The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

ByJohn Brown

After this year’s presidential election I emailed my sister, a smart, super-competent, true-blue, bleeding-heart, save the weeds and snails liberal, who volunteered to do campaign work for Hilary Clinton in Colorado during the 2008 Democratic primaries and, of course, voted loudly for Obama in this last election.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “How can anyone who doesn’t have a carrot for a brain want more of the same? I don’t get it. Obama? How can so many Americans be that gullible? I’m totally baffled.”  And that puzzlement wasn’t rhetorical. I was seriously baffled.

“Are you kidding me?” she replied. “Mitt Romney? How could anyone vote for Mitt Romney?  Talk about baffled.”  She went on a rant listing all of Romney’s supposed deeds and positions of sooper evil and stupidity. Then she questioned how anyone could support that Hitler in his Mormon clothes.

Okay, she didn’t say “Hitler,” but she did claim he was “evil” and “despicable.” And when I think of evil, my first thought is always of folks like Mitt Romney.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, leader of the Juarez drug cartel, which is responsible for hundreds of gruesome murders each year and . . . Mitt Romney. Oh, yeah. They’re like brothers. In fact, wasn’t Romney’s dad born in Mexico? And, hey, one of Romney’s sons even knows Spanish. That boy wasn’t on a church mission there. No, he was making connections with the jefe!

Sonia Montoya-Cadena, the one who ran a human trafficking ring in Denver exploiting young girls for sex and . . . Mitt Romney. Yeah, Romney’s just like that. If he could run slave brothels, he’d do it in a minute to make a buck. In fact, doesn’t Bain Capital own a couple of slave brothels in Greenland?

I wanted to unload. I was prepared to destroy her with fiery analysis of the first order.

Thundering analysis.

Mountain crushing logic.

She was so freaking blind.

Except,

She had never actually considered what I had to say in any of my previous emails. It never mattered how powerfully vast my brilliant logic was. She’d demonstrated wax ear time and again. All of my intellectual might never made a dent in her liberal force field. I brought blood and thunder, and it always seemed to bounce off her like bullets made of styrofoam.

Nevertheless! Clinton? Obama? Save the gerbils?

I made a comment that sent Smart Sister into DEFCON 5. Foolish me. Eventually, her liberal ire cooled and she decided to order comrade Putin to stand down and not push the big red button.

Meanwhile, I started to think.

I noted that if things didn’t change, the Republicans wouldn’t be winning the presidency any time soon. If they couldn’t beat Obama when the economy was in the tank, then there really was no hope. Which meant we are going to end up like Greece, with continuing inflation (which is not only an intentional, government-led annual pay cut on the disgustingly rich, filthy rich, and annoyingly rich, but also on the middle class, poor, destitute, and various and sundry hoboes everywhere), huge debt, stupid taxes, ridiculous health care, Soviet-style redistribution, blah, blah, blah.

I asked myself, like all Republicans did, what could we conservatives do differently? Follow Obama’s example and improve our operations to get the vote out? Build up a conservative La Raza? Do the right thing with the children of illegals? Get someone willing to land more blows on the opposition (Romney could have decimated Obama in debates two and three, but he didn’t; he totally failed to define his opponent).

Maybe it was in the messaging. Maybe what we needed to do was develop something that actually changed minds.

At this point a faint ding sounded in the distance in my mind. A small light bulb suddenly flipped on and illuminated a dark cubby of my mind.

Hadn’t I just read about studies showing how a soap opera in Mexico, a radio play in Tanzania, and sitcoms in America actually changed viewer attitudes and behaviors about literacy, HIV, and abortion? Didn’t I already know about the power of concrete and vivid storytelling? Not sermon-telling, but storytelling.

Why, yes. Yes, I did.

Had I not witnessed the use of storytelling on U.S. television for, what, fifteen years by those wanting to build sympathy for homosexuals? (A good thing, even if I disagree with some of the gay agenda.) And the cheapening of sex by others? (A bad thing.) And the clearly conscious promotion of many other attitudes and beliefs via various media programs?

I determined there was something to this.

If people were going to vote for fiscal responsibility in Washington, something like this was going to have to be done. It wasn’t going to happen in flame wars.

