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
The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship
Interpretation
What this quote means
Rituals dismissed by skeptics may actually facilitate human cooperation and community bonding.
In this quote, Jonathan Haidt emphasizes the significance of ritual practices, which are often viewed by New Atheists as cumbersome and illogical. He argues that such rituals might actually play a crucial role in fostering cooperation among individuals who are not genetically related, thereby addressing one of humanity's greatest challenges: forming bonds and working together for mutual benefit despite differing backgrounds and beliefs.
Themes
RitualCooperationHuman BehaviorCommunityAtheism
In practice
Example use cases
During a keynote presentation on the importance of cultural rituals in modern society.
More from Jonathan Haidt
All quotes →Understanding the simple fact that morality differs around the world, and even within societies, is the first step toward understanding your righteous mind.
Jonathan HaidtRead
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.
Jonathan HaidtRead
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?
Jonathan HaidtRead
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.
Jonathan HaidtRead
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.
Jonathan HaidtRead
Similar quotes
What was Aristotle’s life?’ Well, the answer lay in a single sentence: ‘He was born, he thought, he died.’ And all the rest is pure anecdote.
Martin HeideggerRead
On the rare occasions when our dreams succeed and achieve perfection - most dreams are bungled - the are symbolic chains of scene and images in place of a narrative poetic language; they circumscribe our experiences or expectations or situations with such poetic boldness and decisiveness that in the morning we are always amazed when we remember our dreams.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.
Haruki MurakamiRead
The universe takes us as seriously as we take it.
Marianne WilliamsonRead
There is a fissure in my vision and madness will always rush through.
Anais NinRead
Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat. “What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?
J. R. R. TolkienRead