Quotes from Jonathan Haidt

Muller asserted that modern conservatism is really about creating the best possible society, the one that brings about the greatest happiness given local circumstances.

When someone in a moral community desecrates one of the sacred pillars supporting the community, the reaction is sure to be swift, emotional, collective, and punitive.

Genes are selfish,3 selfish genes create people with various mental modules, and some of these mental modules make us strategically altruistic, not reliably or universally altruistic.

human cognition veered away from that of other primates when our ancestors developed shared intentionality

Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment—originating in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit.18

attachment theory, a well-supported theory that describes the system by which mothers and children regulate each other's behavior so that the child gets a good mix of protection and opportunities for independent exploration.6

In the 1890s Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of experimental psychology, formulated the doctrine of "affective primacy."7 Affect refers to small flashes of positive or negative feeling that prepare us to approach or avoid something. Every emotion (such as happiness or disgust) includes an affective reaction, but most of our affective reactions are too fleeting to be called emotions (for example, the subtle feelings you get just from reading the words happiness and disgust).

Marcus Aurelius advised, "Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed—and you haven't been.

conservative caring is somewhat different—it is aimed not at animals or at people in other countries but at those who've sacrificed for the group.12 It is not universalist; it is more local, and blended with loyalty.

Life is a hierarchy of nested levels, like Russian dolls: genes within chromosomes within cells within individual organisms within hives, societies, and other groups.

The second truth in this part of the story is that we are all, by nature, hypocrites, and this is why it is so hard for us to follow the Golden Rule faithfully.

Nothing is of more importance to the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of a state: much more so than riches or arms, which, under the management of Ignorance and Wickedness, often draw on destruction, instead of providing for the safety of a people.13

This ancient idea deserves respect, and it is certainly true that changing your mind is usually a more effective response to frustration than is changing the world.

It depends on what you think is the purpose of education. Hanna Holborn Gray, the president of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993, once offered this principle: "Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think."40

Humans can be turned into suicide bombers, but it takes a great deal of training, pressure, and psychological manipulation. It doesn't come naturally to us.)

The image that I came up with for myself, as I marveled at my weakness, was that I was a rider on the back of an elephant. I'm holding the reins in my hands, and by pulling one way or the other I can tell the elephant to turn, to stop, or to go. I can direct things, but only when the elephant doesn't have desires of his own. When the elephant really wants to do something, I'm no match for him.

We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct the actual reasons why we ourselves came to a judgment. We reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment.

Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well. —EPICTETUS2

This is one reason social media has been so transformative: there is always an audience eager to watch people being shamed, particularly when it is so easy for spectators to join in and pile on. Life in a call-out culture requires constant vigilance, fear, and self-censorship.

Los estoicos comprendieron que las palabras no causan estrés directamente; sólo pueden provocar estrés y sufrimiento en una persona que interprete esas palabras como una amenaza. Puedes optar por interpretar a un orador invitado como dañino. Puedes elegir tus batallas, dedicar sus esfuerzos a cambiar las políticas que te importan y a hacerte inmune a los troles.

If you find yourself in a Whole Foods store, there's an 89 percent chance that the county surrounding you voted for Barack Obama. If you want to find Republicans, go to a county that contains a Cracker Barrel restaurant (62 percent of these counties went for McCain).

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

principle of charity, which says that one should interpret other people's statements in their best, most reasonable form, not in the worst or most offensive way possible.

Many of the things that don't kill you can damage you for life.