The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion
This month we’re looking at political thought, making this weeks book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Johnathan Haidt. So let’s do this.
Jonathan Haidt is a psychologist who studies the psychology of morality. And in this book, he breaks down the pillars of morality, what it is to be moral, and then how he obtained and breaks down the data of morals for different political philosophies.
And for ease of reference, he uses the liberal/conservative language we all know and love...so liberal meaning progressive. He does point out that libertarian ideals are more classical liberal, even, gods bless him, calling libertarians the direct descendants of 17th and 18th century Enlightenment thinking. So he acknowledges the difference between liberal and libertarian, but mostly, this book is looking at the extremes of left/right ideologies.
Now, the first part of this book he takes us a bit through his history and how this came to be his focus, ultimately leading up to the analogy he has found most useful, which is that people are like riders on elephants. EVERYONE, is led by the elephant, aka, Intuition. And then the person riding the elephant justifies why they feel the way they do. In this metaphor, the rider is Reason.
And he backs up these assertions with psychological studies he’s done to show how he reaches this conclusion. He includes a couple of the questions he asked in his surveys, my favorite of which was:
“A man goes to the supermarket once a week and buys a chicken. But before cooking the chicken, he has sexual intercourse with it. Then he cooks it and eats it.”
For purposes of this question, assume no one else will be eating the chicken, the chicken is already dead when he buys it, and no one knows about this weird, necrophilia he has. It’s just a man, fucking a dead chicken that he fully intends to cook and eat afterwards… a little pre-seasoning if you will.
Has the man done anything morally wrong?
Virtually everyone had a visceral reaction of “WTF?!” to this question. However, the WEIRD’er you were… this is an acronym meaning Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (nation)...the more likely you were, when the interrogator pushed back on your visceral yes, to start finding reasons he did nothing wrong. That’s the rider (Reason) asserting a little bit of control over the elephant (Intuition).
And this sort of le d Haidt down a rabbit hole of decades of studying what defines morality across cultures. Things that are perfectly normal in Western cultures… like a widowed woman eating fish three times a week...are going to get you looked at like a moral failure in places like India. Because culturally, in India, fish is seen as a “hot” food, which does not indicate temperature the fish was cooked at, but rather, a food that is going to raise your libido. And if you’re a widowed woman, you have no business raising your libido in India. That’s a cultural thing, but in India, it’s also a moral thing.
From here, he goes on to identify six pillars of morality, and they are:
1. Care/Harm
2. Liberty/Oppression
3. Fairness/Cheating
4. Loyalty/Betrayal
5. Authority/Subversion
6. Sanctity/Degradation
The chicken fucker violates the sanctity/degradation pillar.
Now what do each of these pillar’s mean, specifically? Care/Harm is protection of the weak. Children and animals are the big triggers for this one, but it can also be the handicapped or other victims. Fairness/Cheating is transactional relationships where both parties benefit. Is it a fair deal? If not, or if one party doesn’t reciprocate after the deal has been struck, this pillar gets violated. Loyalty/Betrayal is cohesive coalitions. That friend group and when the one friend speaks out against whatever the group has determined in The Norm for that group. Authority/Subversion is the creation of hierarchies that serve the group, and trying to line jump, if you will, might be a betrayal. Sanctity/Degradation….don’t be a chicken fucker.
What about Liberty/Oppression? Haidt didn’t discover this one til a bit later. Historically, according to Haidt, dominance hierarchies didn’t really become a thing until the agricultural revolution and the domestication of farm animals. Basically, we had to be standing still for oppression to really become a thing. But, this is very much a pillar in the 21st century and, to absolutely no ones surprise, just about the only one libertarians care about. I had to laugh when he got to that break down in his book.
So what does all of this mean?
Well, the right actually has a solid advantage over the left. Because the left basically only cares about the Care/Harm, and Liberty/Oppression, with a slight uptick in caring about Fairness/Cheating. So basically, they have a shaky, three legged table of morality. Whereas the right cares about ALL SIX more or less equally, giving them a much sturdier moral table for everyone to sit at.
