The Righteous Mind

[Aella_]

Excerpts from the book
THE RIGHTEOUS MIND: WHY GOOD PEOPLE ARE DIVIDED BY POLITICS AND RELIGIO
BY JONATHAN HAIDT

Given that I incline a bit more towards the left, I do not share 100% of those views. But the book was v. interesting.


A. MORALITY BINDS AND BINDS

Once people join a political or ideological team, they get ensnared in its moral matrix.
- We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects.

Morality binds and blinds.
It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.

I explained how libertarians (who sacralize liberty) and social conservatives (who sacralize certain institutions and traditions)

 

[Aella_]

B. THE MORAL MATRIX OF SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES + THEIR BLIND SPOTS

The moral foundations of Politics:
Care/ harm
Liberty/ oppression
Fairness/ cheating
Loyalty/ betrayal
Authority/ sanctity/subversion degradation

1.At YourMorals.org, we have found that social conservatives have the broadest set of moral concerns, valuing all six foundations relatively equally. This breadth-and particularly their relatively high settings on the Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity foundations-give them insights that I think are valuable, from a Durkheimian utilitarian perspective.
- However, their most sacred value: Preserve the institutions and traditions that sustain a moral community

2.Conservatives generally take a very different view of human nature than liberals. They believe that people need external structures or constraints in order to behave well, cooperate, and thrive. (This was after the chaos of the French Revolution).These external constraints include laws, institutions, customs, traditions, nations, and religions.

Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions are therefore very concerned about the health and integrity of these "outside-the-mind" coordination devices. . Preserving those institutions and traditions is their most sacred value.
- Conservatives are the "party of order and stability," in Mill's formulation. They generally resist the changes implemented by the "party of progress or reform."
- They do not oppose change of all kinds (such as the Internet), but they fight back ferociously when they believe that change will damage the institutions and traditions that provide our moral exoskeletons (such as the family).

3.Conversely, while conservatives do a better job of preserving moral capital, they often fail to notice certain classes of victims, fail to limit the predations of certain powerful interests, and fail to see the need to change or update institutions as times change.

They want order, even at some cost to those at the bottom.

 

[Aella_]

C. THE MORAL MATRIX OF LIBERALS + THEIR BLIND SPOTS

The moral foundations of Politics:
Care/ harm
Liberty/ oppression
Fairness/ cheating
Loyalty/ betrayal
Authority/ sanctity/subversion degradation


1.Liberals have have a more restrictive set of moral concerns: Care vs. Harm


2.Liberals believe that people are inherently good, and that they flourish when constraints and divisions are removed.

So liberals speak for the weak and oppressed. Liberals stand up for victims of oppression and exclusion. They are better able to see the victims of existing social arrangements. That traditional authority, traditional morality can be quite repressive, and restrictive to those at the bottom, to women, to people that don't fit in.
- They fight to break down arbitrary barriers (such as those based on race, and more recently on sexual orientation). and they continually push us to update those arrangements and invent new ones.

3.Nonetheless, their zeal to help victims, often leads them to try to change an organization or a society without considering the effects of their changes on moral capital,
- It often lead them to push for changes that weaken groups, traditions, institutions, and moral capital. Such "reforms" may lower the overall welfare of a society, and sometimes they even hurt the very victims liberals were trying to help.
- Put another way: on issue after issue, it's as though liberals are trying to help a subset of bees (which really does need help) even if doing so damages the hive.

This, I believe, is the fundamental blind spot of the left.
For example,
They want change and justice, even at the risk of chaos (see the chaos following the French Revolution).
The urge to help Hispanic immigrants in the 1980s led to multicultural education programs that emphasized the differences among Americans rather than their shared values and identity. Emphasizing differences makes many people more racist, not less.

4.Liberals might have even more difficulty understanding conservatives than the other way around, because liberals often have difficulty understanding how the Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity foundations have anything to do with morality. If you don't see that Reagan is pursuing positive values of Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity, you almost have to conclude that Republicans see no positive value in Care and Fairness.

In particular, liberals often have difficulty seeing moral capital, which I defined as the resources that sustain a moral community.

