Why We All Just Can’t Get Along
Yesterday on Bill Moyers and Company, Jonathan Haidt finally explained why we all just can’t get along.
Moyers and Haidt had a fascinating discussion about why it is so difficult for us to be able to “agree to disagree” with those who think differently than we do. Haidt said that it is because we have sacralized, that is, made sacred, our politics and our faith, so much so that those who believe differently than we do are actually our enemies.
Haidt is a psychologist at the Unversity of Virginia and has written a book called, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.”
He said that historically humans are supposed to be groupish and have, for centuries, been joiners. Of course, he is right. Only in working together and cooperating have we been able to build a complex society of interdependence.
But lately, we have a breakdown of this association. Nowadays, our institutions, including members of the U.S. Congress, are so embattled that factions are locked in immovable positions.
The Southern Baptist Convention is another example. The Fundamentalists fear and hate the Moderates and have pushed them out of the pulpits, the missionary fields and the colleges. The Episcopalians have broken over homosexual people in leadership positions.
This phenomena is not new. Historically, leaders have demonized their enemies to the point of killing them. Read the Old Testament for blatant examples.
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, and the other founders, thought they had applied a balm to this clash of factions when they sought to separate matters of politics and matters of faith.
He compares our modern calamity to The Matrix. We are having an ongoing hallucination about our belief systems that sees every thing in contentious terms. This produces a collective separation of free thought and open discussion. In the early United States, citizens, rich and poor, all lived close together and associated with one another. Now, we live, literally and figuratively, in gated communities with like-minded people. We are no longer forced to homogenize or even explain their views to those who believe differently. This leads to an inability to compromise for the common good.
He says, among other things, that demonizing is “good” within the tribe because it builds loyality and confederacy, but demonizing is “bad” on the whole, because it makes the nation weaker.
There are no easy solutions here. But the discussion is worth watching.
