Commentary and thoughts
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics
and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
I have been trying to make sense of how anyone with any
morals could support the former President after 1) the horrific response to COVID
19, followed by 2) the shredding of democratic values of faith in a free and
fair election which didn’t even culminate after the insurrectionist attack on
Congress on Jan 6, and 3) the non-stop self-serving lies, bullying, misogyny, racism
and other personal character flaws this man has exhibited all his life.
I came across this title and went right after it. A shout
out to our local Mooresville, NC library for having this book in old school
paper, as well as audio or electronic versions. I went old school this time.
Haidt tackles this from a non-believer’s standpoint, and a generally
leaning left standpoint, but acknowledges that from a moral development
standpoint, he sees the attractiveness of a conservative approach (in the liberals
vs conservatives framework).
In short, he has built out a Moral Foundations Theory to get
at some shared underlying moral framework that can describe the facets of moral
foundations across humans/societies in much the same way that Costa and McCrae
developed a 5 factor model for personality at the individual person level, but
this text also shares a lot of history and sociology to explain how he got
there, versus an almost exclusively empirical factor modeling approach.
The model that Haidt and fellow researchers landed on had
the following six dimensions:
1.
Care/harm
2.
Liberty/oppression
3.
Fairness/cheating
4.
Loyalty/betrayal
5.
Authority/subversion
6.
Sanctity/degradation
He argues that Democrats have a hard time resonating with
the general public because liberals over-index on just a few of these
dimensions at the expense of others, whereas Republicans tend to message to all
6 of these dimensions. Libertarians currently identify most with Republicans,
but share some common interests with Democrats.
He describes the liberal moral matrix as heavily indexing on
Care/harm, almost to the exclusion of all other dimensions, but also some
weight to Liberty/oppression and Fairness/cheating. Highlights the most sacred
value for liberals as care for victims of oppression. Minimal focus on the
other 3 dimensions.
He acknowledges he identifies with liberals generally, and
keys into 2 points that he feels liberals get right that he shares:
1. 1. Governments can and should restrain corporate
superorganisms.
2. 2. Some problems really can be solved by
regulation.
He describes the libertarian moral matrix having the most
sacred value of individual liberty, as most heavily indexed on
Liberty/oppression dimension (but more on the liberty side than the reducing oppression
focus of liberals). To a lesser degree, libertarians also focused on fairness
cheating, and weaker ties to the other 4 dimensions.
He identifies a counterpoint from the libertarian
perspective against the 2 liberal points:
1. 1. Markets are miraculous.
Just as there are some problems that government
and regulation can address, there are others that markets seem to do a better
job. He highlights healthcare in this space, which interestingly is also used
by liberals as a rallying cry for oppression as those who can afford seem to
get better care, and those who can’t afford have to choose whether to pursue
health at the risk of financial ruin.
In turning to the social conservative moral matrix, he
highlights their most sacred value as preserving the institutions and traditions
that sustain a moral community. He describes the matrix as tapping into all 6 of
the dimensions mentioned earlier.
In other words, the advantage conservatives have over
liberals from these domains is that they tap into all 6 dimensions, whereas the
liberals tap into only 3 of the dimensions.
His second counterpart to the liberal perspective comes from
the conservative viewpoint versus the first counterpoint from the libertarian
perspective.
2. 2. You can’t help the bees by destroying the hive.
If we identify humans as bees- a metaphor Haidt
uses to refer to humans “groupiness” or ties to social collaboration, movements
like BLM, who have as part of their charter the invalidation of traditional family
structures, are going to cause damage while they intend to increase care and
reduce harm. In other words, there is a counterproductive element to liberal approaches
which tear at the fabric of traditional institutions.
I really enjoyed the read. I still have not come to fully
understand, however, how to make sense of the specter of the Trump Republican,
who in my mind is not even a social conservative, as there seems to be a
willingness to excuse any and all malfeasance by one specific individual. I don’t
understand his many false fear-based messages, and am saddened as I see a
willingness by some to excuse insurrection and embrace anti-democracy perspectives.
They sow mistrust in public institutions. They excuse lying and bullying. The
way the former President scrambled messages about the virus that has now killed
600k fellow Americans, dismissed the more clear-eyed science advisors and
embraced sham science, the way he both excused and tried to blame China for the
virus, leading to a poor embrace of preventive measures and now even to the
anti-vax misinformation campaign which leaves a substantial portion of the U.S.
population vulnerable to this virus. I just don’t get it. I’ll go through each
of the dimensions:
1.
Care/harm- COVID….
2.
Liberty/oppression- believes that it is zero
sum- if underprivileged people are lifted up, somehow others are harmed- takes
the hive destruction theory above and exaggerates what most groups are trying
to achieve- the boogey man on steroids-
3.
Fairness/cheating- uses the message that “the
other” is cheating, despite the never ending misinformation about last year’s
election, the 60+ court cases finding no fraud or cheating of any scale likely
to impact his loss, statements of free and fair elections by his own CISA and
DOJ leadership teams, etc. And of course, his past history in business…
4.
Loyalty/betrayal- wow- he’s managed to convince
people to march behind flags with his image and name rather than the U.S. flag,
and attack the capital. He’s managed to convince his followers to root for Russia
over the U.S. if he’s not the leader of the U.S. Loyalty to person and party
over country. Congratulations or something.
5.
Authority/subversion- I encourage all to take a
look at the role of inspectors general, and then look at how the former
President did all in his power to keep these watchdogs not just on a leash, but
starved or even sent to the pound. Look at how he used acting cabinet members
versus Congressionally approved staff so he could ignore the checks and balances
that process involves. He got impeached for abuse of power when he tried to get
Ukraine to announce investigations of a political rival, and then got impeached
again when he set the conditions for the insurrection on Jan 6. He seemed to be
hell-bent on destroying the institutions he was charged to lead and represent.
Not a conservative value that I am aware of.
6.
Sanctity/degradation. His Lafayette Square
stroll through protestors to hold a Bible he’s completely unfamiliar with in
front of a church he’s never actually visited is the perfect symbol. His
multiple wives that he discards as he goes to the next one, before closing out
the previous relationship, and payoffs to porn stars and porn models suggest
some room for improvement and a curious ideal for evangelicals. For him, the
only thing holy is his brand/name. His affiliations with child predators like
Epstein and Maxwell (“I wish her well”), his responses to questions about
morality and his “favorite scripture,” all show someone who’s either abandoned
any sense of the sacred or never got there in the first place.
With a publication date of 2012, this text precedes the 4
year Trump presidency, so I don’t know how Haidt would break Trump and his
followers down within his framework, but you just got my analysis!