The Canceling of the American Mind

Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens Us All—but There Is a Solution

By: Greg Lukianoff, Rikki Schlott

Narrated by: Rikki Schlott, Kirby Heyborne

A “galvanizing” (The Wall Street Journal) deep dive into cancel culture and its dangers to all Americans from the team that brought you Coddling of the American Mind.

Cancel culture is a new phenomenon, and The Canceling of the American Mind is the first book to codify it and survey its effects, including hard data and research on what cancel culture is and how it works, along with hundreds of new examples showing the left and right both working to silence their enemies.

The Canceling of the American Mind changes how you view cancel culture. Rather than a moral panic, we should consider it a dysfunctional part of how Americans battle for power, status, and dominance. Cancel culture is just one symptom of a much larger problem: the use of cheap rhetorical tactics to “win” arguments without actually winning arguments. After all, why bother refuting your opponents when you can just take away their platform or career?

The good news is that we can beat back this threat to democracy through better citizenship. The Canceling of the American Mind offers concrete steps toward reclaiming a free speech culture, with materials specifically tailored for parents, teachers, business leaders, and everyone who uses social media. We can all show intellectual humility and promote the essential American principles of individuality, resilience, and open-mindedness.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

Good book, Important information, poorly read

The “cancel culture” is so obviously active across America today that we should all be concerned, and the courts need to objectively clarify when the guaranteed rights of freedom of speech are egregiously abused. I was very disappointed in the reader, who, in comparison to so many other readers, was clearly simply reading, read too fast to give important statements proper emphasis, especially because her sentences often trailed off. Nevertheless, I am glad I listened to this book and recommended it to anyone with any point of view to understand this harmful phenomenon in today’s society.

A strong and balanced treatment of the crisis in free speech culture in America

As a slightly right of center American, I appreciated the care the authors took to point out the illiberalism found on both sides of the political spectrum. I thought their identification of the sources of the issues that face the American heritage of free speech to be comprehensive and their prescriptions for remedies to be a panacea for much of what is ailing reasoned discourse and polarization in our nation. It’s definitely a book worth your time.

I’m often less of a fan off author narration, but Rikki gave a nearly flawless performance.

A book everyone would benefit from reading (twice)

I love “The Coddling of the American Mind,” and I loved this equally. My only criticism is that Rikki reads a little fast, but it is extremely well done and important for everyone to read and embrace.

a great book

very well argued, researched, and presented. highly recommend, especially for those who work in higher ed, journalism, media, or entertainment.

Powerful and Important!

Must read! This really gets to the heart of the current "culture war". Beautifully written.

MODERN DAY - MUST READ BOOK

Greg & Rikki breakdown so many aspects of our current critical thinking pandemic beautifully, backed up by empirically cited case studies, this book nails it on all fronts.

It was an excellent and refreshingly nuanced look at cancel culture and the importance of free speech.

I appreciated the unique insight into the political differences and views of what cancelling is and isn’t between the left and right in the US.

it's freedom of speech not freedom to say what to speak

Makes some hard points. Just because I don't like what you're saying or that think what you're saying is dumb, crazy or just wrong. You have that right. I can listen or not. But don't have right tell you not to speak

Great book!

Fantastic book! One of my favorite things about it is that it doesn’t pick political sides, it critiques left and right and talks about the dangerous path our culture is heading down.

Great summary of the illiberalism everywhere

Also has some great case studies, doesn’t get bogged down in specific fights, but documents how the intellectual search for truth is dying, and gives tactics for how to fix this.