Curiosity Under Attack
Curiosity is the fountainhead of all learning, deep relational connection, and innovation. An increasing polarization and the resulting combative culture threaten curiosity on university campuses in the US. Brain researchers have noted the difference in how our brains work during conflict. Curiosity is impossible when one is feeling threatened. Instead, “we feel an involuntary need to defend our side and attack the other” (Ripley). I’m troubled by the culture of many liberal arts universities and question their ability to produce thoughtful, creative, and curious citizens in the near future.
Continuing from last week’s analysis of Jonathan Haidt’s moral psychological approach to investigating culture, he, along with Greg Lukianoff, focus on the university setting in their book The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.
Here’s a few topics that have their concern on today’s university campuses:
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- Dominance of single partisanship – The welcoming of only one political ideology fundamentally is counterproductive to the intended university ethos – a civil discussion of varying ideas where students are able to present and challenge every idea during that immensely formational season (Lukianoff and Haidt, 99). One university I visited the day after the election I was met with students who attended university-provided grief counseling, confided in me that they didn’t know a single person who voted differently than they did, and couldn’t come up with a sane reason someone would vote for that “monster.” I’m purposely leaving left/right language out of this because either way would be concerning in Academia.
- Safe spaces – Where absolutely, universities should be safe physically, and ideologically – in that students have the freedom to investigate claims from all sides, now emotional safety (i.e. “not being offended”) is also of importance (Lukianoff and Haidt, 24-27). Interacting in echo chambers is a direct assault to robust education. Haidt (in particular) and Jordan Peterson are long friends and allies on this point.
- Lack of empathy training – “In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, Americans are discovering that they are more deeply divided than they had realized. Rising cross-partisan hatred is intensifying an ‘us versus them’ attitude that motivates people to accept the worst possible version of the other side’s beliefs, and the most flattering version of their own” (OpenMind, an organization co-founded by Haidt).
- Soundbyte culture – Professors now need to consider how their lectures will appear on Twitter and out of context. This provides little nuance for complex topics in lectures.
These issues attack the very foundation of the university – a seeking of the truth. The book The Coddling of the American Mind found its impetus in an article written for The Atlantic three years before the publication of the book with the same name. Here, Haidt and Lukianoff describe the learning process:
There’s a saying common in education circles: Don’t teach students what to think; teach them how to think. The idea goes back at least as far as Socrates. Today, what we call the Socratic method is a way of teaching that fosters critical thinking, in part by encouraging students to question their own unexamined beliefs, as well as the received wisdom of those around them. Such questioning sometimes leads to discomfort, and even to anger, on the way to understanding. (Haidt and Lukianoff, The Atlantic)
Enduring learning contains a story arc. It moves from a place of orientation, to disorientation, to reorientation around the new (or nuanced). There is no learning without discomfort, which can feel disorienting. It’s the same with jazz music (all music, really), where we start from the root, move to interesting dissonance, and bring resolution. Good intentioned (see the subtitle) decisions have tried to minimize the dissonance and disorientation around learning.
The telos of university is also under evaluation. Is it truth (“discovery and transmission of truth”, Lukianoff and Haidt, 254) or social change (255)? If the purpose of the university is anything other than the discovery and transmission of truth, there will be heavily bias of teaching towards that purpose and reward certain findings, according to Lukianoff and Haidt.
I applaud Lukianoff and Haidt’s practical approach. This is very refreshing in Academia. Consider OpenMind which is “a free, interactive, psychology-based platform designed to foster intellectual humility, empathy, and mutual understanding across a variety of difference” (OpenMind). Or Heterodox Academy which is “a non-partisan collaborative of more than 3,500 professors, administrators, and graduate students committed to enhancing the quality and impact of research — and improving education — by promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in institutions of higher learning” (Heterodox Academy). These two academics embody our program’s goals of being reflective practitioners.
I think one place they fall short is failing to add more nuance to their stances on trigger warnings and free speech. In view of trigger warnings, they suggest that there should be absolutely no trigger warnings and abandon political correctness. That seems like a backwards move that was used to marginalize and assert power. I’d like to see a third-way of thinking, or something that adds nuance and isn’t backwards responses to a current over-correction.
A Possible Turning Point
I am pessimistic to think that polarity itself has the resources in which to bring about change on the university campus. But Haidt taps into a powerful, unifying truism – nothing unifies like a common enemy or problem. I think the mental health crisis on college campuses will force a hard look at the ethos and even telos of campuses. I’m hopeful a collective analysis and reflective practitioners can come together providing unity, a solution that helps hurting students, and revives a purity around curiosity, the cornerstone of learning.
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Amanda Ripley, “Complicating the Narratives,” The Wholy Story, https://thewholestory.solutionsjournalism.org/complicating-the-narratives-b91ea06ddf63 (accessed March 3, 2020).
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure (New York: Penguin, 2018).
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” The Atlantic, September 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/ (accessed March 3, 2020). Photo credit belongs here, too.
Heterodox Academy, https://heterodoxacademy.org/about-us/ (accessed March 3, 2020).
