ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Jonathan Haidt - Social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures.

Why you should listen

By understanding more about our moral psychology and its biases, Jonathan Haidt says we can design better institutions (including companies, universities and democracy itself), and we can learn to be more civil and open-minded toward those who are not on our team.

Haidt is a social psychologist whose research on morality across cultures led to his 2008 TED Talk on the psychological roots of the American culture war, and his 2013 TED Talk on how "common threats can make common ground." In both of those talks he asks, "Can't we all disagree more constructively?" Haidt's 2012 TED Talk explored the intersection of his work on morality with his work on happiness to talk about "hive psychology" -- the ability that humans have to lose themselves in groups pursuing larger projects, almost like bees in a hive. This hivish ability is crucial, he argues, for understanding the origins of morality, politics, and religion. These are ideas that Haidt develops at greater length in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Haidt joined New York University Stern School of Business in July 2011. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, based in the Business and Society Program. Before coming to Stern, Professor Haidt taught for 16 years at the University of Virginia in the department of psychology.

Haidt's writings appear frequently in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He was named one of the top global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine and by Prospect magazine. Haidt received a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

More profile about the speaker
Jonathan Haidt | Speaker | TED.com
Chris Anderson - TED Curator
After a long career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2002 and has developed it as a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas worth spreading.

Why you should listen

Chris Anderson is the Curator of TED, a nonprofit devoted to sharing valuable ideas, primarily through the medium of 'TED Talks' -- short talks that are offered free online to a global audience.

Chris was born in a remote village in Pakistan in 1957. He spent his early years in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where his parents worked as medical missionaries, and he attended an American school in the Himalayas for his early education. After boarding school in Bath, England, he went on to Oxford University, graduating in 1978 with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

Chris then trained as a journalist, working in newspapers and radio, including two years producing a world news service in the Seychelles Islands.

Back in the UK in 1984, Chris was captivated by the personal computer revolution and became an editor at one of the UK's early computer magazines. A year later he founded Future Publishing with a $25,000 bank loan. The new company initially focused on specialist computer publications but eventually expanded into other areas such as cycling, music, video games, technology and design, doubling in size every year for seven years. In 1994, Chris moved to the United States where he built Imagine Media, publisher of Business 2.0 magazine and creator of the popular video game users website IGN. Chris eventually merged Imagine and Future, taking the combined entity public in London in 1999, under the Future name. At its peak, it published 150 magazines and websites and employed 2,000 people.

This success allowed Chris to create a private nonprofit organization, the Sapling Foundation, with the hope of finding new ways to tackle tough global issues through media, technology, entrepreneurship and, most of all, ideas. In 2001, the foundation acquired the TED Conference, then an annual meeting of luminaries in the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design held in Monterey, California, and Chris left Future to work full time on TED.

He expanded the conference's remit to cover all topics, including science, business and key global issues, while adding a Fellows program, which now has some 300 alumni, and the TED Prize, which grants its recipients "one wish to change the world." The TED stage has become a place for thinkers and doers from all fields to share their ideas and their work, capturing imaginations, sparking conversation and encouraging discovery along the way.

In 2006, TED experimented with posting some of its talks on the Internet. Their viral success encouraged Chris to begin positioning the organization as a global media initiative devoted to 'ideas worth spreading,' part of a new era of information dissemination using the power of online video. In June 2015, the organization posted its 2,000th talk online. The talks are free to view, and they have been translated into more than 100 languages with the help of volunteers from around the world. Viewership has grown to approximately one billion views per year.

Continuing a strategy of 'radical openness,' in 2009 Chris introduced the TEDx initiative, allowing free licenses to local organizers who wished to organize their own TED-like events. More than 8,000 such events have been held, generating an archive of 60,000 TEDx talks. And three years later, the TED-Ed program was launched, offering free educational videos and tools to students and teachers.

More profile about the speaker
Chris Anderson | Speaker | TED.com
TEDNYC

Jonathan Haidt: Can a divided America heal?

