Jonathan Haidt Quotes
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.
Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon Books, 2012.
Explaining his reasons for staging a military coup in the Sudan:
This was a very important historical quotation. In 1928 Al Smith, the Governor of New York, was the Democratic Candidate for President. He was the first Roman Catholic to run for the Presidency for a major party. He narrowly lost and the anti-Catholic sentiment of much of the country was one of the major reasons, Jones was one of the many Protestant religious leaders who were virulently opposed to a Roman Catholic in the White House. The analogy of a saloon on every corner was very important at the time as the United States had Prohibition, and alcohol had been Jones’ major issue beore then. The result was the election of Herbert Hoover and the subsequent Great Depression.
At the time almost everyone thought him overly pessimistic. Despite huge efforts to bridge the differences including the partition of India and creating a separate Muslim state, the Muslims have become even more discontented in modern times. The Muslim antagonism however has expanded beyond the Hindus, to include the Christians, Jews, Bhais, Buddhists and any other religion in control of land where there are Muslims or they feel should have Muslims. Today, as in 1925 however, the difficult was caused be a very vocal and often violent extremist minority of the Islamic population.
“Sectionalism” really referred to the North / South animosity which carried over from the Civil War. The South would hardly ever elect a Republican as it was the Republican Lincoln Government that ended slavery and put down their rebellion in the Civil War. There was a language difference that was much greater than modern times and the South was way behind most of the rest of the country in terms of education and standard of living. Every time the Federal Government would try and enforce the Constitution with respect to race, the sectional friction would break out again. The sectional issues carried into the 21st century but had gotten much better.
Jonathan David Haidt is an American social psychologist, Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business, and author. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and moral emotions.