OpenMind, https://openmindplatform.org/about/ (accessed March 3, 2020).
About the Author
Shawn Cramer
14 responses to “Curiosity Under Attack”
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Shawn,
How do you envision campuses uniting around the mental health crisis? What has Cru done to help in that area? Do you partner with schools in a particular way to provide support, resources, or encouragement? My daughter is at an art school, and while they say each student gets 12 free counseling visits/yr, I think they end up referring the kids out to other practitioners because the help the campus pros are able to provide is actually very limited in scope. Does Cru have a presence at any of the more specialized schools? There’s a huge need at SAIC for supports to help kids navigate the mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges of life.
Cru has typically been present at state schools with residential living. I am hoping for an innovative shift that would change postures and practices as speciality schools.
May it be so. Lead the way, my friend.
Self-determination is the guarantee that, whatever we choose, we will be the protagonists of our lives. We can be wrong. In fact, we are very likely to do it, but we will learn from the mistake and move on, enriching our toolkit for life. From the cognitive point of view, there is nothing more challenging than problems and errors since these not only demand effort but also a process of change or adaptation. When we face a problem, all our cognitive resources are put in place and often that solution implies a reorganization of the mental scheme.
One of my mentors currently works at a charter school in Arizona that’s pretty ritzy (most of the students there are the ones who get full ride scholarships to the big IVY League schools). When he first started working there, he messaged me saying, “This is how education is supposed to be.” He teaches Western Classics there and all of their classes are conducted in the style of a Socratic Seminar. He mentioned that after seeing it in action in this context, it should be utilized more often in university settings in particular.
While I agree with him, a big part of that also comes in how the professor or teacher facilitates it. Like you mentioned, schools should be a safe place to dialogue about ideas. But when the dialogue is immediately shut down (whether by students or faculty), we lose so much of what makes academia worthwhile.
I’ve read that Silicon Valley’s elite are spending thousands upon thousands to send their children to a virtually technology free, classic educational experience.
Shawn,
Though I found great value in The Coddling Of The American Mind I must admit I am at a deficit due to being from the generation I am. All of my college experiences have been times of deep learning and very uncomfortable emotionally and mentally due to the stretching and shifting of paradigms. As a coach we have a saying ” no learning ever takes place in the comfort zone, where the learning zones starts is where the comfort zone ends.” Have parents relinquished part of their responsibility up to the schools? Is it the schools responsibility to teach a child how to face failure and peer pressure or is that the parents responsibility? Having a wife and daughter who both work in the state educational system I am often appalled at the demands parent make and the blame they put on teachers for their child’s inability to function at a public school. Once a student reaches college it seems to me that there should be an ability to face reality and navigate the many opinions that will be faced.
Understanding the path of learning will be a key issue for a way forward, I believe.
Your work with CRU seems to give you a unique vantage point into what Lukianoff and Haidt are suggesting in Coddling. It is out of that vantage point that I’m assuming you wrote, “I’m troubled by the culture of many liberal arts universities and question their ability to produce thoughtful, creative, and curious citizens in the near future.” If so, it seems to match that of the authors. How is CRU challenging this on liberal arts campuses? In your analysis, are the CRU chapters forming thoughtful, creative, and curious citizens within a seemingly closing-minded system? Or, is CRU creating a different kind of safe, closed-system incubator for Christian students on liberal arts campuses?
As you’ll read in my post, from my perspective, liberal arts universities are light-years ahead of Christian higher education with regard to academic integrity. That is, with few exceptions, the dozens of Christian universities that I am connected to are hyper-concerned not with the world, but with their brand of Christianity. Truly, their desire is to teach students what to think. For that reason, I question their academic integrity and wish that ongoing accreditation for said institutions included measurements of elements such as the inclusion of various perspectives (in public lectureships, on faculty, and in-class offerings) and the encouragement of and training for civil discourse and healthy disagreement.
Unfortunately from me recent reading, Cru has historically treated universities as the social centers for youth, rather than institutions of thought formation. Others (like IV) have seen the need for that and have varying postures as a result.
I think you’re right that the mental health crisis might be enough to unite people in such a way to take a harder look at how we have created the mess we’re in.
Talking about sound bytes, this week I heard one that caught my memory bank “Curiosity may have killed the cat but it solved polio.”
ha. Stay curious, my friend.
‘Nothing unifies like a common enemy or problem’. Well-differentiated, reflective practitioners can do something with this!
You refer to the issue of Mental Health affecting students on College Campuses. I hope that this can be visited well and with the attitude of opportunity for those teachers who are caring toward the well-being of their students!
‘Nothing unifies like a common enemy or problem’. We have not been the most unified in our leadership at the Mustard Seed Street Church and now we must be in facing the problem of helping people in the midst of a Pandemic. Sick or healthy, people need food. Being closed for the sake of saving our staff and volunteers is not an option because sick or healthy, people need food. Now, agreeing on this truth, how do we do this most safely for those we serve and for those who are serving?
I love the idea of opportunity that comes with such a statement: ‘Nothing unifies like a common enemy or problem.’
Thanks Shawn. So appreciate your care.