Stephen Barkley
They say that there are two things you should not talk about in polite company: politics and religion. Well, I’m a pastor. I do talk religion—I can’t help it! Politics is more difficult. Even though I know the divide between politics and religion is a modern Western innovation, I still find it easier to back away from political discussions than to argue. I don’t want to alienate my friends. Within my own circles there are good people who hold radically different political ideologies.
Summary of The Righteous Mind
Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains why good people disagree on these topics. His argument unfolds in three sections:
- Intuitions come before strategic reasoning. We like to think that we’re fundamentally rational people who make reasonable decisions. This just isn’t true (see You Are What You Love for a better anthropology). Haidt describes humans minds as a rider on an elephant. The elephant corresponds to the automatic processes in our mind—our moral intuitions. The rider corresponds to the controlled processes in our mind—our ability to reason. The role of the rider is to serve the elephant. That is, most of the time we (mis)use logic to serve our beliefs and intuitions, not the other way around. This explains why people (including you and I) can invent such ludicrous arguments to support our beliefs.
- Our morality is built upon at least six different foundations. These are care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression. In the Western world, the prime foundation of morality is care/harm. The other foundations play a lesser role in our moral intuitions. Much of the religious and political friction comes from the interplay of various moral foundations. An interesting consequence of this is what Haidt calls the “conservative advantage” (180–216). His research shows that liberal politicians (in the American sense of the term) have a morality rooted almost exclusively in the care/harm and fairness/cheating foundations. Conservative politicians root their morality more broadly, giving them a distinct advantage: they can appeal to more foundations than liberals.
- We are ‘groupish’ tribal people. Our morality “binds and blinds” (215). It binds us to an ideological team which does battle with other groups. It also blinds us to what the other team might be saying.
The Righteous Mind is about 500 pages long (including roughly 100 pages of notes), so my description above is radically condensed. Each of the points I mentioned are based on careful research and illustrated in illuminating ways. This is an excellent book that’s worth reading to help us understand how to talk politics and religion in mixed groups.
Further Thoughts
As I read this book, a number of further implications came to mind based on my own background. Here are four of the ways this book can contribute to Christianity.
1. On Post-Hoc Justification
In the third chapter, Haidt described a quick confrontation with his wife.
I was at home, writing a review article on moral psychology, when my wife, Jayne, walked by my desk. In passing, she asked me not to leave dirty dishes on the counter when she prepared our baby’s food. Here request was polite but its tone added a postscript: “As I have asked you a hundred times before.”
My mouth started moving before hers had stopped. Words came out. Those words linked themselves up to say something about the baby having woken up at the same time that our elderly dog barked to ask for a walk and I’m sorry but I just put my breakfast dishes down wherever I could. In my family, caring for a hungry baby and an incontinent dog is a surefire excuse, so I was acquitted. (61)
It was only later that Haidt realized his lie. Yes, those things (baby, dog, dishes) had happened, but not in the time line he suggested. The rider on the elephant had done its job and justified his automatic processes.
Both Jesus and Buddha had the same insight regarding this. It’s easier to see the faults of others than our own. We need to work on our ‘specks’ before we try to extract other people’s ‘logs’ (Matthew 7:3–5). While I know this to be true, Haidt’s illustration (which he supported with empirical research in the previous chapter using an oddly specific case about chickens) made the truth of the human predicament come to life.
How many times in discussions with others does the rider on my elephant think of ways to justify my intuitive beliefs? This calls for disciplined humility in our conversations.
2. On Ezekiel and Disgust
Haidt’s worldview was challenged when he spent three months in India for a research project. This forced him beyond WEIRD morality (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) into a society which emphasized different moral foundations, especially the foundation of sanctity/degradation. Cleanness and uncleanness, whether actual or ceremonial, was integrated into Haidt’s worldview. This foundation is triggered by things such as “waste products, [and] diseased people” along with “[t]aboo ideas” (146), evoking the emotion of disgust. Although largely absent from Western culture, this foundation can be found in religious moralities.
As I was reading this, I began to think more about Ezekiel. Trained as a priest, the habits of ceremonial cleanliness would have been etched on his psyche. As a refugee in Babylon, the filth of the ‘unclean’ environment would have appalled him. The genius of Ezekiel is that he used that sense of disgust to shock the exiles toward divine faithfulness. Ezekiel is full of prophecies that rest on the sanctity/degradation foundation. Here are a few:
1. God commanded Ezekiel to lay on his side and eat starvation rations cooked over human dung to illustrate what was happening in Jerusalem. Ezekiel protests, “Ah, Lord God! I have never defiled myself; from my youth up until now” (Ezekiel 4:14 NRSV). God relented and allowed him to use cow dung as fuel. (Small mercies!)
2. God takes Ezekiel in the Spirit back to Jerusalem to dig through a wall and see what the leadership of Israel was doing. He saw “vile abominations . . . Creeping things, and loathsome animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 8:8–10 NRSV).
3. Israel is described as a whore. Her political wavering between Egypt and Babylon is painted in terms of disgust. She “lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emmission was like that of stallions” (Ezekiel 23:20 NRSV). Yes, that’s in the Bible.
I could go on (and I have), but this is enough to illustrate the point. I wonder if the reason Ezekiel has fallen out of favor in Western Christianity is because we have largely abandoned the sanctity/degradation moral foundation? How can Jesus’ incarnation be understood in light of this foundation?
3. On Groups and Going It Alone
There’s a tension in scripture. On the one hand, Christians are called to love everyone, including their enemies (e.g. Matthew 5:43–48). On the other hand, there is a special love for other Christians. Jesus said that love for other Christians has a missional impact (John 13:35). Paul, in a letter intended to break down the barriers between two ethnic groups, urged the Galatians to “work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith” (Galatians 6:10 NRSV, emphasis mine). There seems to be a tension between universal love and what Haidt would call our urge to be “groupish” (219–55).
In my preaching I have always resisted the idea of a special love for those within the family of faith because it seemed somehow lesser than the ideal Jesus called us to embody. Consider the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who is my neighbour? Those outside your group! Haidt argues that being groupish is a natural part of our humanity.
We humans have a dual nature—we are selfish primates who long to be part of something larger and nobler than ourselves. (255)
Perhaps this dual nature is reflected in scripture.
4. On the New Atheists and Praxis
The final theme that caught my attention was Haidt’s discussion of the New Atheists naive understanding of being and doing. The New Atheist model is simple and unidirectional. What we believe is played out in our actions. Belief —> action.
Haidt’s reasoning aligns with Practical Theological work on praxis. The road between belief and actions is a two-way street. What we believe informs our actions, but just as significantly, what we do informs our beliefs. Belief <—> action.
Haidt adds one more element to the equation. To this point, the formula is individualistic: what I believe impacts what I do and vice versa. Haidt adds belonging to the equation. Beliefs, actions, and belonging all interact with each other. This has radical implications on the need for community in Christianity. There are no isolated solitary Christians—when we’re adopted by God, we are adopted into a family (like it or not).
I could go on—these are only a few of the implications of The Righteous Mind for Christianity. Haidt’s work is a fruitful resource for people interested in thinking about their morality, actions, and sense of belonging.
Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. 2012. Vintage, 2013.
