So glad Mike posted Ross Douthat's provocative piece on the university earlier today. The Atlantic published an equally insightful article in September entitled, "The Coddling of the American Mind." In it, constitutional lawyer and President/CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Greg Lukianoff, and social psychologist and NYU professor, Jonathan Haidt, look beyond the myriad ways in which "trigger warnings" and the like are short-circuiting the university's authentic mission to teach college students to search for truth among competing ideas. Instead they focus on the consequences of this new ethic to the students' emotional well-being, concluding that this sort of "vindictive protectiveness" is simply bad for mental health.
Here is the list of "cognitive distortions" they analyze throughout the article, offering plentiful examples from universities across the country. (This list is included at the end of the piece.)
1. Mind reading. You assume that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. “He thinks I’m a loser.”
2. Fortune-telling. You predict the future negatively: things will get worse, or there is danger ahead. “I’ll fail that exam,” or “I won’t get the job.”
3. Catastrophizing.You believe that what has happened or will happen will be so awful and unbearable that you won’t be able to stand it. “It would be terrible if I failed.”
4. Labeling. You assign global negative traits to yourself and others. “I’m undesirable,” or “He’s a rotten person.”
5. Discounting positives. You claim that the positive things you or others do are trivial. “That’s what wives are supposed to do—so it doesn’t count when she’s nice to me,” or “Those successes were easy, so they don’t matter.”
6. Negative filtering. You focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. “Look at all of the people who don’t like me.”
7. Overgeneralizing. You perceive a global pattern of negatives on the basis of a single incident. “This generally happens to me. I seem to fail at a lot of things.”
8. Dichotomous thinking. You view events or people in all-or-nothing terms. “I get rejected by everyone,” or “It was a complete waste of time.”
9. Blaming. You focus on the other person as the source of your negative feelings, and you refuse to take responsibility for changing yourself. “She’s to blame for the way I feel now,” or “My parents caused all my problems.”
10. What if? You keep asking a series of questions about “what if” something happens, and you fail to be satisfied with any of the answers. “Yeah, but what if I get anxious?,” or “What if I can’t catch my breath?”
11. Emotional reasoning. You let your feelings guide your interpretation of reality. “I feel depressed; therefore, my marriage is not working out.”
12. Inability to disconfirm. You reject any evidence or arguments that might contradict your negative thoughts. For example, when you have the thought I’m unlovable, you reject as irrelevant any evidence that people like you. Consequently, your thought cannot be refuted. “That’s not the real issue. There are deeper problems. There are other factors.”
The authors offer a few solutions, one of which is to educate incoming students in methods of cognitive behavioral therapy. Those with a Catholic imagination who are teaching in and leading Catholic universities would, I think, be able to come up with far better.
But the formation in mind and character that college students need to respectfully engage and evaluate competing ideas must start much earlier. Classical schools today--Catholic and Protestant, primary and secondary--are taking this effort very seriously. Here's the aspirational list we offer in our Academic Vision at St. Benedict's, a K-6 Catholic classical school I helped to found in South Natick, MA.
So, what might children educated in the Catholic classical tradition look like?
They are able to discern beauty—in writing, in art, in music.
They are captivated by great books and the engaging characters and stories therein, rather than feel the need always to be entertained by electronic stimuli.
They can engage and take interest in ideas and principles, and the lifelong search for truth, rather than being consumed only by the acquisition of things.
They have an understanding of the historical context in which they live, instead of a bias toward the present and a false idea that moral progress is inevitable.
They can stand up and articulate the bedrock principles of Western civilization and of the American experiment in ordered liberty, rather than believing that assertion of feeling constitutes authentic argument.
They understand how characters are formed and good leaders borne, rather than being pulled by cultural trends and what’s popular.
They can disagree with others without being disagreeable.
In a word, classical (or “liberal”) education helps one become free to pursue the truth and so become the person God intends them to be.
