Jonathan Haidt Quotes

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Equality, Stress, Rewards

• I began graduate school in the late 1980s, and my goal was to understand how morality varied across cultures and nations. I did some research comparing moral judgment in India and the U.S.A.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Understand, Judgment

• Even if you have a brain predisposed to liberalism, you might end up with some conservative friends or find inspiring conservative role models who could be very influential on you, and that could send you down a different track in life.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Brain, Conservative

• Dividing into teams doesn’t necessarily mean denigrating others. Studies of groupishness have generally found that groups increase in-group love far more than they increase out-group hostility.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mean, Others

• Conservatives tend to see the world more in terms of good-versus-evil and, for some of them, the nightmare is a disarmed citizenry that can be preyed upon by criminals. They know that having a gun in the house would increase the risk of an accident for a member of their family, but they’re willing to take that risk.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Risk

  Tags in Gun, Conservatives

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

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Evolution, Religion

  Tags in Culture, Cooperation

• The great conservative insight is that order is really hard to achieve. It’s really precious, and it’s really easy to lose.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Conservatives, Insight

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Voting, Views

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

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Cooperation, Groups

• Most of our social nature is like that of other primates – we’re mostly out for ourselves.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ourselves, Social

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

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Morality, Makes

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

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Friends, Colleagues

• Let me say it diplomatically: Most religions are tribal to some degree.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Degree, Tribal

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

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Really, Feelings

• I got interested in the American culture war back in 2004, and it’s one of the only growth stocks I’ve ever invested in.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Growth, American

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Necessary, Order

• Economic issues are just as much moral issues as social issues.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Issues, Economics

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Democrats, Social Security

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

  Jonathan Haidt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Smart People, Services

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Disposition, Liberal

Jonathan Haidt (42)

Birth:	19th October, 1963
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Professor

About

Haidt was born in New York City and raised in Scarsdale, New York. He earned a BA in philosophy from Yale University in 1985, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. He then studied cultural psychology at the University of Chicago as a post doctoral fellow.

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Today's Anniversary - 19th May

Births

• 1926 - Swami Kriyananda
• 1944 - Lynn Barber
• 1964 - Laura Ingraham
• 1991 - Jordan Pruitt
• 1861 - Nellie Melba

Deaths

• 1991 - Muriel Box
• 2012 - Warren Rudman
• 1939 - Karl Radek
• 1864 - Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 1958 - Ronald Charles Colman