From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

Jonathan Haidt

Start date: April 1, 2023

Finish date: April 30, 2023

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Book Club 2023

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What Members Thought

Jun 18, 2012 David Rubenstein rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology, politics

This book is well-written, edited, and well-organized. Each chapter explores a concept, followed by a nice summary. The book is a mixed bag for me. Some parts are fascinating, while other parts are a bit technical and dry. But so much of it is original and fresh, that I give the book five stars.

Haidt proposes six foundations of morality; care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Haidt claims that liberals (Democrats) are i This book is well-written, edited, and well-organized. Each chapter explores a concept, followed by a nice summary. The book is a mixed bag for me. Some parts are fascinating, while other parts are a bit technical and dry. But so much of it is original and fresh, that I give the book five stars.

Haidt proposes six foundations of morality; care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Haidt claims that liberals (Democrats) are interested in the first three of these foundations, and don't bother with the latter three. Conservatives (Republicans) care about all six of these foundations, almost equally. As a result, conservatives have a more sure footing in morality, and understand liberals better than liberals understand conservatives. Again, neither liberals nor conservatives are "better"--but care about different things because their moral thinking is different.

A few days ago I finished the book How We Decide, which describes how the emotional/intuitive mind plays the lion's share in making decisions, while the rational mind forms reasons for our decisions. Jonathan Haidt agrees with this idea, and develops a metaphor throughout his book; an elephant and a driver, in which the elephant plays the role of intuition, and the driver, symbolizing reason, tries to keep the elephant in line.

I thought that the most interesting part of the book is Haidt's explanation for why people practice religion. Religion is such a universal phenomenon, that it practically begs for an explanation using adaptation through natural selection. Religion evolved--both as a biological adaptation and as a cultural meme--in order to cement the sense of belonging and trust among groups. People within these groups are more likely to care about each other, to help each other to survive, and to combat other, alien groups.

Jonathan Haidt interleaves the story of his political tendencies; he started out as a pure liberal, but experiences in his life--and thinking about politics and psychology--led him toward a conservative vein. But Haidt does not say that he favors liberal or conservative thinking. What he does favor, is trying to understand other people's ways of thinking. The most important part of the book lies in the idea that one cannot hope to persuade someone to change his mind, without first understanding his way of thinking. Dale Carnegie used a quote from Henry Ford, "If there is any one secret of success it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from their angle as well as your own." To illustrate the point, the last page of the book has a wonderful cartoon:

...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Margie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: society, pbs-recommends

Although one might quibble with a few of the points Haidt makes, this is a very good book. I thought it was well balanced, and it's extremely informative. I recommend it highly. ...more

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Feb 13, 2017 Rod rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: most-influential

Valuable perspective on the nature of human interaction

This book is truly a must-read, and changed my perspective on human behavior.

The author presents a compelling picture of why we function as we do in society. I generally highlight texts, but this one was particularly difficult since I wanted to highlight practically everything!

This review is of the Kindle edition, but frankly I consider it so valuable I may well purchase the hardcopy as well.

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