Filmed:
2,005,570 views

How can the US recover after the negative, partisan presidential election of 2016? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the morals that form the basis of our political choices. In conversation with TED Curator Chris Anderson, he describes the patterns of thinking and historical causes that have led to such sharp divisions in America -- and provides a vision for how the country might move forward.
- Social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures. Full bio - TED Curator
After a long career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2002 and has developed it as a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas worth spreading. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
Chris Anderson: So, Jon, this feels scary.
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Jonathan Haidt: Yeah.
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CA: It feels like the world is in a place
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that we haven't seen for a long time.
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People don't just disagree
in the way that we're familiar with,
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on the left-right political divide.
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There are much deeper differences afoot.
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What on earth is going on,
and how did we get here?
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JH: This is different.
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There's a much more
apocalyptic sort of feeling.
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Survey research by Pew Research shows
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that the degree to which we feel
that the other side is not just --
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we don't just dislike them;
we strongly dislike them,
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and we think that they are
a threat to the nation.
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Those numbers have been going up and up,
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and those are over 50 percent
now on both sides.
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People are scared,
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because it feels like this is different
than before; it's much more intense.
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01:01
Whenever I look
at any sort of social puzzle,
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I always apply the three basic
principles of moral psychology,
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and I think they'll help us here.
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So the first thing that you
have to always keep in mind
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when you're thinking about politics
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is that we're tribal.
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We evolved for tribalism.
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One of the simplest and greatest
insights into human social nature
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is the Bedouin proverb:
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"Me against my brother;
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me and my brother against our cousin;
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me and my brother and cousins
against the stranger."
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And that tribalism allowed us
to create large societies
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and to come together
in order to compete with others.
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That brought us out of the jungle
and out of small groups,
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but it means that we have
eternal conflict.
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The question you have to look at is:
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What aspects of our society
are making that more bitter,
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and what are calming them down?
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CA: That's a very dark proverb.
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You're saying that that's actually
baked into most people's mental wiring
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at some level?
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JH: Oh, absolutely. This is just
a basic aspect of human social cognition.
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But we can also live together
really peacefully,
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and we've invented all kinds
of fun ways of, like, playing war.
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I mean, sports, politics --
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these are all ways that we get
to exercise this tribal nature
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without actually hurting anyone.
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We're also really good at trade
and exploration and meeting new people.
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So you have to see our tribalism
as something that goes up or down --
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it's not like we're doomed
to always be fighting each other,
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but we'll never have world peace.
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CA: The size of that tribe
can shrink or expand.
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JH: Right.
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CA: The size of what we consider "us"
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and what we consider "other" or "them"
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can change.
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And some people believed that process
could continue indefinitely.
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JH: That's right.
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CA: And we were indeed expanding
the sense of tribe for a while.
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JH: So this is, I think,
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where we're getting at what's possibly
the new left-right distinction.
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I mean, the left-right
as we've all inherited it,
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comes out of the labor
versus capital distinction,
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and the working class, and Marx.
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But I think what we're seeing
now, increasingly,
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is a divide in all the Western democracies
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between the people
who want to stop at nation,
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the people who are more parochial --
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and I don't mean that in a bad way --
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people who have much more
of a sense of being rooted,
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they care about their town,
their community and their nation.
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And then those who are
anti-parochial and who --
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whenever I get confused, I just think
of the John Lennon song "Imagine."
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"Imagine there's no countries,
nothing to kill or die for."
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And so these are the people
who want more global governance,
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they don't like nation states,
they don't like borders.
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You see this all over Europe as well.
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There's a great metaphor guy --
actually, his name is Shakespeare --
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writing ten years ago in Britain.
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He had a metaphor:
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"Are we drawbridge-uppers
or drawbridge-downers?"
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And Britain is divided
52-48 on that point.
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And America is divided on that point, too.
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CA: And so, those of us
who grew up with The Beatles
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and that sort of hippie philosophy
of dreaming of a more connected world --
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it felt so idealistic and "how could
