The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt and Liberal vs Conservative ethics

[Hindsight Man]

You have sure said a mouthful there, Carl. My feelings exactly. In a session that was lost, but which I still remember, the Cs once said that the day would come when we would not want to leave our homes because of social turmoil. Well, I think that day is here. And I'm assuming that not wanting to leave one's home also means not wanting to have interactions with a LOT of people.

It's like Lobaczewki's discussion about "Hysterization". That was SOOO accurate. There is so much "selection and substitution" going on in people's heads that it is utterly horrifying. In fact, I'm not sure that Lobaczewski could have imagined how really bad it can get; it's like hysterization on steroids these days.

I'm really thankful for the Cs' warnings and for Lobaczewski's analysis and description; gads, can you imagine experiencing all this without having some insight and understanding? We would all think that WE were crazy.

You know I've been feeling like that a lot lately (as many others here I'm sure) as I see lecturers bring up Trump and American gun control issues and all I can think is ''this man is 3 times my age and he has no idea what he's talking about'' but they always talk with such conviction and disdain that I can't help but be disgusted.They even bring it up out of the blue while teaching electronics.We're Australian,why does he care?It's the strangest thing.

I've also been thinking about Lobaczewski a lot and one particular line keeps spinning in my head.When the communist propagandists first appeared at Lobi's uni he noted that they speak with a barely disguised contempt. I've noticed that most university lecturers don't even bother to disguise their hatred for whites/males/anyone that disagrees.You can find hundreds of them speaking online.Remember the bike lock guy?He was an ethics professor.The mere act of questioning the narrative has become and act of evil in and of itself.What's more is that it's the vast majority of unis that have become infected and continue to spread it throughout society,churning out an ever greater number of haters (i can't think of a better word for them).

Originally Lobaczewski called the process of ponerogenesis,transpersonification. Looking around I can tell why he saw it as such.It really does seem like people's personalities have been ''replaced''.

 

[Starshine]

I just finished the book, and indeed moral psychology is key to understand humanity.
Even though I am peripherally aware of system 1/system 2 as described by Kahneman (I have the book and will read it to go further on the subject), the metaphor of the elephant along with the social intuitionist model deconstructing the rationalist model was a real breeze of fresh air.

It makes perfect sense and makes one humble to understand it. It's like reviewing all debates knowing that we're not looking for truth but to justify our behavior. It's always post-hoc rationalizations based on intuitions and judgments. No kidding we have thinking errors.
It cannot be clearer that you need a group and network to be mirrored. I'm glad my moral compass led me to meet you friendly elephants.
Being able to identify and understand the different moral foundations' everyone can have is far more important than this liberal/conservative split I think.

What happened in France reflects the political split in the US, what I've seen in France is that a lot of people seem to be apolitical today, meaning they don't even trust (Loyalty above ?) that nowadays politicians even have any moral foundations, I guess. Hence the rise of Asselineau's UPR if the Cs were correct on that. It is listed as diverse, hence above the political cleavage. It is Durkheimian utilitarianism. The rise of Lepen can also be related to the six foundations being present in many people. Though I have the reasons not to trust her. (Elephant said.)
Or maybe people without any political views have no moral foundation at all? I would doubt it. They don't "care", as they so often say. And well it's hard not to understand them since it seems so rigged all over.

But what was most profound for me in this book are the last three chapters.

The concept of the hive switch progressively elevated an emotion in me, understood as a kind of cumulative information processing. And through the religion chapter, I felt like I made a major discovery about myself. I was filled with joy. See, I always kind of hid and denied to myself that I was actually religious. I am shy about my recitations and singing, I dot it loud only when alone. I never really considered the FOTCM as a religion per se, because I remember it was founded that way for legal implications. I was afraid to belong to a religion. Because I am rational, you know! Ahah.

But this is actually just how our brain works. I never went out of the box to consider things the way he did. It's like I've been legitimized for being who I am. And it is so uplifting to think that 'transcending self-interest and becoming simply a part of the whole' can be 'the portal to many of life's most cherished experiences'.

This emotion last when I focus on it. That is a discovery and I allow it with joy. I am changing and that is grace to you friendly elephants. There was the belonging part that was missing for me in the Believing/Doing/Belonging triad of the Durkheimian model of religious psychology. Focusing on belonging in the present makes me serene and joyful if I try to assess what the elephant's doing.