About this same time I was browsing through the recent Radio West programs. I saw one called “The Righteous Mind.”  It was an interview of Jonathon Haidt about his new book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Hey, wasn’t that addressing my question?

The program blurb states: “Monday, our guest is the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose latest book sets out to explain the root causes of the divisions in our society. At the heart of his argument is the idea that the human mind is designed to “do” morality. But when we separate into tribes – say political affiliations or religious denominations – we focus on different moral foundations. Haidt joins us to explain why he says we need the insights of liberals and conservatives to flourish as a nation.”

I listened. And loved the program.

Haidt shared a number of deliciously insightful things about how our mind works and how we choose our affiliations. He shared so many insights that I immediately requested his book at my library. The library ordered a copy for their collection. I, of course, was first in line to read it. I just finished the book.

It’s one of the best books I’ve read all year.

Haidt explains why my sister and I were both baffled by people who voted for the opposition candidate. He explains how human morality works. How our reason does not lead us to make the judgments we do, but instead more often acts like a lawyer to justify our positions to others.

As soon as he explained that I saw how I had done that time and time again. For example, in this election cycle I blamed Obama for the economy. In the Bill Clinton re-election I vigorously argued that the President doesn’t have any effect on the economy and is lying if he takes credit for it. I’m not saying that Obama didn’t do things that might have hampered the recovery, but how did I know his actions exacerbated our problems? What evidence did I really have?

Haidt explains that there are six basic moral bases then points out which ones drive liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, and how we can use that knowledge to disagree more constructively. He provides strong insights into how our reason and intuitions and judgments work, the evolutionary function of our morality, and how our wiring for group affiliation affects it.

I didn’t agree with some of his conclusions. He sometimes takes his points too far. For example, he seems to suggest that people in cities are pre-disposed to be liberal. And that’s why they live there. Um, no. That’s not why they live there. They live in cities because that’s where the jobs are. The agricultural revolution made sure of that, remember? In his effort to explain the smaller biological basis of our beliefs, he also downplays the larger effect our families and groups have. But despite these excesses, he shares so many fresh and exciting ideas that they don’t matter. And he shares them all in such a fun and clear way that I couldn’t help but stay up late a number of nights reading this book.

Do you know how much I wanted to trash Obama to my sister?  That Soviet-style central planner.  That drunken sailor spender.  That choom wagon pot head.

And yet, you and I also know that will never work. I now know better why. Because of Haidt, I think I see a better way. I certainly see how I have done exactly what drives me mad about those who have drunk the opposition candidate’s Kool-aide. I see that I have my own conservative force field that deflects liberal bullets (and perhaps even blinds me to the truth sometimes). And why I need to watch my reason, that cunning lawyer part of my brain, as well as my intuition.

Haidt, a liberal, has given me, a conservative, a great gift. I intend to use it. If you are interested in the two taboo topics of politics or religion, if you enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink or the Heath brother’s Made to Stick, if you want to find a better way to influence than flame wars (as fun as they can sometimes be), then I think you will enjoy the wonders Haidt shares in his fine book.

Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to the Radio West program http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/righteous-mind for a taste of what awaits you.

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  • Good Stuff! A great place to eat

    ByJohn Brown

    huhot-fb-defaultNellie and I recently celebrated our anniversary and enjoyed a delicious meal at HuHot Mongolian Grill in Logan, Utah.

    If you’ve never been to a Mongolian grill, here’s how it works. You take a plate, pile it with your desired selection of fresh meats and veggies, douse it with sauces, then hand the plate to the chef. He then spreads it on his gigantic, circular Mongolian grill and cooks it before your eyes, then hands your hot meal back to you. You take it to your table and enjoy a fine, fresh stir fry of your own making.

    If you want more, or want to try something different, when you’re finished, you go back because it’s an all-you-can-eat grill. I can happily report that Nellie and I did go back. We wanted to go back a third time but were stuffed.

    The food was excellent. The service was friendly. If you’re looking for something different, I think you’ll want to give HuHot a try.