If schools like St. Benedict's can really do this--indeed, they are springing up across the country and showing excellent results--we will be offering to the Western world the building blocks of a cultural renaissance. It is one that is much needed.
Friday, November 13, 2015
GOP hopeful Marco Rubio had the opportunity at the fourth Republican debate Tuesday night to share his plan for an increase in the child tax credit (adding $2,500 to the current $1000 per child, refundable from tax liability including, importantly, payroll taxes). As a devotee of both CST and Ross Douthat's Grand New Party, I've long been a proponent of this, as a up-front investment in the sacrifices parents make toward future generations (of citizens/taxpayers). Douthat makes a more recent case for the credit here and here. Both Douthat and EPPC's Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry write that the tax credit--and the critique libertarian Rand Paul had of it at the debate--is emblematic of the broader GOP debate between libertarianism and reform conservatism.
As relational feminists have rightly argued, children are a "public good"; women's disproportionate care of children creates a "collective or societal debt" toward women (or increasingly, both parents). Without this sort of care-oriented restructuring of the tax code to support those raising children, ours is a system of free-riders. Allowing American parents to keep more of their own income is paying it forward, investing in parents' investment in their children. This seems to me a no-brainer for Catholics. And is certainly a more "conservative" [read: freedom-loving] approach than that offered by Democrats who seek rather to increase the child care tax credit, benefitting only those who contract out the care of their children to institutional daycare providers, excluding those who care for their young children themselves (or with the help of noninstitutionalized supports).
The Wall Street Journal's editoral page is strongly opposed to the increase, calling it a new entitlement that merely panders, but doesn't grow the economy: "Mr. Rubio has let himself be swayed by a coterie of non-economist conservatives who view the tax code as an engine of social policy." Seems to this non-economist that the work of parents is an essential piece of that which grows the economy--in the long term, of course, but without their sacrifice of caregiving for future generations, we would be without the human capital on which this knowledge/service economy depends. Further, for fiscal conservatives to simply dismiss the current stress on working parents--and the current market disincentives toward caregiving and anti-family distortions in the tax code--betrays a forgetfulness of the cultural supports upon which the market (and our republic) depends. John Kasich inelegantly attempted to make this point on Tuesday by referencing the work of "Catholic theologian Michael Novak" who, according to Kasich, argues that the market system needs to be "underlaid with values." He's right--and lifting the tax burden for parents is one of them.
By the way, the prolific Novak has a new book out this month, a topic for a future post.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Claremont Review of Books has recently launched a website and currently features my review of Katha Pollitt's Pro and two other books--among them, Robin West's collection of pro-choice and pro-life voices. MoJers Lisa Schiltz and Susan Stabile write in West's collection, and I remain convinced that West takes so well to pro-life argument because of knowing pro-life women like Lisa and Susan!
The Catholic Information Center in DC honored this inspiring duo this past week: Seamus, for his leadership protecting religious freedom as founder of the Becket Fund, and Mary, for her lifelong dedication to Catholic teaching on life and the family, now as founder/director of the Catholic Women's Forum at EPPC where she is a fellow. Watch the moving video dedicated to their work here. And Mary's beautiful acceptance speech is well worth a full read. Here's a taste:
It’s time for men and women within the Church to bring the efforts and witness of women to the foreground of the Church’s work evangelize the culture—not just for the strategic reason that women are half the population—and we must reach them and speak to them through shared experiences and in language that resonates. But because as a Church, we must live the truth that we preach: That men and women are complementary—that we need each other, and we need to collaborate, that the Church needs our witness to the world, a sign of the great bond between Christ and the Church. The Church needs us—men and women—to witness to the love of God in a powerful way, together.