He talked about Carnegie and his famous book, he defined him as the best elephant whisperer of all if I remember correctly, so I guess that will be my next stop since I have it and it's been recommended reading by many now.
I liked very much the social intuitionist model and it's all so clear to me now that you can't argue with someone, you can't attain the 'reason' if you don't first interact with the 'intuition' (social persuasion THEN reasoned persuasion). It's also why I ended up here and stick to it. You convinced my intuition by devoting so much time, effort, compassion, work. You are loyal, courageous to keep on fighting, you have respect, you care, you are fair.
This is a sacred place. Gratitude.

 

[Laura]

I posted an intro to a book here: The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler which is so apropos of this topic, I thought I'd better post a recommendation here that y'all should go read it.

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning is a book by Jonah Goldberg, in which Goldberg argues that fascist movements were and are left-wing. Published in January 2008, it reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list of hardcover non-fiction in its seventh week on the list. Goldberg is a syndicated columnist and the editor-at-large of National Review Online.

 

[hlat]

The Righteous Mind e-audiobook is available on hoopla, which means you can listen to it immediately for free if your library participates in hoopla.
https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11212614

 

[Seamus]

I haven't had time to read this book yet, but I just read through the thread and I wanted to post to say thanks to @Hesper for your posts summarizing/reviewing the book.

It is in these times that we need more than ever to hang on to ourselves, our gains, our sanity, and each other. We don't want to give up and then find, on the other side (i.e. 5D), that we only had to hold on a little longer, have a little bit more faith in the process... I know I don't want any such regrets when I leave this body; that there was some little thing I could have done, but I gave up too soon.
[...]
Just remember the ship captain in the movie "Krakatoa" who took his ship straight into the WAVE. We have to do that.

Thanks very much for this encouragement Laura.

 

[NormaRegula]

I haven't had time to read this book yet, but I just read through the thread and I wanted to post to say thanks to @Hesper for your posts summarizing/reviewing the book.

Thanks very much for this encouragement Laura.

Just remember the ship captain in the movie "Krakatoa" who took his ship straight into the WAVE. We have to do that.

I agree. Thanks to Séamas and Laura for their thread insights.

The analogy from the film "Krakatoa" was heartening. I'm finding I need to do more deep breathing and meditation just to deal with the hysteria and cognitive dissonance that permeates the world at present. I've had fleeting thoughts of just leaving due to fear and frustration. Then I remember that I probably chose this time to learn or understand more and perhaps help others when stuff really goes haywire. Into the tidal wave indeed.

 

[kenlee]

As long as there are groups that are only interested in power and self gain masquerading as an altruistic intent to get to the root of the problems that society is facing then things could never get better for society. There can only be a confusion of tongues and what's left is separateness, dissolution, crime, and a breaking apart/fragmentation of society as a whole into what is basically, at an essential level, a big nothingness or scattered dust. There can never, ever, be any kind of unifying principle to bring it all together from a soul level. Functionally things could happen, even 'great' things (such as the building of bridges, etc.) but there could never be a unification at a deeper level of interconnectedness that makes the connections between individuals and groups of people real in any sense of the word.

What I think is that the pathocratic power structure is primarily working thru the reactive 'liberal left' to intimidate and control the minds and thinking processes of the masses so that people don't think at all since they are too intimidated and fearful to think logically and rationally with basic common sense and in it's place there are 'downloaded' programs placed there via 'winning thru intimidation' that curtail any possibility whatsoever of individual creative thought whether it be from any single individual or groups of individuals to create a future new world, the basis of which is common sense and self questioning along with rational thought and an intuitive connection with the higher values.
So people 'think' what they are forcefully told which is not thinking at all.

I think at a very fundamental level the purpose of all this liberal left reactive 'I gotta be right' nonsense is to fragment the present moment so that the present moment for the majority of people is virtually non existent and as a result nothing of any real value that connects multiple levels of reality for a common purpose could be possible.