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  • 1491, 1493, and Greek Gods

    ByJohn Brown

    New Revelations About America

    A common idea taught about the Indians (and, yes, it appears when you can’t simply refer to their tribe, most prefer that term to “American Indian,” especially those in South and Central America) is that they lived in such harmony with the land, that they trod so lightly upon it, that the landscape showed hardly any sign of their passing. This is, after all, what we were shown in Disney’s Pocahontas and James Cameron’s more recent Avatar, isn’t it?  

    Many of us were also brought up to believe that there really weren’t that many Indians around anyway.  They were subsistence societies. There certainly were no cities comparable to those in Europe at the time. And especially not in places like the Amazon or Boliva.

    We were taught that the Indians traveled here by walking to America across the Bering Strait land bridge that stretched from Russia to Alaska during the ice age around 10,000 BC. When they arrived, the proceeded to eat a tremendous amount of meat, killing off all the mega fauna like mammoths.

    We were taught other things. But it appears that many of these things have recently been shown to be false. Sometimes dramatically so.

    For example, the Indians transformed their landscapes, tens of thousands of square miles of it, very often through burning, but also through other ingenious ways.

    There were far more Indians in 1491 than most folks know. Recent research suggests that Central Mexico was the most densely populated place on earth at the time, “with more than twice as many people per square mile than China or India.” The total population of the Americas in 1491, by some estimates, was between 90-112 million people, meaning that MORE people lived in the Americas than in Europe.

    Finally, it appears that the Indians were here twenty to thirty thousand years ago. They were here when Europe north of Paris was still uninhabitable and mostly covered by glaciers!

    Charles Mann describes these and a number of other fascinating findings in his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. He relays the information in such an engaging style that I found myself picking the book up at every chance. When I was finished, I wanted more.

    Luckily, in 1493: Uncovering The New World Columbus Created Mann continues his history lesson. Except instead of focusing on the surprising things we’ve learned about the Indians in the last two decades, he focuses on the surprising impacts, both biological and financial, of linking the Western and Eastern hemispheres together. It’s the biggest event in the world, Mann suggests, since the dinosaurs died. Mann suggests that Columbus didn’t discover a new world–his voyage created one.

    The first part of the book examines the effect of the exchanges across the Atlantic (microbes  and tobacco). The next part focuses on the effect of the exchanges across the Pacific (silk, corn, and pirates). The third part shows the role of the exchange in the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions (potatoes, guano, and rubber).  The final part examines the consequences of the huge shift in populations caused by the Atlantic slave trade (Maroons, mixed-marriages, and freedom). As with 1492, the insights are both surprising and fascinating.

    If you like history, if you liked Guns, Germs, & Steel, then I think you will love these two books.

    EDIT: I just ran across a fabulous Doug Fabrizio Radio West interview with Charles Mann about 1493 called  The World Columbus Created.  Listen and enjoy!

    Divine Yogurt

    For years eating a serving of sweetened yogurt was like eating a box of Milk Duds (20 grams of sugar) or a Milky Way candy bar (35 grams of sugar). Yes, the sweetened yogurts have that much sugar. The only way to avoid eating literally like a kid in a candy store was to purchase plain yogurt and add some fruit or a squirt of honey. And, no, I will not consider eating yogurt sweetened with Splenda or Nutrasweet.  Artificial sweeteners make me gag. As far as I’m concerned, they are abominations that ruin the taste of everything they touch.

    So for many years I enjoyed my mix of plain yogurt and various add-ins. However, to my joy, I recently discovered a sweetened yogurt with only 15 grams of sugar (about as much as you find in a large banana) that tastes divine. It’s sweetened with real sugar and honey. And the mouth feel is sooooooo smooth. I’m sure this is because, unlike all the other yogurt manufacturers, these guys realized that, duh, fat actually makes things taste good and isn’t the  evil thing we’ve made it out to be. In just two bites it became my favorite sweetened yogurt. It’s called The Greek Gods Traditional Greek Yogurt. I’ve found another version—the vanilla honey—that only has 5 grams of sugar.

    Be aware that despite its name, this yogurt does NOT have the high protein content of other Greek style yogurts such as Brown Cow Greek Yogurt with 23 grams. Furthermore, not all the flavors have the low sugar content. Their blueberry and strawberry flavors, for example, have 35 grams. So check the labels first, and then treat yourself to yogurt that will have you savoring every bite.

