Greg Lukianoff, free-speech attorney, is back with a new book on the state of cancel culture. Lukianoff’s previous book, The Coddling of the American Mind (co-written with Jonathan Haidt), addressed young people’s emotional fragility and inability to handle conflict. In this new, similarly titled work, The Canceling of the American Mind, Lukianoff and coauthor Rikki Schlott turn their focus to the phenomenon of “cancellation”: its origins, its corrosive effects, and how to push back against it.
Lukianoff and Schlott begin with a survey of cancel culture. They trace its origins to the anti-bullying movement, which told children to respond to bullying by telling an adult or a teacher about the mean kids. Proponents inculcated this approach among a whole generation. Those children have since grown up, and now, in the workplace, continue to “tell an adult” (in this case, their boss or HR) when conflicts arise.
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