anyone think badly about that?"
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And what you're saying is that, actually,
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millions of people today
feel that that isn't just silly;
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it's actually dangerous and wrong,
and they're scared of it.
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JH: I think the big issue, especially
in Europe but also here,
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is the issue of immigration.
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And I think this is where
we have to look very carefully
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at the social science
about diversity and immigration.
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Once something becomes politicized,
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once it becomes something
that the left loves and the right --
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then even the social scientists
can't think straight about it.
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Now, diversity is good in a lot of ways.
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It clearly creates more innovation.
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The American economy
has grown enormously from it.
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Diversity and immigration
do a lot of good things.
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But what the globalists,
I think, don't see,
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what they don't want to see,
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is that ethnic diversity
cuts social capital and trust.
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There's a very important
study by Robert Putnam,
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the author of "Bowling Alone,"
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looking at social capital databases.
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And basically, the more people
feel that they are the same,
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the more they trust each other,
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the more they can have
a redistributionist welfare state.
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Scandinavian countries are so wonderful
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because they have this legacy
of being small, homogenous countries.
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And that leads to
a progressive welfare state,
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a set of progressive
left-leaning values, which says,
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"Drawbridge down!
The world is a great place.
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People in Syria are suffering --
we must welcome them in."
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And it's a beautiful thing.
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But if, and I was in Sweden
this summer,
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if the discourse in Sweden
is fairly politically correct
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and they can't talk about the downsides,
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you end up bringing a lot of people in.
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That's going to cut social capital,
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it makes it hard to have a welfare state
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and they might end up,
as we have in America,
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with a racially divided, visibly
racially divided, society.
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So this is all very
uncomfortable to talk about.
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But I think this is the thing,
especially in Europe and for us, too,
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we need to be looking at.
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CA: You're saying that people of reason,
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people who would consider
themselves not racists,
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but moral, upstanding people,
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have a rationale that says
humans are just too different;
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that we're in danger of overloading
our sense of what humans are capable of,
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by mixing in people who are too different.
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JH: Yes, but I can make it
much more palatable
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by saying it's not necessarily about race.
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It's about culture.
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There's wonderful work by a political
scientist named Karen Stenner,
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who shows that when people have a sense
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that we are all united,
we're all the same,
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there are many people who have
a predisposition to authoritarianism.
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Those people aren't particularly racist
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when they feel as through
there's not a threat
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to our social and moral order.
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But if you prime them experimentally
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by thinking we're coming apart,
people are getting more different,
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then they get more racist, homophobic,
they want to kick out the deviants.
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So it's in part that you get
an authoritarian reaction.
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The left, following through
the Lennonist line --
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the John Lennon line --
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does things that create
an authoritarian reaction.
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We're certainly seeing that
in America with the alt-right.
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We saw it in Britain,
we've seen it all over Europe.
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But the more positive part of that
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is that I think the localists,
or the nationalists, are actually right --
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that, if you emphasize
our cultural similarity,
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then race doesn't actually
matter very much.
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So an assimilationist
approach to immigration
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removes a lot of these problems.
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And if you value having
a generous welfare state,
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you've got to emphasize
that we're all the same.
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CA: OK, so rising immigration
and fears about that
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are one of the causes
of the current divide.
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What are other causes?
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JH: The next principle of moral psychology
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is that intuitions come first,
strategic reasoning second.
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You've probably heard
the term "motivated reasoning"
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or "confirmation bias."
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There's some really interesting work
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on how our high intelligence
and our verbal abilities
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might have evolved
not to help us find out the truth,
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but to help us manipulate each other,
defend our reputation ...
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We're really, really good
at justifying ourselves.
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And when you bring
group interests into account,
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so it's not just me,
it's my team versus your team,
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whereas if you're evaluating evidence
that your side is wrong,
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we just can't accept that.