    When I eat yogurt, it will still mostly be the plain Greek style with mixers. But when I want a special treat, you know I’ll be getting some from The Greek Gods.

    EDIT: 9/6/12 I now feel like Jerry Seinfeld in the episode when they found out the fat free frozen yogurt really wasn’t fat free. All the other yogurts I was looking at had serving sizes of 1 cup. The Greek Gods folks thought 1/2 a cup was the right size. That means that this super amazing low sugar yogurt had 30 grams of sugar per serving! It’s like eating a Snickers! I’m so disillusioned. Alas.

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    Monks in Mormonland (and their honey)

    ByJohn Brown

    We just visted the Abbey of our Lady of the Holy Trinity this week with my family. It’s nestled on over 1,800 acres of some the most beautiful country in Utah.

    I think almost every religion demonstrates virtues we can all learn from. The dedication of these good men to their beliefs and vows to God is one such example.  As is their decision to live simply. And their creamed honey blends, which you can order from their website, are delicious! So far the maple honey is my favorite. Here’s a 2 minute National Geographic video about this abbey.

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    Jolie, Salt, & trading suspsense for surprise

    ByJohn Brown

    Last week I went and saw Salt. Wow. The movie started with a bang and was off to the races with lots of great action. Unlike many action films where the characters perform stunts which are simply too hokey for me to buy into, I found myself believing in all but two of Salt’s. So I was wowed most of the time instead of thinking about whether they were using wires or what or that it was all so wrong and geeze don’t these guys have consultants? They weren’t as stunning as the opening of Casino Royale, but what is? 

    But it wasn’t just action. The premise and acting were all great as well (yes, I recant, I slammed Jolie a while back as an actress cast only for her face value; and while you know that’s one of the reasons why she was here, she still was convincing in her role). Furthermore, the story had a lot of great reversals and reveals. But this was also its ultimate downfall.

    When I got to the ending, I did not feel a climax release. No catharsis. No afterglow. It just ended and left me feeling empty. It’s an awful feeling. Totally unsatisfactory. Such a maddening cut off. 

    But why? It was all so good up to that point.

    *** SPOILERS ***

    As I was talking it over with Nellie I believe I indentified the answer: in their effort to be surprising, the director and writers removed everything that would have built suspense. So instead of getting a Sixth Sense ending where the surprise adds to the climax and gives it a wonderful texture, we got a slap of surpise and then nothing.

    For me to feel relief, triumph, and the desire to stand up and cheer–all those great climax emotions–I have to be worried about a character. Stressed, thinking they’re going to fail. They need to fight courageously against insurmountable odds and actually come to a point where it appears all is lost. Where I groan inside. All this creates massive pent up worry and anxiety for them. And at that point, the character snatches victory from the jaws of defeat.

    Boom! The climax floods me and it’s delight, relief, cheer, joy.

    It’s just like a football game where we bite our nails until the very end. Where our non-ranked team is playing the #3 team in the nation. Maybe we jump ahead in the second quarter, but in the third we fall behind. We make some great plays but can’t catch up. And when we do put points on the board, the other team immediately responds. There are three seconds left. We’ve stalled at the twenty yard line. We have one more play. From the moment it starts it appears to be broken, our QB is going down, and then . . . he passes to a running back who has made some space. Who is standing open in the end zone! Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh!

    In order to feel a release a climax, something has to build up. The thing that builds is worry, fret, desperate hope. This is what we mean when we talk about suspense. We know the team’s goal, see their predicament, see the overwhelming odds. See them about to lose it all. The dread of defeat and what will be lost rises.

    But in Salt the director and writers went for the effect of surprise instead of suspense and triumph. The moment Salt starts in on the Russian president I thought she was the bad guy. Yes, there was the bit about the spider that had me wondering. Yes, I knew she felt anguish about her husband being killed (that smart little reveal in her expression). I knew all of that. But the movie kept me busy thinking she was the bad guy up until almost the very end. Everything in the film lead me to believe this. Not because I didn’t get it. I got it precisely. It’s exactly what the director wanted. It was the setup for the big surprise/reversal at the end.

