The Independent Whig
Jonathan Haidt
“Progressive Kristallnacht”
In a recent letter he wrote to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, Tom Perkins, co-founder of the silicon valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers caused quite a stir when he compared what he perceives to be “a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent” to the Kristallnacht attacks … Continue reading
Jonathan Haidt’s Metaphors Sacrifice Completeness and Accuracy in Favor of Parsimony and Ideology, Part II: Taste Buds
This is Part II of a two-part essay in which I attempt to make the case that several of the metaphors Jonathan Haidt uses to help convey the lessons of his study of morality do more harm than good to his Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), to our understanding of the partisan divide, and potentially to … Continue reading
Jonathan Haidt Ignores the Largest Factor Causing the Partisan Divide, and His Own Findings, to Blame Republicans Instead
A high school friend of mine, I’ll call him Kevin, is outgoing and curious in a mischievous way. He once saw a squirrel climb into a lone tree with no other trees around it. Kevin climbed up the tree after the squirrel. The squirrel climbed higher, Kevin did too. This continued until the squirrel could climb … Continue reading
Chris Matthews is Morally Dumbfounded
According to this article, apparently Chris Matthews believes that Republicans: “Never Say Their Problem With Obama Is That He Is Black.” As Jonathan Haidt describes in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, moral dumbfounding is when a person is “rendered speechless by their inability to explain verbally what they … Continue reading
Religion, Morality, and Ideology: Different Names for the Same Underlying Element of Human Nature
Religion, morality, and ideology, all, are manifestations of a single underlying evolutionary, anthropological, and psychological phenomenon; human groupishness, aka “hivishness,” aka our “tribal mentality.” It’s long been taken for granted that humans are selfish. As Haidt describes in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Political theorists since Marx had … Continue reading
I Support Viewpoint Diversity
A politically diverse group of social scientists, natural scientists, humanists, and other scholars who want to improve our academic disciplines and universities. We share a concern about a growing problem: the loss or lack of “viewpoint diversity.” When nearly everyone in a field shares the same political orientation, certain ideas become orthodoxy, dissent is discouraged, and errors can go unchallenged.
Venn Diagram of Liberal and Conservative Traits and Moral Foundations and
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