Sushi is the Gay Marriage of Food
I recently gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute. Jonathan Rauch, who writes often on gay issues, asked me how moral attitudes could have changed so quickly on gay marriage. People often seem to think that if I’m saying that moral foundations are innate and evolved, then our moral beliefs are innate and can’t change. In response, I offered the example of sushi. For centuries Americans thought it was disgusting to eat raw fish. But once some people started doing it more visibly, and people habituated to it, the disgust factor decreased and sushi became OK. This short clip offers my general explanation of one way that morals change rapidly.
You can see the whole talk here, including the introduction from Arthur Brooks and commentary from Steve Hayward, Sally Satel, and Jonathan Rauch.
Read MoreTalking with Chris Hayes and Chris Mooney about denial of science
I was on Up, with Chris Hayes, talking with Chris Mooney (author of The Republican Brain), John McWhorter, and Michelle Goldberg, about the psychology of science denial. I think Mooney is summarizing the literature correctly in saying that conservatives are psychologically different from liberals, in ways that feed in to the current denial of science. But I point out that both sides deny science when it contradicts their sacred values. The two sides are not equal nowadays — the Republican Party is spinning away from reality, as Mann and Ornstein argue. But this is a recent development — not an eternal fact about conservatives, and it is to some degree a reaction to the increasing liberalism of scientists. I suggest that the best way to reach agreement is by indirect methods, creating trusting relationships first, before letting people discuss and debate across party lines.
How I stopped hating religion
Here’s a short essay I wrote for CNN on how I went from being an angry young atheist to being a psychologist who thinks that religion was a crucial part of our biological and cultural evolution for morality.
CNN also shows this short video interview with me, done at TED 2012, on tribalism in our political lives:
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On Bloggingheads with Robert Wright
Robert Wright (author of Nonzero, and The Evolution of God), interviews me about the book. We largely agree about the evolution of religion, and about the New Atheists being fundamentalists. Bob is dubious about group selection. He acknowledges it could exist, but tries to come up with individual-level explanations for human groupishness. Bob and I co-taught a class at Princeton. We are on very friendly terms, and this allows our disagreements to be vocal without any risk of it descending into anger. Relationships help open-minded thinking and civil disagreement.
Read MoreFollow the Sacredness
Politics is so weird in part because voters are not pursuing their self-interest, they’re pursuing their group interest. And even for group interest, it’s often not about the group’s material interests, it’s about protecting their sacred totems. Circling around sacred objects helps a group cohere. So if you want to understand why we’re suddenly all talking about birth control and abortion at a time when economic matters are so much more important, follow the sacredness. I explain this in more detail in a NYT Review essay, here,
and also in a 2 minute NYT video, below:
If you want to learn more about sacred values in action, read the work of Scott Atran, e.g., here on war, and read chapters 11 and 12 of The Righteous Mind.
Why we can’t resolve to be more civil
Here’s a riotously funny clip from The Daily Show in which a journalist who heads “The Civility Project” is asked about a column she wrote calling the Tea Partiers “economic terrorists.” Isn’t that just a little bit uncivil, asks John Oliver? No, she says, as her inner press secretary (the rider) kicks into action to find justifications for the moral judgment made by her automatic intuitions (the elephant). She doesn’t realize her own flagrant hypocrisy.
The clip illustrates two of the three main principles of The Righteous Mind:
1) “Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Harrop’s reasoning is so clearly devoted to justification, not truth-seeking. She even recommends just telling the Tea Partiers directly that their “name calling is not making them sound intelligent,” but doesn’t grasp the irony when Oliver says that to her directly. You can’t change people’s minds with reasons if their intuitions point the other way.
2) “Morality binds and blinds.” Harrop is such a partisan liberal that she can’t think clearly. She can’t see what’s happening, either with the Tea Partiers or during her own interview with Oliver.
This is why we at CivilPolitics.org do not endorse civility pledges. Pledges are made by riders, and they have no effect on behavior. We endorse more indirect methods and institutional changes to change the “path” that the elephant is traveling.