Finally, if you missed Seamus' commencement speech at Ave Maria University in 2013, it's deeply inspiring.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
With the support of the newly established Mother Teresa Project, the Stein Center for Social Research at Ave Maria University will host the conference, "Reimagining Care for the Poor" on November 5-6. From the promo:
This goal of this meeting is to facilitate creative discussion about the possibility of developing new, Church-based solutions to poverty in the United States, with a particular emphasis on parish activities of the Catholic Church. We have invited a mixed group of thinkers from academic, business, and non-profit sectors. The unifying thread is that our participants share a passion for the poor, and the firm conviction that strong church communities are vital to social change.
William Galston was part of Bill Clinton's domestic policy team in the mid 1990s when I was coming of age at Middlebury College. Communitarianism was in vogue, and Amitai Etzioni's Spirit of Community had made a strong impression upon me as a young sociology student who hadn't yet discovered political philosophy. I remember experiencing a strong (if youthful) sense of political hope that Galston was involved in Clinton's administration, having learned how closely tied he was to Etzioni and communitarianism. Later would I find Mary Ann Glendon's particular strain of communitarianism--or as I know it now, Catholic social teaching.
I felt a bit of that (more aged) hope on Wednesday, as I read Galston's WSJ op-ed touting marriage as the "cure for poverty." If Galston, now at the Brookings Institute, can state together with colleague Isabel Sawhill and eminent scholar Sara McLanahan that “children raised by two biological parents in a stable marriage do better than children in other family forms across a wide variety of outcomes," we may yet be able to get beyond the impasse created by the last decade of debates over gay marriage. Indeed, Galston did not say much to contradict Rusty Reno or Ross Douthat or even Rick Santorum. Would that thinkers from across the political spectrum could once again speak in one voice on this urgent matter. As all of these writers have noted, governmental policy cannot ultimately restore marriage in America, but policy can be crafted so as not to discourage the same.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
RELEASED TODAY - October 1, 2015
Dear Synod Fathers in Christ,
In anticipation of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family (October 2015), we the undersigned Catholic women—scholars, professors, attorneys, physicians, writers, businesswomen, philanthropists, leaders of apostolate, members of religious orders, and others—wish to express our love for Pope Francis, our fidelity to and gratitude for the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and our confidence in the Synod of Bishops as it strives to strengthen the Church’s evangelizing mission.
Pope Francis has highlighted the need for women to be an “incisive presence” in the Church, and an “effective presence” in the culture, the workplace, and wherever “the most important decisions are taken,” in harmony with women’s “preferential attention” for the family. And Pope St. John Paul II observed that women “have the task of assuring the moral dimension of culture … a culture worthy of the person.” With these ideas in mind, we wish the Synod Fathers to know that:
- We see the teachings of the Church as truth—a source of authentic freedom, equality, and happiness for women.
- We give witness that the Church’s teachings—on the dignity of the human person and the value of human life from conception to natural death; on the meaning of human sexuality, the significance of sexual difference and the complementarity of men and women; on openness to life and the gift of motherhood; and on marriage and family founded on the indissoluble commitment of a man and a woman—provide a sure guide to the Christian life, promote women’s flourishing, and serve to protect the poor and most vulnerable among us.
- We stand in solidarity with our sisters in the developing world against what Pope Francis has described as “forms of ideological colonization which are out to destroy the family” and which exalt the pursuit of “success, riches, and power at all costs.” We urge a profound attentiveness to the poor and a relentless search for just solutions that address the deeper causes of poverty while simultaneously safeguarding the vulnerable, strengthening the family, and upholding the common good.
- We believe that pastoral challenges can be met, in part, by communicating Church teachings more clearly, confidently, and compassionately, in language, tone, and generous personal encounters that welcome the “why?” of a searching heart. We believe that women should be prominent messengers of the truths contained in the Church’s teachings.
- We enthusiastically commit our distinctive insights and gifts, and our fervent prayers, in service to the Church’s evangelizing mission.
And we pledge to accompany you, the Synod Fathers, and Pope Francis with our deepest prayers and gratitude, as you work for the good of families and the Church.
In Christ,
See the 200 signatories -- and add your own name here!
