Tag: jonathan haidt

Notes from a Jonathan Haidt TED talk: “Sports is to war as pornography is to sex”

I was going over old TED talk notes and found this gem. Seems especially relevant today:

Here are my notes:

  • openness and comfort with new experiences are traits strongly correlated with liberal political attitude
  • worst idea in psychology: “mind is blank slate at birth”
  • in reality we’re pre-programmed with a lot: “nature provides a first draft”
  • “sports is to war as pornography is to sex”; way to exercise our ancient drives
  • basis of morality, his 5 best candidates for that “first draft”:
    1. harm/care — feel compassion
    2. fairness/reciprocity — ambiguous evidence whether it’s found in other animals
    3. in-group/loyalty — found in animal kingdoms, usually very small or among siblings, only in humans does it expand to large groups
    4. authority/respect — in humans, this is based more on voluntary interest and feelings of love sometimes
    5. purity/sanctity — food is becoming very moralized these days
  • think of these as channels, moral equalizers
  • liberals care more about 1 harm and 2 fairness; conservatives carry more about 3 in-group, 4 authority, 5 purity
  • all of these are relative
  • in most countries, less debate about harm and fairness, most are about #3, 4, 5
  • most people start fair, then cooperation decays if there’s no punishment, but if there’s punishment, cooperation increases in successive rounds
  • liberals speak for weak and oppressed, conservatives speak for order and tradition; this forms a balance
  • in religions you find same thing: yin and yang, Vishnu and Shiva (in fact, some icons show the two deities as the same body)
  • “If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is the mind’s worst disease” – Sengcan, a Chinese Zen Patriarch
  • believes a key moral insight from history – supported by today’s science – is that we’re inclined to form teams and fight against other teams

Are we in a time of growing anomie?

Anomie is the condition of a society in which there are no clear rules, norms, or standards of value. In an anomic society, people can do as they please; but without any clear standards or respected social institutions to enforce those standards, it is harder for people to find things they want to do. Anomie breeds feelings of rootlessness and anxiety and leads to an increase in amoral and antisocial behavior. Modern sociological research strongly supports Durkheim: One of the best predictors of the health of an American neighborhood is the degree to which adults respond to the misdeeds of other people’s children. When community standards are enforced, there is constraint and cooperation. When everyone minds his own business and looks the other way, there is freedom and anomie.

We sure as hell don’t discipline other peoples’ children. Instead we vent and whine and shame bad parents on Twitter. Perhaps the social medias are today’s standards and institutions, stepping forward as governments and religions slide back. Both of these trends worry me, and I’m trying to understand why.

The quote is from Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis [Kindle]. I’m re-reading this book for the third time, and I’m learning more than the first two times combined. In the past I was happy by default, and now happiness takes effort. So I understand and appreciate his findings and suggestions in a new light. Similar to how you empathize with and are grateful for your parents as you start to adult.