My next review for #bookstr is of The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.
This was a re-read for me, more than a decade since I first picked it up with my worldview having changed enormously since that first pass.
It holds up pretty well and remains interesting on a second look. Particularly because my political views have evolved from what would have been disengaged “left libertarian” (fucking lol) back then, to whatever you call it now (see image 2).
Different things stand out to me now; other peoples and cultures having different morality’s is much clearer, the good in religion, why the right wing seems so fragmented with their more complex framework for a few examples.
Haidt repeatedly notes that leftists really only use 3/6 pillars for their framework whereas rightists use all 6. I was left wondering whether this is simply a case of arrested development of the former; he never really grapples with the why in this book which is the only disappointment as there isn’t any real explanation.
The concept of Anomie which he pulls from Durkheim could have done with further elaboration but at the time of writing it was probably less obvious what was happening in the culture, particularly from Haidt’s vantage.
Overall its a good read. Worthwhile. Approachable for normies to these ideas whilst offering to sharpen edges for those more advanced. A book where a leftist displays some actual introspection feels rare which might be why it became so popular, but the content itself is worthy of the draw.
