Quotes by Jonathan Haidt

The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation - a force for construction and destruction.

— Jonathan Haidt

Life

Morality binds people into groups. It gives us tribalism, it gives us genocide, war, and politics. But it also gives us heroism, altruism, and sainthood.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

I think Republicans need to take income inequality more seriously. Not because I favor equality of outcomes. I do not. I think the Right is correct to stress merit and earned rewards, not handouts and forced equality. But I think what Republicans are blind to is that power corrupts.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

People can believe pretty much whatever they want to believe about moral and political issues, as long as some other people near them believe it, so you have to focus on indirect methods to change what people want to believe.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

My early research - I'm a social psychologist, and my early research was on how people make moral judgments. When I entered the field in 1987, everybody was looking at moral reasoning - how do kids reason about a moral dilemma? Should a guy steal a drug to save his wife's life?

— Jonathan Haidt

Life

Democrats talk about programs like Social Security or Medicare, but it's not clear to most voters what Democrats' core moral values are.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

It really is a fact that liberals are much higher than conservatives on a major personality trait called 'openness to experience.' People who are high on openness to experience just crave novelty, variety, diversity, new ideas, travel. People low on it like things that are familiar, that are safe and dependable.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

When you hear someone criticize a policy on the other side, that's fine. But when you start hearing motive-mongering and demonization, stand up to it just as you would if it were something that was racist or sexist. If we avoid the demonization, disagreements can be positive.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

Congress is full of good, decent, smart people who have devoted their lives to public service.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

People are voting for the kind of country they want to live in, and there are different views about what kind of country we should have.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

If you have high IQ, you're really good at finding post-hoc arguments to support your feelings of truthiness.

— Jonathan Haidt

Truth

Trying to run Congress without human relationships is like trying to run a car without motor oil. Should we be surprised when the whole thing freezes up?

— Jonathan Haidt

Life

Liberals are my friends, my colleagues, my social world.

— Jonathan Haidt

Friendship

Liberals tend to be much more concerned about business and corporations as the oppressors. They look to government as the solution. On the Right it's the opposite. They see business as good, as what generates wealth in society, and they see government as the oppressor, which makes it hard for especially small businesspeople.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams... but thereby makes us go blind to objective reality.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

Our moral sense really evolved to bind groups together into teams that can cooperate in order to compete with other teams.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

Liberals have difficulty understanding the Tea Party because they think it is a bunch of selfish racists. But I think the Tea Party is driven in large part by concerns about fairness.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

Politics is really religion. Politics is about sacredness. Politics is about offering a vision that will bind the nation together to pursue greatness.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

While it is useful to rebut charges and get your arguments out in circulation, you have to understand that arguments and evidence have little impact on people as long as their feelings tilt them against you.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

On the religious Right and religious people in general have the feeling that the world is not just material, the world is not just there for us to do what we want with. That our bodies, things have an immaterial essence, a spiritual essence that God is in all of us.

— Jonathan Haidt

Life

Anytime we're interacting with someone, we're judging them, we're sharing expectations, we think they didn't live up to those expectations.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

I did say that in-group, authority and purity are necessary for the maintenance of order, but I would never give them a blanket endorsement.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

In accounts of men in battle, there is an incredible adrenaline rush from group-versus-group conflict. The fervor and passion of partisans is clearly rewarding; and if it's rewarding, it involves dopamine; and if it involves dopamine, then it is potentially addictive.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom

By temperament and disposition and emotions, I'm a liberal; but in my beliefs about what's best for the country, I'm a centrist.

— Jonathan Haidt

Wisdom