Kaj_Sotala comments on To like each other, sing and dance in synchrony - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 23 April 2012 01:30PM

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Comment author: JoshuaZ 24 April 2012 07:06:38PM *  7 points [-]

Haidt's own evident (though likely not intentional) rigging of the criteria by which he detects expressions of loyalty, authority, and purity/sacredness so as to maximize them on the right side of the political spectrum and minimize them on the left one.

Can you expand on this? I've thought for a while that he underemphasizes purity/sacredness on the left (in particular that he essentially ignores things like caring about organic food or vegetarianism which fit classic food taboo forms) but I'm not sure I've seen anything that looked like rigging in his studies.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 25 April 2012 07:19:28AM 7 points [-]

(in particular that he essentially ignores things like caring about organic food or vegetarianism which fit classic food taboo forms)

He does mention those. E.g. The Righteous Mind, page 254:

The Sanctity foundation is used most heavily by the religious right, but it is also used on the spiritual left. You can see the foundation’s original impurity-avoidance function in New Age grocery stores, where you’ll find a variety of products that promise to cleanse you of “toxins.” And you’ll find the Sanctity foundation underlying some of the moral passions of the environmental movement. Many environmentalists revile industrialism, capitalism, and automobiles not just for the physical pollution they create but also for a more symbolic kind of pollution—a degradation of nature, and of humanity’s original nature, before it was corrupted by industrial capitalism.

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