Thank you universe for YOU. This is so critical and the fact that your voice and research have gained traction might be the best thing that has happened in the U.S. in a long time. Thank you.
"The booing followed a May 5 open letter from the Executive Committee of the NYU Student Government Assembly, which called Haidt’s selection “deeply unsettling” and demanded that the administration reconsider. Most revealingly, the committee complained that “many students have reported feelings of disappointment, disgust, unenthusiasm, defeat, and embarrassment,” language that mirrors the therapeutic vocabulary Haidt and Lukianoff diagnosed as the central pathology in Coddling. The students treated emotional discomfort with a speaker’s ideas as the equivalent of a physical threat. “Was he the safest option,” asked the students, without any apparent irony, “considering the current political climate and his critiques of liberal ideology?”
I was shocked to see students booing him. "Hey, let's boo the guy that's trying to save kids education and independence so that they can grow up healthy and confident. BOOOOOOOO." :-)
I was not surprised. NYU, like all "elite" universities has many students who have been coddled! They cannot emotionally tolerate hearing anyone who disagrees with them or whom they ASSUME will say something that they disagree with, even if they have never actually themselves heard that person or read anything by that person.
Forgive my cynicism, but I can't help thinking that if they didn't know nearly all of this before graduation day, they probably wasted the last four years.
I’m not sure how old you are, but although I definitely thought that I ‘knew’ all this when I graduated, I have had many moments over the past forty years in which I have behaved unwisely as if I did NOT know it. ‘Knowing’ something is, in my experience at least, not at all the same as ‘living’ it and so I, for one, am still and increasingly grateful for such reminders of what truly matters.
NYU students are very lucky to have you on their faculty, Jon, and they were lucky to have you as their commencement speaker. I suspect most of them realized that, despite the few grandstanders who tried to hog the attention and steal the narrative.
Fantastic, Jon. You were the antidote to the shitstorm that engulfed social psychology after the replicability crisis. You helped make Social Psychology Great Again! ;-)
Thanks for sharing your address Jonathan! Attention is it. Not having a cell phone, I receive 0 notifications. I check messages on my laptop, and I can affirm that I’ve never missed anything that could not wait. And it leaves me more time for Mary Oliver’s advice: "Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."
There are a myriad of things that make us human. But the ability to pay attention lies at the core. Relationships require attentive listeners; learning takes dedicated attention to grow knowledge and skills; reading demands attention to words, meaning, and context; work demands attention to produce carefully crafted products or services; democracy involves attention to truth and opposing positions; faith requires attention for prayer, silence, and reading scripture. Attention is it.
I do love Mary Oliver's Instruction for life. I am paying particular attention to #2, Be astonished. The more I dwell here, the more I'm astonished with what seems regular. Try this, You will be astonished.
Thank you universe for YOU. This is so critical and the fact that your voice and research have gained traction might be the best thing that has happened in the U.S. in a long time. Thank you.
Mike Shellenberger https://www.public.news/p/booing-of-jonathan-haidt-shows-how reports on some students booing just before your address https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hITZpxhdYs and walking out while you spoke. His video has a brief excerpt https://www.public.news/p/booing-of-jonathan-haidt-shows-how?timestamp=87.0.
"The booing followed a May 5 open letter from the Executive Committee of the NYU Student Government Assembly, which called Haidt’s selection “deeply unsettling” and demanded that the administration reconsider. Most revealingly, the committee complained that “many students have reported feelings of disappointment, disgust, unenthusiasm, defeat, and embarrassment,” language that mirrors the therapeutic vocabulary Haidt and Lukianoff diagnosed as the central pathology in Coddling. The students treated emotional discomfort with a speaker’s ideas as the equivalent of a physical threat. “Was he the safest option,” asked the students, without any apparent irony, “considering the current political climate and his critiques of liberal ideology?”
I was shocked to see students booing him. "Hey, let's boo the guy that's trying to save kids education and independence so that they can grow up healthy and confident. BOOOOOOOO." :-)
I was not surprised. NYU, like all "elite" universities has many students who have been coddled! They cannot emotionally tolerate hearing anyone who disagrees with them or whom they ASSUME will say something that they disagree with, even if they have never actually themselves heard that person or read anything by that person.
Forgive my cynicism, but I can't help thinking that if they didn't know nearly all of this before graduation day, they probably wasted the last four years.
I’m not sure how old you are, but although I definitely thought that I ‘knew’ all this when I graduated, I have had many moments over the past forty years in which I have behaved unwisely as if I did NOT know it. ‘Knowing’ something is, in my experience at least, not at all the same as ‘living’ it and so I, for one, am still and increasingly grateful for such reminders of what truly matters.
NYU students are very lucky to have you on their faculty, Jon, and they were lucky to have you as their commencement speaker. I suspect most of them realized that, despite the few grandstanders who tried to hog the attention and steal the narrative.
Fantastic, Jon. You were the antidote to the shitstorm that engulfed social psychology after the replicability crisis. You helped make Social Psychology Great Again! ;-)
Thanks for sharing your address Jonathan! Attention is it. Not having a cell phone, I receive 0 notifications. I check messages on my laptop, and I can affirm that I’ve never missed anything that could not wait. And it leaves me more time for Mary Oliver’s advice: "Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."
There are a myriad of things that make us human. But the ability to pay attention lies at the core. Relationships require attentive listeners; learning takes dedicated attention to grow knowledge and skills; reading demands attention to words, meaning, and context; work demands attention to produce carefully crafted products or services; democracy involves attention to truth and opposing positions; faith requires attention for prayer, silence, and reading scripture. Attention is it.
Thank you Jonathan, that was very thought provoking and I speak as a 77yo Brit.
Gonna start by launching my smart phone into space, hoping that I can find the strength to not be attached to it upon escape velocity.
Your work has been a great good. 👍
Perfection. 👏👏👏👏
Pray they truly take it to heart! ❤️🙏
Thanks for sharing the flourishing course syllabus with us
please. Here is my question about the 3rd reference book mentioned in the syllabus.
it reads:
Dale Carnegie (1936 or 1981) How to win friends and influence people (do not
buy the “digital age” version)
Why is it stated that we should not buy the "digital age" version?
Thanks for replying
I will be forever grateful you did.
I do love Mary Oliver's Instruction for life. I am paying particular attention to #2, Be astonished. The more I dwell here, the more I'm astonished with what seems regular. Try this, You will be astonished.
I love u.