For example, suppose there are people or groups of people trying to get to the root of a problem such as why society is so screwed up and let's say they truly have a sincere intent to find the real problem and then the solution. The sincerity and deeper understanding that they share in common would connect them together into a deeper more expansive present moment that they all could share in and connect them in such a way that they would be 'receivers' that tune them in into a 'higher mind' that has a similar sincere intent (a common compatibility of frequency resonance) and connect the group to a higher intelligence/greater information field, where any single individual within the group is of equal value and any given individual could connect with this field and, from that, there emerges new insights, ideas, advice, that would be valuable in solving the problems before them. Since their present moment is shared in common and is more expansive which can connect multiple levels of reality then 'the test of time' is less of an issue, less subject to fragmentation/dissolution and something could actually be accomplished over time in creating a real future at a soul/psychological/physical level all working more in harmony. But when groups of people can't discuss things, cant think rationally or logically in accordance with and in alignment with a 'higher logos' (so to speak) but can only follow the authoritarian types who make the self serving laws and rules then there will never be any common understanding between anybody.

 

[Jones]

Here's an interesting paper I stumbled on that is co-authored by Jonathan Haidt. While I've read the book, it was a while ago now and I'm not sure if he covered this material.

"Cuteness and Disgust: The Humanizing and Dehumanizing Effects of Emotion" Gary D. Sherman and Jonathan Haidt.

Abstract

Moral emotions are evolved mechanisms that function in part to optimize social relationships. We discuss two moral emotions - disgust and the 'cuteness response' - which modulate social-engagement motives in opposite directions, changing the degree to which the eliciting entity is imbued with mental states (i.e., mentalized). Disgust-inducing entities are hypo-mentalized (i.e., dehumanised); cute entities are hyper-mentalized (i.e., humanised). This view of cuteness - which challenges the prevailing view that cuteness is a releaser of parental instincts (Lorenz, 1950/1971) - explains (a) the broad range of affiliative behaviours elicited by cuteness, (b) the marketing of cuteness to children (by toy makers and animators) to elicit play, and (c) the apparent ease and frequency with which cute things are anthropomorphised.

Despite the seeming focus of the abstract, the paper doesn't really mention play or marketing to kids. It does however draw some distinctions that might be useful.

It talks about the difference between maximising our moral circle and optimising our moral circle.

How we tend to humanise entities or objects that we consider to be cute, and dehumanise entities or objects that we feel disgust towards.

It also says that finding an entity or object to be cute may not necessarily lead to care of that entity or object but rather leads to increased sociality with that entity or object which then may or may not lead to care. http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/gsherman/files/sherman_and_haidt_cuteness_and_disgust_emotion.pdf

 

[DianaRose]

Finally finished reading this yesterday! It was a terrific read.

I guess it's not necessarily as relevant or important, but I wonder how morality work/ develop across race. For example, a lot of black people are liberal/ democrats because this side have generally been willing to do something for the lower section of society or because they believe they ought to be. But, could it be that some despite their skin colour are actually closer in their moral spectrum to the white conservative they despise (and who in turn may despise them)? More bluntly said, if instead of being black, they had been born white, could their political leaning be completely different because being white and conservative doesn't come with the same baggage has being black and conservative? If prejudice could be left aside, could some black get along better with white conservative than with fellow black who do not have the same moral buds?

Really, I can't help wondering how much who you are outside influence your political leaning despite who you are inside. On the flip side, it could be that black people and some other minorities are simply born with a "liberal makeup" so to say.

Aside from this Haidt brought to fore lots of interesting thing about how a society can develop and what makes it gel. I already knew this but after finishing the book, it confirmed that the left is really going at it all wrong. They're eroding the ties that bind people together. It will be really, really hard to avoid a civil war or something close to it.

 

[Starshine]

I guess it's not necessarily as relevant or important, but I wonder how morality work/ develop across race. For example, a lot of black people are liberal/ democrats because this side have generally been willing to do something for the lower section of society or because they believe they ought to be. But, could it be that some despite their skin colour are actually closer in their moral spectrum to the white conservative they despise (and who in turn may despise them)? More bluntly said, if instead of being black, they had been born white, could their political leaning be completely different because being white and conservative doesn't come with the same baggage has being black and conservative? If prejudice could be left aside, could some black get along better with white conservative than with fellow black who do not have the same moral buds?

