The Righteous Mind

I just finished a book that anyone who occasionally wonders, “How in the world can “they” (liberals, conservatives, libertarians) possibly believe that!” while at the same time knowing someone who is one of “them” (liberals, conservatives, libertarians) and who is actually a decent person, and wonders how in the world that can be, should read.  It’s Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.”

Haidt is a moral psychologist at the University of Virginia who has been studying morality for years and recently started looking at our political discourse in light of his and many others’ research.  While I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, especially some of the lesser-supported solutions he presents in the end, what he does do is present a framework for understanding why there are differences in moral positions and in positions taken by the left and right in our country, as well as presenting some well-supported points about how people actually make decisions and form opinions in real life.  I read the book slowly to give me time to think about and mentally challenge his assertions, and I wound up concluding that this book presents a framework that explains some of the interactions I had with a colleague last year in Baghdad that I had been frustrated at fully understanding.

I should take a step back and first roughly outline parts of Haidt’s theory (I hope I do it justice).  He argues that we are like a rider (our rational minds) on an elephant (our intuition), and that, instead of the rider leading the elephant, the elephant tends to lean one way or another based on intuition (derived from our moral framework, experiences, unconscious, etc) and that the rider seeks to rationalize why that is the right direction.  This is the first of his main assertions “Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.” with it’s corresponding metaphor “The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant.”  The evidence that leads him to that conclusion is quite interesting - read the book.  Anyway, these intuition decisions can happen in as short as 0.3 (yes three tenths) of a second.  [The saying “You never get a second chance to make a first impression!” changes meaning once you realize that it may be the second you walk through the door, or the three seconds it takes for you to walk up to a person to shake their hand - the person’s impression of you may be formed well before you even get to “Hello, my name is . . . .”]  He claims that most people do not like to change their viewpoints on things (though it does happen, generally through the influences of those we hold close in our personal community and less often through our own reasoning).  The mind is very good about after-the-fact rationalizing.  Plus it tends to follow an approach that (1) if there is any evidence that  can support my belief, then that mote of evidence is sufficient to conclude that my belief is valid [global climate change doesn’t exist anyone?]; whereas (2) for me to change my belief through reasoning the other side’s evidence is faced with the daunting task of establishing that I must believe in the alternative view.  Haidt’s studies have shown times where people run out of rationalizations yet still won’t accept the other viewpoint, a term he refers to as being “dumbfounded” and leaves people either speechless or left saying things like, “I can’t think of a reason why right now, but it just is!”

Haidt’s theory says that our moral foundation (all peoples in all parts of the world) consist of at least (he recognizes that there could be more - and his book tracks the addition of one to his initial theory) 6 different moral values.  These are:  care/harm; liberty/oppression; fairness/cheating; loyalty/betrayal; authority/subversion; and sanctity/degradation.  He argues that liberals, conservatives and libertarians have different make-ups within this moral matrix - they fundamentally emphasize different valid moral values.  Democrats focus more the first three, especially the first two, and by far less the last three; Libertarians by far focus on liberty and significantly less all of the others; and Conservatives give almost equal weight to all six, though look at the third one in a way fundamentally different that most liberals.

So back to the conversations with my friend David, who is a dyed-red conservative, but is not a nut job (he too doesn’t understand the Sarah Palin phenomenon).  David is very eloquent and has a way with words and coming out with some bizarre and very humorous imagery (the easiest to remember are pretty raunch so I’ll plead the fifth on this), so he would frequently take the news of the day about the President and go off on a conservative diatribe about it.  Often I would have to laugh because he’s so good at beating things over the head, but occasionally I would have to keep him honest and would challenge his statements.  After we got over lobbing ICBMs about each other’s party and leaders, we would often get into a real discussion about topics and it was refreshing to hear reasoned discussions about conservatism, it’s principles and how they play out in certain situations (not that he ever fully convinced me [he did move me a bit on occasion] or I him - the discussion was thought provoking).  In short, here was a very decent person, one who I truly like and respect, yet who has a very different viewpoint on the world, politics and how our society would best move forward.  I realized that his beliefs were genuine, sincere and well-intended.  I believe that if our parties had David and me in charge, we could reach a compromised agreement on 90-95% of the main issues pressing our society - the other 5% are in some ways irreconcilable (as far as I can figure) but aren’t essential for moving our country forward.  As much as I came to realize that, I never figured out a way to understand how it fit together and how it could possibly relate to my values.  Haidt has offered it, and I give two examples of how that played out in Baghdad.