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So this is why you can't win
a political argument.
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If you're debating something,
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you can't persuade the person
with reasons and evidence,
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because that's not
the way reasoning works.
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So now, give us the internet,
give us Google:
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"I heard that Barack Obama
was born in Kenya.
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Let me Google that -- oh my God!
10 million hits! Look, he was!"
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CA: So this has come as an unpleasant
surprise to a lot of people.
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Social media has often been framed
by techno-optimists
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as this great connecting force
that would bring people together.
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And there have been some
unexpected counter-effects to that.
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JH: That's right.
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That's why I'm very enamored
of yin-yang views
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of human nature and left-right --
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that each side is right
about certain things,
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but then it goes blind to other things.
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And so the left generally believes
that human nature is good:
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bring people together, knock down
the walls and all will be well.
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The right -- social conservatives,
not libertarians --
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social conservatives generally
believe people can be greedy
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and sexual and selfish,
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and we need regulation,
and we need restrictions.
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So, yeah, if you knock down all the walls,
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allow people to communicate
all over the world,
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you get a lot of porn and a lot of racism.
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CA: So help us understand.
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These principles of human nature
have been with us forever.
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What's changed that's deepened
this feeling of division?
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JH: You have to see six to ten
different threads all coming together.
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I'll just list a couple of them.
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So in America, one of the big --
actually, America and Europe --
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one of the biggest ones is World War II.
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There's interesting research
from Joe Henrich and others
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that says if your country was at war,
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especially when you were young,
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then we test you 30 years later
in a commons dilemma
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or a prisoner's dilemma,
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you're more cooperative.
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Because of our tribal nature, if you're --
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my parents were teenagers
during World War II,
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and they would go out
looking for scraps of aluminum
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to help the war effort.
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I mean, everybody pulled together.
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And so then these people go on,
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they rise up through business
and government,
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they take leadership positions.
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They're really good
at compromise and cooperation.
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They all retire by the '90s.
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So we're left with baby boomers
by the end of the '90s.
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And their youth was spent fighting
each other within each country,
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in 1968 and afterwards.
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10:22
The loss of the World War II generation,
"The Greatest Generation,"
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10:26
is huge.
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10:28
So that's one.
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10:30
Another, in America,
is the purification of the two parties.
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There used to be liberal Republicans
and conservative Democrats.
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10:37
So America had a mid-20th century
that was really bipartisan.
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10:40
But because of a variety of factors
that started things moving,
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10:44
by the 90's, we had a purified
liberal party and conservative party.
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10:48
So now, the people in either party
really are different,
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10:50
and we really don't want
our children to marry them,
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10:53
which, in the '60s,
didn't matter very much.
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10:55
So, the purification of the parties.
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10:57
Third is the internet and, as I said,
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10:59
it's just the most amazing stimulant
for post-hoc reasoning and demonization.
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11:04
CA: The tone of what's happening
on the internet now is quite troubling.
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I just did a quick search
on Twitter about the election
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11:12
and saw two tweets next to each other.
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11:15
One, against a picture of racist graffiti:
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11:20
"This is disgusting!
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11:21
Ugliness in this country,
brought to us by #Trump."
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3170
11:25
And then the next one is:
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11:27
"Crooked Hillary
dedication page. Disgusting!"
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11:31
So this idea of "disgust"
is troubling to me.
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11:35
Because you can have an argument
or a disagreement about something,
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11:38
you can get angry at someone.
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11:41
Disgust, I've heard you say,
takes things to a much deeper level.
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11:44
JH: That's right. Disgust is different.
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11:46
Anger -- you know, I have kids.
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1963
11:48
They fight 10 times a day,
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11:50
and they love each other 30 times a day.
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11:52
You just go back and forth:
you get angry, you're not angry;
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11:55
you're angry, you're not angry.
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1523
11:56
But disgust is different.
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11:58
Disgust paints the person
as subhuman, monstrous,
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12:02
deformed, morally deformed.
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12:04
Disgust is like indelible ink.
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2424
12:07
There's research from John Gottman
on marital therapy.
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3515
12:11
If you look at the faces -- if one
of the couple shows disgust or contempt,
