Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

The Righteous Mind

Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Oct 09, 2012binational rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This book is a must-read. It is full of fascinating insights. Yet it also needs to be read critically. It is certainly very useful in helping liberals and libertarians understand what motivates conservatives. Others have already commented on the book's strengths, with which I am for the most part in agreement. I will instead focus on its limitations, which are not so obvious. One is that it is essentially about the United States, where self-described conservatives outnumber liberals by 2 to 1 (and even that does not explain the close to 50/50 split between Democrats and Republicans). With few exceptions (Japan, Hungary), other advanced industrial democracies tend to be far to the left of the US, and so Haidt's thesis does not work there. It also ignores the striking geographic division within the US between the solidly liberal northeast and west coast vs the solidly conservative deep south. In essence, part of the United States behaves more like Western Europe, and another part (the part Haidt focuses on) behaves more like Japan, Hungary, or many of the less developed countries. He implies that levels of education do not matter that much, but clearly there is a correlation between education and less emphasis on tradition, respect for authority, and devotion to national and religious symbols and ideologies.