One day David went off on Obama’s support for the alternative energy industry (in the context of the loan to the solar panel manufacturer that then went bankrupt) and I took the bait.  After a brief discussion about whether the government should be giving out those kinds of loans (uh, aren’t huge, perpetual tax breaks for oil companies worse than the occasional failed loan to a solar panel manufacturer? - it’s all the people’s money) we moved to alternative energies and, in particular, solar energy technology.  I took a slightly different approach and said, “David, I think the President is taking the entirely wrong approach on this.  If I were his speech writer I would have him go out and say ‘In the 1970’s the US became the world’s leader in solar energy technology following two successive oil crises.  Then, once oil was plentiful, we dropped the ball.  First Germany and then China become the world’s leader in developing solar energy technology.  This is the type of high-technology industry that should be America’s bread and butter, an industry where we can lead the world and where we should lead the world.  What I am proposing is that we once again regain the leadership in all types of alternative energy sources because when that industry is centered in the United States, it employs Americans.  When we lead the world, we get the first crack at benefitting from the discoveries and it’s other countries that wind up paying us for our products, not the other way around!”  David said, “Now if Obama said that, I’d be all over it.”

Under Haidt’s framework what I did with that argument was to shift it from the traditional liberal environmentalist care/harm moral arguments that it will be better for the environment/our children/Gaia if we do this to an argument that arises from the loyalty (to the United States) moral value, which Republicans can relate to.  One of Haidt’s points is that each side simply doesn’t know how to talk to the other in ways that the other can relate to.  I doubt that a speech like this would get Fox News to support alternative energy, but it might connect with many, many voters in the country’s heartland who, without an explanation they can intuitively relate to, will dismiss talk about developing solar energy technology as crazy environmentalism.

The second example deals with health care.  Early one morning we got onto Obamacare.  At first it was somewhat unfair because David had on his side Dr. Bunning (Doc Bunning to us) talking about how bad it was.  Facts were not helping me much (as Haidt says it won’t), though I did get Doc to back off when I asked him if all of those medical studies coming out about how we pay way more money for health care, and have a much worse public health system and poorer average health care outcomes than pretty much every other developed country (that has national health care) were wrong.  He conceded they were all accurate, and left the conversation with, “I just wouldn’t want to have to suddenly have quadruple bypass or emergency brain surgery in some of those countries!”  David kept on with the health care mandate and then asked, “What is it with people and the desire for national health care?”  I replied, “David, I live in the greatest, wealthiest country this world has ever seen, and I am ashamed that my country cannot find a way to provide fundamental health care to the poorest and downtrodden of my fellow citizens.  As a Christian, I think you’d understand that.”  The conversation ended right there.  David didn’t say another word and simply turned around and went to his desk.  

Again, in Haidt’s framework, I shifted the argument from one based on caring and fairness (which Republicans see a bit differently than Democrats), to one based on sanctity, which Republicans place much value on.  Face it, I paraphrased Jesus’s words and used them against his argument - was he going to say Jesus was wrong and we shouldn’t take care of those less fortunate than us?  Not David.  I nudged his elephant in a direction that his rider was left dumbfounded to find a rationalization that fit his position.

One of Haidt’s goals is to help good people from both sides find a way to at least engage in real conversations about the issues/problems of the day.  Because of the shift in politics in the past 50 years, there are essentially no longer any liberal Republicans or overlapping conservative Democrats to give each side ground to have reasonable discourse.  Haidt sees this as very dangerous for our country, as do I.  So if you want some help to understand where the other side (yes, even Ron Paul) is coming from, this book is a good starting point.