A review of The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
The very question exaggerates the problem. Destroying a Generation? Hardly! And though I enjoy Jonathan Haidt's work, I find this title to be utter hyperbole! Not all campuses eschew critical thinking and view the conflict of ideas as inherently dangerous or unhealthy. Similarly, not all students--I have two children in college today--require trigger warnings, safe spaces and the serene monotony of unanimity. Most students resent coddling faculty and have grown weary of helicopter parenting, and have come to the awareness that it is only through the exchange of ideas that a better one--sometimes diverging from both original ideas--will become apparent. That said, I find limited benefit in rehashing failed ideas, including those involving racial superiority or stereotypes, unless it is to remind ourselves of our darker past.
Yes and no. I used to hang out with some older men who would grouse over morning coffee about this topic, and reminisce about how when they were children they would deliberately break thermometers so they could play with the mercury inside, whereas today if you did that the whole school would be evacuated so the biohazard teams would come in to deal with it.
These codgers would point to themselves as examples of how harmless mercury actually is. As I recall it, one of them was nearly blind, one had an intransigent fungus infection, one was obese and diabetic ... the lot of them were just bursting with vitality and good health, so that was a killer argument they had there.
I see a lot of rosy retrospection and survivorship bias going on.