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5125
12:16
that's a predictor that they're going
to get divorced soon,
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3096
12:19
whereas if they show anger,
that doesn't predict anything,
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2899
12:22
because if you deal with anger well,
it actually is good.
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2709
12:25
So this election is different.
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12:26
Donald Trump personally
uses the word "disgust" a lot.
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3654
12:30
He's very germ-sensitive,
so disgust does matter a lot --
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12:33
more for him, that's something
unique to him --
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3910
12:37
but as we demonize each other more,
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12:40
and again, through
the Manichaean worldview,
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3409
12:43
the idea that the world
is a battle between good and evil
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12:46
as this has been ramping up,
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1347
12:47
we're more likely not just to say
they're wrong or I don't like them,
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3326
12:51
but we say they're evil, they're satanic,
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2536
12:53
they're disgusting, they're revolting.
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1921
12:55
And then we want nothing to do with them.
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2866
12:58
And that's why I think we're seeing it,
for example, on campus now.
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13:02
We're seeing more the urge
to keep people off campus,
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13:04
silence them, keep them away.
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1945
13:06
I'm afraid that this whole
generation of young people,
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13:09
if their introduction to politics
involves a lot of disgust,
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3793
13:13
they're not going to want to be involved
in politics as they get older.
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13:17
CA: So how do we deal with that?
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1840
13:19
Disgust. How do you defuse disgust?
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13:24
JH: You can't do it with reasons.
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1948
13:27
I think ...
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1191
13:30
I studied disgust for many years,
and I think about emotions a lot.
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13:33
And I think that the opposite
of disgust is actually love.
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3525
13:37
Love is all about, like ...
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3091
13:41
Disgust is closing off, borders.
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2571
13:43
Love is about dissolving walls.
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2545
13:47
So personal relationships, I think,
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13:49
are probably the most
powerful means we have.
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2759
13:53
You can be disgusted by a group of people,
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2697
13:56
but then you meet a particular person
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1918
13:57
and you genuinely discover
that they're lovely.
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2776
14:00
And then gradually that chips away
or changes your category as well.
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4296
14:06
The tragedy is, Americans used to be
much more mixed up in the their towns
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5977
14:12
by left-right or politics.
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2134
14:14
And now that it's become
this great moral divide,
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2331
14:16
there's a lot of evidence
that we're moving to be near people
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3143
14:19
who are like us politically.
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1512
14:21
It's harder to find somebody
who's on the other side.
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2530
14:23
So they're over there, they're far away.
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14:26
It's harder to get to know them.
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1570
14:27
CA: What would you say to someone
or say to Americans,
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4224
14:31
people generally,
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1158
14:33
about what we should understand
about each other
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2609
14:35
that might help us rethink for a minute
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3475
14:39
this "disgust" instinct?
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2203
14:42
JH: Yes.
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1152
14:43
A really important
thing to keep in mind --
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2153
14:45
there's research by political
scientist Alan Abramowitz,
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4716
14:50
showing that American democracy
is increasingly governed
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3993
14:54
by what's called "negative partisanship."
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2243
14:56
That means you think,
OK there's a candidate,
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3111
15:00
you like the candidate,
you vote for the candidate.
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2406
15:02
But with the rise of negative advertising
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2059
15:04
and social media
and all sorts of other trends,
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2224
15:06
increasingly, the way elections are done
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894771
2041
15:08
is that each side tries to make
the other side so horrible, so awful,
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3981
15:12
that you'll vote for my guy by default.
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2041
15:15
And so as we more and more vote
against the other side
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2970
15:18
and not for our side,
326
906313
1331
15:19
you have to keep in mind
that if people are on the left,
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5507
15:25
they think, "Well, I used to think
that Republicans were bad,
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2910
15:28
but now Donald Trump proves it.
329
916133
1483
15:29
And now every Republican,
I can paint with all the things
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2851
15:32
that I think about Trump."
331
920515
1382
15:33
And that's not necessarily true.
332
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1593
15:35
They're generally not very happy
with their candidate.
333
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2692
15:38
This is the most negative partisanship
election in American history.
334
926254
4716
15:43
So you have to first separate
your feelings about the candidate
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3363
15:47
from your feelings about the people
who are given a choice.
336
935247
2937
15:50
And then you have to realize that,
337
938208
2483
15:53
because we all live
in a separate moral world --
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2420
15:55
the metaphor I use in the book
is that we're all trapped in "The Matrix,"
339
943690
3451
15:59
or each moral community is a matrix,
a consensual hallucination.
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947165
3524
16:02
And so if you're within the blue matrix,
341
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2243
16:04
everything's completely compelling
that the other side --
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3194
16:08
they're troglodytes, they're racists,
they're the worst people in the world,
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3631
16:11
and you have all the facts
to back that up.
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2104
16:13
But somebody in the next house from yours
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2275
16:16
is living in a different moral matrix.
346
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2033
16:18
They live in a different video game,
347
966337
1947
16:20
and they see a completely
different set of facts.