Really, I can't help wondering how much who you are outside influence your political leaning despite who you are inside. On the flip side, it could be that black people and some other minorities are simply born with a "liberal makeup" so to say.

He talked about some socio-economic data at some point, with people from the suburban area being more inclined to the left and people from the rural area being more inclined to the right, having the same socio-economic situation, which is the lower one.
Maybe there's a blinding or a priority of moral foundations over others when you don't feel like you belong somewhere because your moral taste buds are more stimulated over certain matters?
The more people feel like they don't belong, the more the concerns over care, equality, and freedom become important to them. Hence they might be conservative but are blinded to that fact over intended prejudices? It seems like this left-leaning ideology is promulgated among those socio-economic classes in such a way that you would have to hide your right-leaning point of views. At least that's what I observed from where I've lived.
Without reflexion around it, the right aisle never seemed to be the political point of view that you would be proud of, instead, better to keep quiet about it. That's from a suburban (low to middle socio-economic) point of view.
That might explain why fascism was always liberal, I've not read that book from Goldberg Laura mentioned but it could be that the more there are PERCEIVED inequalities and the more people feel their identities and possibilities of being are restricted, the more they are inclined to focus on that over other moral foundations?

 

[Ca.]

Finally finished reading this yesterday! It was a terrific read.

May I ask, have you ever been to the Untied States? Let alone liberal central.

 

[DianaRose]

May I ask, have you ever been to the Untied States? Let alone liberal central.

No, I've never been to US. Grew up in France and now lives in England. Why the question. However, I went to a very liberal university where you would have been in trouble for not believing in the gender madness.

 

[hlat]

But, humanity has long consisted of GROUPS that compete against each other and this is what drives self-less evolution or self-sacrificing behavior: people will sacrifice themselves for their group.

Haidt makes the point from the chicken studies that the chicken coup superteam created from the individual superstar chickens that laid the most eggs did not result in a chicken coup that produced the most eggs, but rather it was the selection of all the chickens from the chicken coup that produced the most eggs that resulted in the future generations producing even more eggs. The dream team was not created by selecting the top individuals and putting them together; rather the dream team was selected by letting the best group stay together which then became even better in future generations.

This group selection, as in selecting all the members of the group, makes sense because the superstar individuals of the group are supported by the other groups members. The individual group members who may not seem to be very "valuable" when valued as solely as an individual, actually are vital in some way in creating conditions for the superstar individuals to shine and produce.

His overall idea of "sacred" and "religion" is that it is merely a byproduct of group evolution, fantasies that groups use to support cohesiveness and then later, power mongers used to impose tyranny on the masses.

There's another part of religion that I think he got backwards. He thought religion was false but responsible for group cooperation. However, the monotheistic dominant world religions are the ones responsible for division and oppression.

He points out the the egalitarian groups were the tribes of about 150 people (I can't remember the exact number) who were hunters, pre-agriculture, who in one example neutralized an alpha psychopathic killer in their own group by killing him with everyone participating in the killing. He acknowledges inequality came into existence due to agriculture, and then tries to credit religion for bringing cooperation back in the age of agriculture inequality.

Consistent with his book, it seems the optimal human social organization includes these groups of about 150 people and includes banishing or killing the psychopaths within the group. Whichever groups are more successful seem to be doing something right, so the successful groups should be selected to make future generations even more successful.

Also, a person existing in the manner as belonging to the group organism or superorganism is the only structure and defense that an individual has in this world. Standing alone as an individual, a person would be steamrolled by other competing superorganisms such as governments and corporations.

 

[mkrnhr]

There's another part of religion that I think he got backwards. He thought religion was false but responsible for group cooperation. However, the monotheistic dominant world religions are the ones responsible for division and oppression.

It depends on the scale under consideration. Within these big religions, people cooperate under certain norms. Granted, they need to achieve this cohesiveness in a dialectic that exclude "the other" (misbeliever, pagan, etc.) but within the limit of said religions, people are driven to form a society.

 

[Beau]

There's another part of religion that I think he got backwards. He thought religion was false but responsible for group cooperation. However, the monotheistic dominant world religions are the ones responsible for division and oppression.

I think you missed his point, which was that within religions, group cooperation was created.