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.
No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.
Try to imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up... now try to imagine what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.
It is not necessary to advertise food to hungry people, fuel to cold people, or houses to the homeless.
Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.
Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated with the mind of man.
The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.