The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt Q: Why are good people divided by politics and religion A: Because affect trumps rationale, we naturally group, and ignore evidence we don't agree with. *** About TLDR I love to read and I love to share... so I thought, what if I could make quick summaries of the books I really care about, slap a bunch of lipstick on em so they're delightful to consume, and then share what comes out with my friends that want to understand why I liked these books so much but didn't have time to read. I believe in * Clarity: say what I mean, don't try to sound smart * Simplicity: clean and delightful over comprehensive * Reverent: can't replace the book, just spreading awareness * Quality: only great books

1. TLDR
@tonysheng
Book summary
Because affect trumps
rationale, we naturally
group, and ignore evidence
we don’t agree with
Jonathan Haidt

2. Morality made civilization possible.

3. 1 Intuitions come first,
strategic reasoning second
2 There’s more to morality
than harm and fairness
3 Morality binds and blinds
Moral psychology

4. 1 Intuitions come first,
strategic reasoning second

5. Our Mind Is Divided.
99% Elephant
Impulsive, Automatic
Mental Activity
1% Rider
Concious Reasoning

6. Conscious reasoning functions like a
press secretary who automatically
justifies any position taken by the
president.

7. Solution
Acknowledge human
limitations
Expose biases to
counterbeliefs (e.g.
scientific communities)
Problem
Worshipping
reason is a
delusion

8. Anyone who values truth should
stop worshipping reason.

9. 2 There’s more to morality
than harm and fairness

10. Our moral mind is
like a tongue with six
taste receptors.
1 Care/ harm
2 Fairness/ cheating
3 Loyalty/ betrayal
4 Authority/ subversion
5 Sanctity/ degradation
6 Liberty/ oppression

11. Liberals have a three-foundation
morality, whereas conservatives use
all six.

12. Moral dimensions Liberals Conservatives
1 Care/ harm
2 Fairness/ cheating
3 Loyalty/ betrayal
4 Authority/ subversion
5 Sanctity/ degradation
6 Liberty/ oppression
✔
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13. They’re voting for their
moral interests. They’d
rather vote against their
economic self-interest
than live in a nation
devoted solely to care of
victims and pursuit of
social justice
Why do rural and
working-class
Americans vote
Republican?

14. 3 Morality binds and blinds

15. Human Nature is Split.
90% Chimp
Individually focused
10% Bees
Group focused

16. Most of human nature was shaped
by natural selection operating at the
level of the individual. Most, but not
all.

17. The Hive Switch
Simply part of
the whole
Transcending self-
interest and letting
something larger
than ourselves
consume us

18. All mean ego-tism vanishes. I
become a transparent eye-
ball; I am nothing; I see all;
the currents of the Universal
Being circulate through me; I
am part or particle of God
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I felt that I was caught up in
the vastness of Creation…
Sometimes you would look
up and see the light on the
altar and it would just be a
blinding sort of light and
radiations… We took such an
infinitesimal amount of
psilocybin, and yet it
connected me to infinity.
A test subject of Alex
Maslow’s
I was surprised to find
myself swept with an
overwhelming sense of
spirituality—not in the
religious sense, but a sense
of deep connection with
everyone who was there as
well as the rest of the
universe
Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos)
Awe in Nature Psychedelics Raves
Comon Hive Triggers

19. Happiness comes from between…
from getting the right relationships
between yourself and others, yourself
and your work, and yourself and
something larger than yourself.

20. TLDRAbout
I love to read and I love to share. These short, sub-20-
page summaries help me explain to my busy friends
why my favorite books moved me.
Follow me on twitter @tonysheng