January 2016: The Righteous Mind (Haidt)

Post date: Jan 17, 2016 10:18:41 PM

A small group of us gathered at Maggie's house last Wednesday, January 13, to discuss Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided By Politics and Religion. Most of the group found the book a bit difficult to get through, but in the end, the discussion was quite lively. Overall, we thought author's desire to explore the roots of moral and political divisions was praiseworthy, but he devoted too much of the book to academic disputes and challenges that the average reader might not find interesting. For example, large sections of the book are dedicated to defending the claim that group level selection played an important role in human evolution. This idea fell out of favor in academia over the past few decades for a variety of reasons, and Haidt offers detailed arguments to try to return it to academic respectability. The idea itself, however, probably seems pretty plausible to the average reader, and so it is hard to have patience with detailed academic score settling in a book that is, after all, marketed to the general public.

Some of us were very turned off by Haidt's style of writing and with the methods of his research into moral psychology. Others, however, found the insight into this discipline fascinating, even if they had hoped for more concrete suggestions than the book provided. In fact, the dearth of practical suggestions frustrated all of us. Haidt spends most of the book explaining the differences between the moral systems of individuals on both sides of the political divide and explaining why humans evolved to have such differing moral systems and why it is so hard to change them once they are established. He turns to the task of exploring what we can learn from each other and how we can bridge the gaps between us only at the very end of the book. His remarks there seem a bit rushed and somewhat superficial. Sadly, it was precisely these topics that most interested the members of our group.

Criticisms aside, however, I thought that Haidt's ideas provided a springboard for a pretty insightful discussion of the current election season and of President's Obama's calls for a more open and productive political climate. I think the book is worth reading, if only for the reminder that people on all sides of our current debates have deep moral convictions and that no one is driven purely by malice or self-interest.

Write-up provided by Karen Bardsley