Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist: “Social media has broken down the walls and given immense power of intimidation to minority groups”

Jonathan Haidt teaches at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is the author with Greg Lukianoff of a remarkable essay on the ravages of Wokism in American universities, “The Coddling of the American Mind”, published in 2018. Optimism techno-democratic system that reigned in the early 2010s has given way to deep disenchantment: as in the myth of the Tower of Babel, after taking ourselves for gods, we no longer understand each other and social networks look like a Far- West that it is urgent to regulate, explains Jonathan Haidt. According to him, the problem is not so much the moderation of content, demanded by many, as the architecture of the platforms, which favors extreme speech, whether it comes from the right or the left. He published this point of view in a recent long article on The Atlantic: “Why the last ten years have been singularly stupid in the United States”

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Do you think that cancel culture and wokism are reactions to this tower of Babel of social networks…?

There have always been a variety of moral and political opinions on campuses. There have always been people for whom everything was synonymous with power, especially in certain departments of gender or Afro-American studies, where the terrible French Theory had been infused since the 1980s and 1990s. It’s not that the number of people who believe “all is power” has suddenly increased. But social networks have knocked down all the walls and have given immense power of intimidation, super-virality to minority groups. On campus, it was the far left that picked up the dart gun and started shooting people.

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Certainly, but don’t you think that polarization pre-exists social networks?

Certainly. But the game changes scale when bullying is democratized, encouraged and freed from accountability. When anyone can publicly shame or attack anyone at any time without accountability or due process. Mark Zuckerberg often says, “How could it be wrong to give more people more voice?” Granted, if everyone had more votes equally, that might be good. But, in effect, you are giving more voice to four groups: the far right, the trolls, the far left, and the Russian intelligence agents. If these four groups have a megaphone and they can say whatever they want under false names, without any responsibility, the 80%
remaining become quieter.

Le Figaro