Then there’s the libertarians who are riding one of those weird, old-timey bicycles with the really large front wheel made up of the Liberty/Oppression pillar, and the smaller back wheel is made up of Fairness/Cheating. No wonder we can’t win in politics. Very few people can ride that bicycle successfully and most are completely unwilling to even try.
That six legged table has allowed the right to more or less solve the social sciences biggest problem-- The Free Rider. What is The Free Rider? I’m so glad you asked.
The Free Rider is...Bernie Sanders. Ok, that’s only sort of true. Allow me to elucidate. The Free-Rider problem occurs when people benefit from a resource but don’t pay for them in any way. Like, for example, when Bernie Sanders was kicked out of a commune for not helping with any of the work but only talking politics all day. Technically, he was a guest of the commune, but the point remains. He did no work in exchange for his receiving of food and shelter, but seemed to feel that gracing them with the benefit of his wisdom was enough. The commune disagreed and kicked him out, and he has been a national problem ever since.
The right don’t play that game. The right erased the Free Rider problem through robust property rights. And focus on personal responsibility.
Now, this book was written in 2012 and he says straight up that he was left of center himself during most of this, even writing articles to support John Kerry during the 2004 election season. And I kind of think his articles had more of an impact on the left than he may have initially believed, in the intervening 14 years since publication.
He wrote it trying to foster greater understanding between the left/right dichotomy in modern American Politics. But, reading it now, and seeing the state of modern political discourse in America, I feel like anyone on the left who read this book, rather than building a stronger table that might appeal to more voters, doubled down on the Care/Harm spectrum by expanding on what makes a victim. Victim poker is a great game to play, and now, EVERYONE is a victim! I think that’s why trans-activism has been on a steady rise. All these white men were told for a decade plus how white men are everything that is wrong with the world, and so they...switched sides. Because if they are trans, now thy are victims, and can play the victim card on the Care/Harm pillar without retribution or push back from the leftist ideologues.
And rather than acknowledging just how far we have come in the 250 years since America declared independence, the left continues to push the Liberty/Oppression and Fairness/Cheating pillars. Because they have decided that three legged shaky ass table is better than acknowledging that maybe, the right might be onto something when they say placing men in women’s prisons based on self-identity is not actually FAIR to the women who are there and subsequently raped. Or allowing men into women’s sports betrays women.
On the other hand, the right could really stand to benefit from cutting back on corporate power. And yes, I am well aware the left reaps a lot of benefits from corporate power, and this is very much a matter of overall corruption in our politics-- bipartisan corruption. However, while the left may not actually DO anything about corporate corruption, it does remain a very valid talking point.
I will say this book is why I read. While I would still say I’m libertarian, pedaling that weird ass bicycle down the road with my fellow libertarian freaks...I’m wearing a couple of training wheels on it. Maybe pulling a small cart behind me.
Because as he explained what he meant by liberals are fierce individualists and conservatives care more for the group and team effort...well, at first I kind of bristled at that. Of COURSE I’m an individualist! The smallest minority on earth and most easily oppressed is the Individual and Liberty/Oppression is the big front wheel on my bicycle. Is he calling me one of the WEIRD liberals?
But then I started thinking about one of my co-workers at work, who I know is liberal and I’ll call Annie for ease of storytelling, and started thinking how...actually, Annie really isn’t a team player. I mean, I dropped everything I had scheduled at home to go TDY for three weeks, because one of my other colleagues, let’s call her Betty, went on maternity leave and they needed me to cover in Las Vegas. And yet...in the I think three years Annie has worked for our company, I don’t think she’s EVER gone TDY. I’ve gone on like four or five TDY’s since she started. My other colleague in N. NV, let’s call her Cindy, also right of center, has ALSO gone on like three or four TDY’s, and is also going to Vegas to help while Betty is out.
So there’s the back tire, Fairness/Cheating...because yeah, I feel a little cheated out of time with my husband, because of one co-worker who doesn’t seem to want to pull their weight.
And there’s one training wheel the Authority/Subversion one. I respect my boss, so when he asked me to go I said yes with no problem.
The other training wheel is Sanctity/Degradation pillar...with maybe a small caboose made up of Care/Harm. I genuinely don’t care if you’re gay or straight, but please...don’t fuck the chicken.