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2378
16:22
And each one sees
different threats to the country.
349
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2676
16:25
And what I've found
from being in the middle
350
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2090
16:27
and trying to understand both sides
is: both sides are right.
351
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2927
16:30
There are a lot of threats
to this country,
352
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2120
16:32
and each side is constitutionally
incapable of seeing them all.
353
980619
3485
16:36
CA: So, are you saying
that we almost need a new type of empathy?
354
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6519
16:43
Empathy is traditionally framed as:
355
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2170
16:45
"Oh, I feel your pain.
I can put myself in your shoes."
356
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2691
16:48
And we apply it to the poor,
the needy, the suffering.
357
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2929
16:52
We don't usually apply it
to people who we feel as other,
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3823
16:55
or we're disgusted by.
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1465
16:57
JH: No. That's right.
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1005359
1151
16:58
CA: What would it look like
to build that type of empathy?
361
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4830
17:04
JH: Actually, I think ...
362
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1238
17:06
Empathy is a very, very
hot topic in psychology,
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2305
17:08
and it's a very popular word
on the left in particular.
364
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2658
17:11
Empathy is a good thing, and empathy
for the preferred classes of victims.
365
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4000
17:15
So it's important to empathize
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1453
17:16
with the groups that we on the left
think are so important.
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2824
17:19
That's easy to do,
because you get points for that.
368
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2531
17:22
But empathy really should get you points
if you do it when it's hard to do.
369
1030442
3649
17:26
And, I think ...
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1754
17:28
You know, we had a long 50-year period
of dealing with our race problems
371
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5088
17:33
and legal discrimination,
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2255
17:35
and that was our top priority
for a long time
373
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2187
17:37
and it still is important.
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1250
17:39
But I think this year,
375
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1529
17:40
I'm hoping it will make people see
376
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2404
17:43
that we have an existential
threat on our hands.
377
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2795
17:45
Our left-right divide, I believe,
378
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2667
17:48
is by far the most important
divide we face.
379
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2160
17:50
We still have issues about race
and gender and LGBT,
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3031
17:53
but this is the urgent need
of the next 50 years,
381
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3371
17:57
and things aren't going
to get better on their own.
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2861
18:01
So we're going to need to do
a lot of institutional reforms,
383
1069021
2835
18:03
and we could talk about that,
384
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1409
18:05
but that's like a whole long,
wonky conversation.
385
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2330
18:07
But I think it starts with people
realizing that this is a turning point.
386
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3846
18:11
And yes, we need a new kind of empathy.
387
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2809
18:14
We need to realize:
388
1082370
1505
18:15
this is what our country needs,
389
1083899
1542
18:17
and this is what you need
if you don't want to --
390
1085465
2354
18:19
Raise your hand if you want
to spend the next four years
391
1087843
2695
18:22
as angry and worried as you've been
for the last year -- raise your hand.
392
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3486
18:26
So if you want to escape from this,
393
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1705
18:27
read Buddha, read Jesus,
read Marcus Aurelius.
394
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2151
18:29
They have all kinds of great advice
for how to drop the fear,
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5062
18:35
reframe things,
396
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1178
18:36
stop seeing other people as your enemy.
397
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2083
18:38
There's a lot of guidance in ancient
wisdom for this kind of empathy.
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3307
18:41
CA: Here's my last question:
399
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1377
18:43
Personally, what can
people do to help heal?
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1111103
4335
18:47
JH: Yeah, it's very hard to just decide
to overcome your deepest prejudices.
401
1115462
4083
18:51
And there's research showing
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1119569
1461
18:53
that political prejudices are deeper
and stronger than race prejudices
403
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4349
18:57
in the country now.
404
1125427
1260
18:59
So I think you have to make an effort --
that's the main thing.
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3432
19:02
Make an effort to actually meet somebody.
406
1130851
2004
19:04
Everybody has a cousin, a brother-in-law,
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1132879
2210
19:07
somebody who's on the other side.
408
1135113
1869
19:09
So, after this election --
409
1137006
1816
19:11
wait a week or two,
410
1139252
1351
19:12
because it's probably going to feel
awful for one of you --
411
1140627
2836
19:15
but wait a couple weeks, and then
reach out and say you want to talk.
412
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4152
19:19
And before you do it,
413
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1424
19:21
read Dale Carnegie, "How to Win
Friends and Influence People" --
414
1149111
3145
19:24
(Laughter)
415
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1039
19:25
I'm totally serious.
416
1153343
1167
19:26
You'll learn techniques
if you start by acknowledging,
417
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2590
19:29
if you start by saying,
418
1157148
1161
19:30
"You know, we don't agree on a lot,
419
1158333
1670
19:32
but one thing I really respect
about you, Uncle Bob,"
420
1160027
2538
19:34
or "... about you conservatives, is ... "
421
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2059
19:36
And you can find something.
422
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1334
19:38
If you start with some
appreciation, it's like magic.
423
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2763
19:40
This is one of the main
things I've learned
424
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2114
19:42
that I take into my human relationships.
425
1170955
1913
19:44
I still make lots of stupid mistakes,
426
1172892
1920
19:46
but I'm incredibly good
at apologizing now,
427
1174836
2016
19:48
and at acknowledging what
somebody was right about.
428
1176876
2417
19:51
And if you do that,
429
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1154
19:52
then the conversation goes really well,
and it's actually really fun.
430
1180495
3494
19:56
CA: Jon, it's absolutely fascinating
speaking with you.
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2645
19:59
It's really does feel like
the ground that we're on
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3758
20:03
is a ground populated by deep questions
of morality and human nature.
433
1191168
4867
20:08
Your wisdom couldn't be more relevant.
434
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2424
20:10
Thank you so much for sharing
this time with us.
435
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2295
20:13
JH: Thanks, Chris.
436
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1152
20:14
JH: Thanks, everyone.
437
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1161
20:15
(Applause)
438
1203494
2000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Jonathan Haidt - Social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures.

