People who devote their lives to studying something often come to believe that the object of their fascination is the key to understanding everything. Jonathan Haidt More Quotes by Jonathan Haidt More Quotes From Jonathan Haidt Happiness requires changing yourself and changing your world. It requires pursuing your own goals and fitting in with others. Different people at different times in their lives will benefit from drawing more heavily on one approach or the other. Jonathan Haidt drawinggoalpeople Human thinking depends on metaphor. We understand new and complex things in relation to the things we already know... once you pick a metaphor it will guide your thinking. Jonathan Haidt metaphorguidesthinking I'll suggest that the happiness hypothesis offered by Buddha and the Stoics should be amended: Happiness comes from within, and happiness comes from without. We need the guidance of both ancient wisdom and modern science to get the balance right. Jonathan Haidt balanceguidanceneeds Religious experiences are real and common, whether or not God exists, and these experiences often make people whole and at peace. Jonathan Haidt realreligiouspeople Liberals have difficulty understanding the Tea Party because they think it is a bunch of selfish racists. But I think the Tea Party is driven in large part by concerns about fairness. Jonathan Haidt selfishpartythinking 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 votersmoralsocial Groups create supernatural beings not to explain the universe but to order their societies. Jonathan Haidt supernatural-beingsgroupsorder Societies that exclude the exoskeleton of religion should reflect carefully to what will happen to them over several generations. We don’t really know, because the first atheistic societies have only emerged in Europe in the last few decades. They are the least efficient societies ever known at turning resources (of which they have a lot) into offspring (of which they have few). Jonathan Haidt generationslastseurope Understanding the simple fact that morality differs around the world, and even within societies, is the first step toward understanding your righteous mind. Jonathan Haidt understandingsimplemind Do people believe in human rights because such rights actually exist, like mathematical truths, sitting on a cosmic shelf next to the Pythagorean theorem just waiting to be discovered by Platonic reasoners? Or do people feel revulsion and sympathy when they read accounts of torture, and then invent a story about universal rights to help justify their feelings? Jonathan Haidt pythagorean-theoremrightsbelieve 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 conservativeeasyorder Trying to run Congress without human relationships is like trying to run a car without motor oil. Should we be surprised when the whole thing freezes up? Jonathan Haidt motor-oilcarrunning The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning-the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes-the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior. Jonathan Haidt elephantsmindjobs The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship Jonathan Haidt atheistpracticefaces Love and work are to people what water and sunshine are to plants. Jonathan Haidt sunshinewaterpeople If our goal is to understand the world, to seek a deeper understanding of the world, our general lack of moral diversity here is going to make it harder. Because when people all share values, when people all share morals, they become a team. Jonathan Haidt motivationteaminspiration 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 indiagoalschool Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason. Jonathan Haidt valuesshouldreason science is a smorgasbord, and google will guide you to the study that's right for you. Jonathan Haidt googleguidesstudy If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. Jonathan Haidt frustratedpeoplethinking
