I started reading The Righteous Mind with some eagerness, for I knew that Haidt’s “Moral Foundations” theory had been very influential. And he looked on his creation, and Jonathan Haidt saw that it was good. He called his new book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Well, that’s not what the book says it’s about, but that’s really what it’s about. So he changed his label and, wishing everyone to benefit from his new insights, he wrote a book about how liberals don’t get it and how conservatives live a fuller, richer moral life. He realized that he had been on the wrong side, that his politics clashed with his research. So he read a book by a conservative ideologue, and lo, he was transformed. Once upon a time, there was a liberal moral psychologist who was frustrated with the ineffectual presidential campaign of John Kerry. I started reading The Righteous Mind with some eagerness. For several reasons, the author’s ideological sea change among them, I was disappointed.
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