Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.

Israel in the American Mind
Israel in the American Mind

Author: Shaul Mitelpunkt

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-05-10

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 110842239X

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Examines the changing meanings Americans invested in their country's intensifying relationship with Israel from the 1950s to the 1980s.

The Branding of the American Mind
The Branding of the American Mind

Author: Jacob H. Rooksby

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2016-12-01

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1421420813

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The first real exposé of how universities have trademarked, copyrighted, branded, and patented everything they do. Universities generate an enormous amount of intellectual property, including copyrights, trademarks, patents, Internet domain names, and even trade secrets. Until recently, universities often ceded ownership of this property to the faculty member or student who created or discovered it in the course of their research. Increasingly, though, universities have become protective of this property, claiming it for their own use and licensing it as a revenue source instead of allowing it to remain in the public sphere. Many universities now behave like private corporations, suing to protect trademarked sports logos, patents, and name brands. Yet how can private rights accumulation and enforcement further the public interest in higher education? What is to be gained and lost as institutions become more guarded and contentious in their orientation toward intellectual property? In this pioneering book, law professor Jacob H. Rooksby uses a mixture of qualitative, quantitative, and legal research methods to grapple with those central questions, exposing and critiquing the industry’s unquestioned and growing embrace of intellectual property from the perspective of research in law, higher education, and the social sciences. While knowledge creation and dissemination have a long history in higher education, using intellectual property as a vehicle for rights staking and enforcement is a relatively new and, as Rooksby argues, dangerous phenomenon for the sector. The Branding of the American Mind points to higher education’s love affair with intellectual property itself, in all its dimensions, including newer forms that are less tied to scholarly output. The result is an unwelcome assault on the public’s interest in higher education. Presuming no background knowledge of intellectual property, and ending with a call to action, The Branding of the American Mind explores applicable laws, legal regimes, and precedent in plain English, making the book appealing to anyone concerned for the future of higher education.

Public Opinion
Public Opinion

Author: Barbara A. Bardes

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1442215011

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The new edition of this popular textbook provides a comprehensive, accessible introduction to public opinion in the United States and describes how public opinion data are collected, how they are used, and the role they play in the U.S. political system. Bardes and Oldendick introduce students to the history of polling and explain the factors a good consumer of polls should know in order to evaluate public opinion data. Public Opinion: Measuring the American Mind is the only text to devote significant space to the history.

Media and the American Mind
Media and the American Mind

Author: Daniel J. Czitrom

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780807841075

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In a fascinating and comprehensive intellectual history of modern communication in America, Daniel Czitrom examines the continuing contradictions between the progressive possibilities that new communications technologies offer and their use as instruments

The Opening of the American Mind
The Opening of the American Mind

Author: Lawrence W. Levine

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 1997-08-14

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780807031193

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Publicly greeted as the definitive answer to recent attacks on the university, Lawrence W. Levine's book is a brilliantly argued positive vision of American education and culture.