    But when they went for surprise by not letting the audience know what Salt was really up to, the immediately removed the possibility of suspense. So I didn’t feel any suspense at her infiltrating the old group of spies. No relief at her killing them–that was just her revenge. No suspsense when she went to the White House. Nothing when she chased the president down the elevator shaft. The whole time I was thinking, crap, they really did indoctrinate her. She’s bad.

    More importantly, there was no rooting, no worry building to release proportions.

    Not until the very end do we realize what she’s been trying to do. Oh, the role reversal with her and Ted Winter (btw, like Liev Schreiber who plays the part) was all a big surprise, as it was designed to be. But the surprise faded and there was . . . nothing to replace it. That’s how surprise works. It’s a relatively short effect. 

    Yes, she kills Winter. Yes, he was a threat at the end with his scissors, but I didn’t care that much. I hadn’t been whipped into a fever pitch. Not like I was in Gladiator with the emperor and the lead in the coliseum. There was no pressurized worry ready to burst. There wasn’t any because we hadn’t had any time for it to build and because by that time nothing for Salt was really at stake. The one meaningful thing she stood to loose–her relationship with her husband–was taken away from us in an earlier scene when he was shot dead. So what was at stake? A big old nuclear war. Well, who cares about that? Nobody. It’s too generalized. We cared about Salt and her husband.

    The result was that the director and writers traded climax for surprise. Alas.

    So here’s my conclusion. Surprise is a relatively easy effect to create. You simply have something unexpected but logical occur. Relief, triumph, climax needs something much different. And surprise can be a part of it. But in our effort to build surprise we must not remove the conditions necessary for please-dear-mother suspense. Suspense requires we root for and worry about a character for a significant period, our unease growing until it’s drawn taut, straining. All the time something significant has to be at stake. Something we can sympathize with. Something personal to the person we care about. Only then can we feel the climactic release. Only then will we stand up and cheer in holy-crap-no-way relief and delight.

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  • A Wowser Mouse & Financial Peace

    ByJohn Brown

    Dis Eez A Mouse

    I’m a Luddite, which means that even though I work in the software industry, I do not rush out to purchase the latest and greatest gadget.  Our family computer, for example, is running Windows 98, primarily because we purchased the computer itself in 1999.  In human years that computer is like 432 years old.  Maybe we’ll retire the old boy this year.  The point is that I don’t like to churn through tons of gadgets.  I want something to work.  I want it to work well.  And then I want to use it for a long time. 

    Recently, my mouse started acting up.  So I went out and found a new one.  I settled on a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000.  It comes with three parts: the mouse, an AA battery, which is supposed to last for up to ten months, and a tiny transceiver you insert into one of your computer’s USB ports.  The mouse has a great hand-feel.  The clicks are smooth.  If you want to take your mouse with you somewhere, there’s an easy storage slot inside the mouse for the transceiver.

    But the best thing of all is its BlueTrack technology.  This is not an ancient mouse with a track ball that you have to clean every so often.  It’s an optical mouse.  But unlike earlier versions of optical mice (why do I have a terrible urge to use “mouses” or “meece”?) that didn’t work very well on a number of surfaces, this BlueTrack technology works like a charm on everything I’ve tried it on, including glass. 

    You need a new mouse?  This is a good one.

    Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money

    If you’re like 70% of America, you are living paycheck to paycheck, which means that if you or your spouse (assuming you have one) were laid off, you would probably have difficulties meeting your mortgage the next month.  If you didn’t go into default on the house, you certainly would on other payments and bills. 

    You also have very little retirement. 

    You probably have around $7,000 in credit card debt.  Maybe a lot more.

    You also have a car payment or two.  Or, heaven forbid, a lease. 

    You might be house poor—the house payment is so large you can’t seem to do anything else. 

    You might have creditors hounding you. 

    You might be one of those folks throwing their money away on the lotto instead of investing it. 

    Did you know that if you invested $50 a month, an average of what many lotto players spend, in the stock market for 40 years, you’d very likely end up with $316,000 in the bank  (over the last 40 years of ups and downs, the annualized return of the market was almost 10%). You would have put in only $24,000 over that time period, which means you would have made $292,203!  But instead, if you’re a lotto player, you just throw all that out the window.  (No, you’re not going to win; not even maybe in your dreams.)

