What makes the book so compelling is the fluid combination of erudition and entertainment, and the author's obvious pleasure in challenging conventional wisdom. It takes only one glance at the grocery store to determine a US town's politics: if you see a Whole Foods Market, for example, nine times out of 10 you are in a county voting Democrat. It is a welcome attempt to combat polarisation at a time when politics is descending into dysfunctional tribalism, a process speeded up by technology and changing residential patterns. Haidt readily admits that he set out to use moral psychology to help political partisans understand and respect each other. He draws on visual perception studies to show how Weird and non-Weird people think differently and see the world differently, with those in the west putting far greater emphasis on individualism.Īt heart, however, The Righteous Mind is an old-fashioned liberal plea for tolerance. He shows how our liberal values are "Weird" – supported only by those who are western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic. Indeed, he goes further, saying that western progressives seeking a secular, rational society are out of step with the vast majority of people on the planet. Haidt calls this "the conservative advantage". While the right can "taste" issues such as compassion and fairness, the left struggles to embrace patriotism or religion, seeing traditional institutions and hierarchies as obstacles to their fight for liberty and equality. It is, he says, as if the left has three taste buds but the right has six. Conservatives have a broader set of six "moral tastes", sharing such concerns but balanced by the binding foundations of loyalty, authority and sanctity. Drawing on everything from advertising to anthropology, he argues that liberals are driven by a morality based on compassion, the desire to fight oppression and, to some degree, fairness. They presume such voters are either stupid or are being tricked.īut the left's real problem, according to Haidt, is that it does not understand the motivations of the right. But many on the left are endlessly baffled as to why working-class voters seem to go against their own interests by supporting conservative politicians, those hated promoters of big business and tax cuts for the rich. This may not sound such a startling statement.
And he came to a radical conclusion: conservatives, rather than being victims of bad childhoods or possessing ugly personality traits, were just as sincere as liberals in wanting the best for society.
Haidt looked at the usual ways psychologists explained away conservatism, such as strict parents or an overbearing fear of change.
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