If you can find someone who said something insensitive, you get credit if you call them out publicly.

Now what effect does that have? Does that change them? No, it makes them hate you.

And if it happens them five or ten times, and they're on the left, they begin to say,

my God, what has happened? This is so unfair, and they become much more sympathetic to views on the right.

Hello, welcome to the Zerganshow on the Vox Media podcast network. At the beginning of their book,

The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Hyde and Greg Luciana, they tell a story of Boetheus.

Boetheus was a Roman senator unjustly imprisoned for treason after he crossed the king.

He was in prison and awaiting execution, and he wrote this classic beautiful set of reflections

called the Constellations of Philosophy. In it, Boetheus imagines himself talking to Lady Philosophy,

he tells her about his rage and his sorrow and his fear and how unfair everything is.

And she responds by refocusing him on all that he has to be grateful for, the good fortune he enjoyed,

the amazing career he had, the safety of his family. And in the end, Boetheus, he peacefully accepts his fate.

He's consoled by philosophy. In their book, Hyde and Luciana, both of whom are a psychologist,

they read Lady Philosophy's intervention as this lesson in the power of cognitive behavioral therapy.

They write that, quote, each exercise helps Boetheus see his situation in a new light.

Each one weakens the grip of his emotions and prepares him to accept Lady Philosophy's ultimate lesson.

That nothing is miserable unless you think it's so. And on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.

This is a lesson they think today's college students need to learn. They're worried about a culture of outrage,

of callouts, of trigger warnings and safe spaces. They see a generation made anxious and lonely by smartphones.

It's been led into a victim outlook by professors and social justice activists. And it has become so intolerant of contrary opinions.

They've come to believe any idea they don't like does literal violence to them.

But the story of Boetheus, it also speaks to the central tension of their book, at least in my opinion.

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