    You probably think your kids will have to take out loans to go to college. And you think that’s a good idea.  In fact, you probably think it’s a good idea to have a credit card just in case there’s an emergency because you don’t have any savings to cover any emergencies.

    The list goes on.  The sad part of this is that our finances cause us average Americans a lot of stress in our lives and marriages and families (even if we’re in denial) and very often heartbreak. 

    I know that a lot of us look at our financial chains and throw our hands up in despair—what can I do?  The mountain of debt and bills are just too high.  Besides, this is how everybody lives.

    But it’s not.

    There is a way out.  And it doesn’t matter how old you are, it’s not too late.

    Dave Ramsey has written his hands-down best book ever, which will take you step-by-step through the process of turning a financial mess into financial peace.  He’ll do it in a down-to-earth easy-to-read style. No confusing ten dollar words that make your head spin.

    Ramsey himself went through financial hell.  He was the guy that made all the mistakes with his money.  Lost everything.  Had collection agencies coming after him.  Didn’t know how he was going to feed the family.  He turned that all around.  Yes, he’s a millionaire, but more importantly, he has been working for the last twenty years to teach regular people with regular jobs the simple principles that lead to financial peace.  They’re becoming debt free and working their way towards huge net-worth.  

    You want a step-by-step plan?  You want to educate yourself about money and family finances from one of the nation’s leading experts?  Then go and purchase Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money today and start reading it.  You will not regret it.  If you already have his Total Money Makeover and don’t think this will be worth it, think again.  This goes into all sorts of things the Total Money Makeover doesn’t.

    Be free, people.  Be free.

     

    Related Stuff

    Look at the links and the video.

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  • Stonefather by Orson Scott Card

    ByJohn Brown

    stonefather_72dpi“When Runnel was born, he was given a water name even though there had never been a wetwizard in the family.

    In the old days such names were given only to those babies as would be sacrificed to Yeggut, the water god. Later, such names were given to those whould would live to serve as priests to Yeggut. Still later, wetnames went to children of families thath pretended they once had a watermage in their ancestry.

    But now, in the village o Farzibeck, wetnames were given because the mother was fond of a nearby brooklet or because the father had a freind with such a name.”

    So begins Stonefather by Orson Scott Card. It tells the tale of Runnel who is the ninth son and fifteenth child of a farmwife who likes all her children well enough but calls them all “by each other’s names and didn’t know enough numbers to take a census and notice when one or two were missing.”  He’s also the son a man who beats him. Eventually, Runnel leaves home and seeks his fortunes in Mitherhome, the big city far to the south.

    This isn’t a full novel, but a novella of 112 pages. However, the Subterranean Press edition has a glorious cover and ink illustrations inside. More importantly, the story tells a tale that’s full of wonder, humor, and a number of delightful characters. It reminded me of the best of Card’s Hatrack books. But, of course, this world is very different. It’s strange, and I was happy to explore it with Runnel as my guide. Take an hour to read this. You won’t be disappointed. Then you can look forward, as I do, to the first of the Mithermage novels based on this world.

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2 Comments

  1. This book has been recommended to me by a lot of friends, all of them left-of-center people, so I dismissed it as their attempt to diagnose me with some malady that explains my political beliefs. Now that I’ve read your review; however, I’ll have to give it a chance. It does sound interesting.

    I was pretty disappointed with the President’s reelection, not because I think he is so terrible as much as because I think Mitt Romney was such a qualified candidate to lead during our present-day economic situation. He probably won’t run again, and I can’t help but feel we missed our opportunity to have a truly decent man with an extraordinary skill set, guide the nation’s course back to prosperity.

  2. I hear you. And, surprise surprise, we’re right back into the same fiscal wrangles we were before Oh, well. I think you’ll like the book.
    Sometimes Haidt didn’t capture me as a conservative as well as I would have liked. It seems he suggests sometimes that harm and fairness don’t matter to me, which they do very much. You read the other issues I had with the book. But the framework he presents, I think, is a good one.

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