Sacredness binds people together, and then blinds them to the arbitrariness of the practice.
Jonathan HaidtMorality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams … but thereby makes us go blind to objective reality.
Jonathan HaidtThe initial organization of the brain does not depend that much on experience. Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises.
Jonathan HaidtPeople can believe pretty much whatever they want to believe about moral and political issues, as long as some other people near them believe it, so you have to focus on indirect methods to change what people want to believe.
Jonathan HaidtIf I believe that abortion is wrong, and I want to convince you that it's wrong, there's no reason I should recount to you my personal narrative of how I came to believe this.
Jonathan HaidtConservatives tend to see the world more in terms of good-versus-evil and, for some of them, the nightmare is a disarmed citizenry that can be preyed upon by criminals. They know that having a gun in the house would increase the risk of an accident for a member of their family, but they're willing to take that risk.
Jonathan Haidt