Precarity and scarcity are at the root of anxiety and “safetyism” on campus: Warner

In a review of Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s The Coddling of the American Mind, John Warner suggests that economic scarcity and precarity underlie the climate of anxiety, depression, and “safetyism” that has come to dominate US campuses. While Haidt and Lukianoff express genuine concern for students’ well-being, Warner adds, they too-readily celebrate values such as critical thought, democracy, and open debate while overlooking the material drivers that influence how those values are disseminated in a post-2008 economic landscape. Warner also finds that Haidt and Lukianoff’s recommendations to alleviate safetyism and anxiety on campus are aimed toward families of privilege. Inside Higher Ed