Why you should listen

By understanding more about our moral psychology and its biases, Jonathan Haidt says we can design better institutions (including companies, universities and democracy itself), and we can learn to be more civil and open-minded toward those who are not on our team.

Haidt is a social psychologist whose research on morality across cultures led to his 2008 TED Talk on the psychological roots of the American culture war, and his 2013 TED Talk on how "common threats can make common ground." In both of those talks he asks, "Can't we all disagree more constructively?" Haidt's 2012 TED Talk explored the intersection of his work on morality with his work on happiness to talk about "hive psychology" -- the ability that humans have to lose themselves in groups pursuing larger projects, almost like bees in a hive. This hivish ability is crucial, he argues, for understanding the origins of morality, politics, and religion. These are ideas that Haidt develops at greater length in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Haidt joined New York University Stern School of Business in July 2011. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, based in the Business and Society Program. Before coming to Stern, Professor Haidt taught for 16 years at the University of Virginia in the department of psychology.

Haidt's writings appear frequently in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He was named one of the top global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine and by Prospect magazine. Haidt received a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

More profile about the speaker
Jonathan Haidt | Speaker | TED.com
Chris Anderson - TED Curator
After a long career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2002 and has developed it as a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas worth spreading.

Why you should listen

Chris Anderson is the Curator of TED, a nonprofit devoted to sharing valuable ideas, primarily through the medium of 'TED Talks' -- short talks that are offered free online to a global audience.

Chris was born in a remote village in Pakistan in 1957. He spent his early years in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where his parents worked as medical missionaries, and he attended an American school in the Himalayas for his early education. After boarding school in Bath, England, he went on to Oxford University, graduating in 1978 with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

Chris then trained as a journalist, working in newspapers and radio, including two years producing a world news service in the Seychelles Islands.

Back in the UK in 1984, Chris was captivated by the personal computer revolution and became an editor at one of the UK's early computer magazines. A year later he founded Future Publishing with a $25,000 bank loan. The new company initially focused on specialist computer publications but eventually expanded into other areas such as cycling, music, video games, technology and design, doubling in size every year for seven years. In 1994, Chris moved to the United States where he built Imagine Media, publisher of Business 2.0 magazine and creator of the popular video game users website IGN. Chris eventually merged Imagine and Future, taking the combined entity public in London in 1999, under the Future name. At its peak, it published 150 magazines and websites and employed 2,000 people.

This success allowed Chris to create a private nonprofit organization, the Sapling Foundation, with the hope of finding new ways to tackle tough global issues through media, technology, entrepreneurship and, most of all, ideas. In 2001, the foundation acquired the TED Conference, then an annual meeting of luminaries in the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design held in Monterey, California, and Chris left Future to work full time on TED.

He expanded the conference's remit to cover all topics, including science, business and key global issues, while adding a Fellows program, which now has some 300 alumni, and the TED Prize, which grants its recipients "one wish to change the world." The TED stage has become a place for thinkers and doers from all fields to share their ideas and their work, capturing imaginations, sparking conversation and encouraging discovery along the way.

In 2006, TED experimented with posting some of its talks on the Internet. Their viral success encouraged Chris to begin positioning the organization as a global media initiative devoted to 'ideas worth spreading,' part of a new era of information dissemination using the power of online video. In June 2015, the organization posted its 2,000th talk online. The talks are free to view, and they have been translated into more than 100 languages with the help of volunteers from around the world. Viewership has grown to approximately one billion views per year.

Continuing a strategy of 'radical openness,' in 2009 Chris introduced the TEDx initiative, allowing free licenses to local organizers who wished to organize their own TED-like events. More than 8,000 such events have been held, generating an archive of 60,000 TEDx talks. And three years later, the TED-Ed program was launched, offering free educational videos and tools to students and teachers.

More profile about the speaker
Chris Anderson | Speaker | TED.com