It shows the inability to imagine that Republicans act within a moral matrix that differs from his own.

 

[Aella_]

D. TOWARD MORE CIVIL POLITICS (THE YIN-YANG PRINCIPLE)

Liberals and conservatives are like yin and yang-both are "necessary elements of a healthy state of political life," as John Stuart Mill put it.
This is the great insight that all the Asian religions have attained. Think about yin and yang. Yin and yang aren't enemies. Yin and yang don't hate each other. Yin and yang are both necessary, like night and day, for the functioning of the world.

Liberals are experts in care; they are better able to see the victims of existing social arrangements, and they continually push us to update those arrangements and invent new ones.
- Libertarians (who sacralize liberty) and social conservatives (who sacralize certain institutions and traditions) provide a crucial counterweight to the liberal reform movements that have been so influential in America and Europe since the early twentieth century.
Libertarians are right that markets are miraculous (at least when their externalities and other failures can be addressed), and social conservatives are right that you don't usually help the bees by destroying the hive.

So once you see this -- once you see that liberals and conservatives both have something to contribute, that they form a balance on change versus stability -- then I think the way is open to step outside the moral matrix.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Government came along in order to stop anarchy and familial tyranny. Example: back in 1835 my 4th great grandfather proclaimed his Tallahassee estate a sanctuary for Seminole Indian non-combatants of the 2nd Seminole Indian War. Plenty opposed his action but he controlled the economy and had ten aggressive sons to enforce his will. Even the Seminoles cried foul when the boys enforced their morals on everyone. Wife beating was a no-no the braves hated.

So we can do it our way or form a corporation with laws for uniform, unbiased action against scofflaws in the community.

The problems take two forms: The elites demand lenient treatment of their own, and the proletariats demand the same for their niggers and white trash.

 

[Queersetti]

Excerpts from the book
THE RIGHTEOUS MIND: WHY GOOD PEOPLE ARE DIVIDED BY POLITICS AND RELIGIO
BY JONATHAN HAIDT

Given that I incline a bit more towards the left

I dress to the right, myself.

 

[Queersetti]

Government came along in order to stop anarchy and familial tyranny. Example: back in 1835 my 4th great grandfather proclaimed his Tallahassee estate a sanctuary for Seminole Indian non-combatants of the 2nd Seminole Indian War. Plenty opposed his action but he controlled the economy and had ten aggressive sons to enforce his will. Even the Seminoles cried foul when the boys enforced their morals on everyone. Wife beating was a no-no the braves hated.

So we can do it our way or form a corporation with laws for uniform, unbiased action against scofflaws in the community.

The problems take two forms: The elites demand lenient treatment of their own, and the proletariats demand the same for their niggers and white trash.

I'm pretty sure that there was government before 1835, but I went to college, so what do I know?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I'm pretty sure that there was government before 1835, but I went to college, so what do I know?

Government existed in 1835, too. And where it failed to act others did. Either community acts cooperatively or the strong will do the work.

 

[PoppingTom]

D. TOWARD MORE CIVIL POLITICS (THE YIN-YANG PRINCIPLE)

Liberals and conservatives are like yin and yang-both are "necessary elements of a healthy state of political life," as John Stuart Mill put it.

I would exchange the word "liberals" with "progressives", then it may fit. Every country has a progressive and a conservative power, and in healthy states, they're in some balance.

But there is the possibility it goes out of balance and evolve new. Then, the former progressives may become the conservatives, and new powers become part of the competition and mostly the progressives. Here in Germany, the Greens became that third power to push 3 parties, and displace the - funny thing - so called "liberals", the FDP, out of the Bundestag.

Same thing could happen to America. The GOP shouldn't pretend they're too big to fail and got a godgiven right to every third term presidency of the Dems.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Governments exist so that when you die your children can inherit your property not the next tough guy who comes along, kills your sons and rapes your daughters and takes your land/home/house. Or just tosses them the fuck out and says what are you going to do about it.

 

[PoppingTom]

Governments exist so that when you die your children can inherit your property not the next tough guy who comes along, kills your sons and rapes your daughters and takes your land/home/house. Or just tosses them the fuck out and says what are you going to do about it.

Refers to what?