"Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the one hand; on the other hand, dissolution, or subjection to foreign conuest, through the growth of an individualism and personal independence that makes cooperation impossible." Bertrand Russell (as quoted by Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind).
This book attempts to explain the moral psychology which motivates liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. Haidt claims to be a former liberal whose studies of different political philosophies eventually turned him into a moderate. Certain of his asides, however, reveal that he's still largely liberal at heart. (For a conservative like myself, there is something extremely humorous but bittersweet about Haidt's descriptions of his astonished reactions to his first readings in conservative philosophy, which he had managed to arrive at well-educated adulthood without ever being exposed to from an actual conservative writer. It certainly reinforces the common conservative complaint that liberalism has so taken over the universities and the media that it is possible for liberals to live their lives simply and completely unaware of what conservatives believe, beyond the standard liberal caricatures of those beliefs.) As such, this book can be seen as a mostly liberal writer's take on much of the same territory covered in conservative Thomas Sowell's book, A Conflict of Visions.
Haidt's focus, unlike Sowell's, however, isn't on differing visions of how the world works, as the source of different political philosophies. Rather, Haidt's focus is on the underlying moral intuitions (think of what, intuitively, makes you angry, or disgusted, or feel a sense of reverence) which compel us to see the world a certain way. According to Haidt, these emotional intuitions (the elephant) come first, and the arguments and reasoning we come up with to justify those feelings (the rider on the elephant), come second, as post hoc justifications. Liberals' intuitions are largely based on caring and fairness. Conservatives rely on these moral intuitions as well, but also rely on additional moral intuitions which liberals often reject: loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty.
Haidt is a gifted writer and this engaging book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in politics and the culture wars, from either side of the aisle. I never felt I was reading a polemic, and felt my own moral feelings and political beliefs from my side of the aisle were, for the most part, fairly represented. As an explanation for differing political viewpoints, this could be, for many readers, a paradigm-shifting book, that can enlighten every political story we read.
I do have two criticisms: I didn't care for Haidt's treatment of religion, and, as a person of faith, found his football game metaphor offensive. I also didn't care for how much of the book was spent discussing how humans evolved to develop the moral intuitions Haidt examines. On these questions (of how things came to be), Haidt's arguments are not nearly as convincing as his descriptions of the much more interesting and relevant descriptions of how things are. As Haidt himself notes, "theories are cheap. Anyone can invent one. Progress happens when theories are tested, supported, and corrected by empirical evidence." The problem with Haidt's theories of evolutionary psychology is that they are only theories, or more properly just hypotheses, which, absent a time machine or a million year long lab experiment are untestable and therefore pat and unhelpful. Nevertheless, this book was otherwise completely worth the read.
Completed: 2012
Rating: 9/10
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