Social reality is so complicated that, once you join one team or the other, you become specialized in detecting certain patterns, but you become blind to other patterns.
Jonathan HaidtRead
We humans are really good at forming groups to compete, and then dissolving the groups and reforming them along different lines to compete in a different way.
Interpretation
Humans have a tendency to create and disband groups for competition, reshaping social dynamics constantly.
This quote highlights the dynamic nature of human social behavior, suggesting that we naturally form groups to collaborate and compete, only to dismantle these groups and create new ones based on changing circumstances or objectives. This cyclical process reflects our adaptive strategies in social interactions and competition.
In practice
In a team meeting discussing project changes, one might say, 'As Jonathan Haidt noted, we humans are really good at forming groups to compete, emphasizing our need for collaboration.'
Social reality is so complicated that, once you join one team or the other, you become specialized in detecting certain patterns, but you become blind to other patterns.
Understanding the simple fact that morality differs around the world, and even within societies, is the first step toward understanding your righteous mind.
Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good: increased self-esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it? The pill exists. It is meditation.
Trying to run Congress without human relationships is like trying to run a car without motor oil. Should we be surprised when the whole thing freezes up?
If you grow up in a WEIRD society, you become so well educated in the ethic of autonomy that you can detect oppression and inequality even where the apparent victims see nothing wrong.
When you hear someone criticize a policy on the other side, that's fine. But when you start hearing motive-mongering and demonization, stand up to it just as you would if it were something that was racist or sexist. If we avoid the demonization, disagreements can be positive.
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
Nothing surely is as potent as a law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force of the water drop that hollows the stone. A small dainty task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.
I am accused. I dream of massacres. I am a garden of black and red agonies. I drink them, Hating myself, hating and fearing. And now the world conceives Its end and runs toward it, arms held out in love.
[W]hen the empirical investigator glories in his refusal to go beyond the specialized observation dictated by the traditions of his discipline, be they ever so inclusive, he is making a virtue out of a defense mechanism which insures him against questioning his presuppositions.
Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.
For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most.
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