Jonathan Haidt Decodes the Tribal Psychology of Politics

A January 29, 2012 article on The Chronicle of Higher Education

What made Haidt go from a religion-loathing liberal to a faith-respecting centrist? And as the 2012 election approaches, will anybody listen?
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He first plunged into political research out of frustration with John Kerry's failure to connect with voters in 2004. A partisan liberal, the University of Virginia professor hoped a better grasp of moral psychology could help Democrats sharpen their knives. But a funny thing happened. Haidt, now a visiting professor at New York University, emerged as a centrist who believes that "conservatives have a more accurate understanding of human nature than do liberals."
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"Liberals need to be shaken," Haidt tells me. They "simply misunderstand conservatives far more than the other way around."

It's a good, thoughtful read. Takes some digesting. Check it out.

Especially this:

Building on ideas from the anthropologist Richard Shweder, Haidt and his colleagues synthesize anthropology, evolutionary theory, and psychology to propose six innate moral foundations: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation.
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And the six moral foundations are central to how Haidt explains politics. The moral mind, to him, resembles an audio equalizer with a series of slider switches that represent different parts of the moral spectrum. All political movements base appeals on different settings of the foundations—and the culture wars arise from what they choose to emphasize. Liberals jack up care, followed by fairness and liberty. They rarely value loyalty and authority. Conservatives dial up all six."
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[A]s tonight's [Occupy Wall Street] meeting shows, the right owns an advantage in creating effective groups: Far-left activists dial down "authority" to zero.

That's a mild critique, but Haidt gets tougher in memoranda he has sent to liberal politicians and think tanks. He writes that politics, like religion, binds people together "to pursue moral ideals and defend sacred values." The value that liberals revere is defending the oppressed. But their devotion to victims blinds them to other concerns. They alienate with "a thin and tolerant morality that gives most Americans vertigo." And they often commit "sacrilege," making it easy for opponents "to mobilize moralistic outrage." For example, they trounce authority by backing [underage] abortion without parental consent.

I suppose these kinds of "conversion" incidences are rare, especially among PhD's like Haidt, but isn't it interesting that there are virtually none where the conservative becomes a liberal? Anyone got one to share with us? Other than Stephen Crowder pretending to be a liberal to get a "special interest group" job offer for $33k a year?

He came to appreciate the right's insights about social cohesion after reading Conservatism, an anthology edited by the historian Jerry Z. Muller. But he also credits another factor: the end of George W. Bush's presidency. Haidt hated Bush. He couldn't shift his views until that animosity disappeared—until he was no longer an angry partisan fighting another team "for the survival of the world."

In other words, his intuition ruled.

Sounds like a good book to pick up and digest also...