Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The Elephant Whisperer

Jonathan Haidt has just released a book called 'The Righteous Mind' which discusses his research into why good people disagree in fundamental ways.

We have all been in discussions where we quite simply can't understand how someone could possibly disagree with us on a moral point that seems so obvious to us. We release our inner lawyer named Genghis Kahn to absolutely butcher their argument. We point out the logical flaws. When the still don't get it, we don't feel intellectually miffed - we get emotionally upset. Heated arguments rise that if too regular make us decide life would actually be more pleasant if we avoid that person. They are illogical and one day they will realise they are both wrong and perhaps 'immoral'. Hence the advice to avoid discussions of 'Religion and Politics' if you want to maintain polite company.

Haidt uses the metaphor of an elephant and a rider (The same one used in his awesome first book 'The Happiness Hypothesis) to describe our emotional/intuitional(elephant) mind and our rational (rider) mind. We may like to think our rider is in control... but the rider is in fact a support to the elephant. The rider can make suggestions, but in most cases the rider is in fact more like a press secretary making excuses or explaining the elephants behaviour. The elephant is not stupid - it has a memory and it makes decisions quickly.

The reason he suggests we struggle to agree is that the reasons we express for our beliefs are actually after the fact defences. Breaking those defences doesn't change our mind. We just look for new 'reasons'.

If you want to understand someone... you need to talk to their elephant. Maybe doing so will help you understand yours.

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