Aretae

The virtue of excellence

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Jon Haidt

I don't completely agree with Haidt on all topics...but he's reaching the pont of being one of the best synthesists around...and I'm more supsicious when he disagrees that I might be wrong.

Having read another 10% of Haidt's book...he basically covers ground that is well-understood by readers of this blog...but more clearly than I do.  The core, meta-idea underlying much of his book, and this blog...is that there are a lot of very good reasons for people to believe things that have *nothing* to do with the truth value of the positions.  Rather evolutionary success rates of various cognitive predilections are the key indicator regarding what people believe...and *not* what is true.

The sixth tenth of Haidt's book looks at the research on religion...works with it inside his evolutionary understanding of ethics...and points out that the religious experience of a UVA football game, a church service, an extasy-fueled rave, and an aztec human sacrifice appear to line up real well.  They're all effective group-bonding experiences...and indeed the social science on religion works out real well to confirm this analysis.  Religious folks are effectively indistinguishable from non-religious folks on every test and metric (not involving talk) we can find...with one big exception:  In-group cooperation.  Religious folks cooperate with other coreligionists better than do athiests.

Key takeaway: Don't assume that beliefs and truth are...or should be...about truth.  Rather, remember that we are evolved creatures with minds designed to win in the highly groupist evolutionary environment.  Truth is a luxury.
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3 comments:

Leonard said...

Haidt's ideas do make me wonder whether neocameralism requires a "religion" to function. MM would say no: with perfect security, the state cares not what the subjects think. But I suspect that even granting perfect security is possible, it is still costly, and therefore the state may want a religion to lower its costs. So, my guess is yes. OTOH, per Haidt the things that can serve as "religion" are very broad. Also, basically almost any us-against-them will work. We see this with progressives fetishizing the weak and minority.

April 15, 2012 at 8:12 PM
Alrenous said...

The experience of living in a stable, well-managed region would basically create a religion whether you wanted to or not. Liking the rulers would be a social norm, because they're doing a good job. Many would be pressured into liking them even if they wouldn't independently. Insurrectionist thoughts would be taboo, especially if there's less-well-run neighbours as reminders for the citizens.

April 15, 2012 at 9:29 PM
Alex J. said...

If you want to signal conformity with a group via belief, it's no good believing in things you have good reason to believe to be true. You need to believe in impossible or unlikely things, because a signal is only valuable if it is costly. Thus, belief from this kind of motivation are not merely unrelated to truth, but actually pull away from it. And when you deal with people via rational argument, you are also asking them to break away from their important affiliations.

April 16, 2012 at 8:26 AM

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