TED2012
Jonathan Haidt: Religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of self-transcendence
Filmed:
Readability: 4.2
1,335,755 views
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt asks a simple, but difficult question: why do we search for self-transcendence? Why do we attempt to lose ourselves? In a tour through the science of evolution by group selection, he proposes a provocative answer.
Jonathan Haidt - Social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures. Full bio
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:15
I have a question for you:
0
0
3000
00:18
Are you religious?
1
3000
2000
00:20
Please raise your hand right now
2
5000
2000
00:22
if you think of yourself as a religious person.
3
7000
3000
00:25
Let's see, I'd say about three or four percent.
4
10000
3000
00:28
I had no idea there were so many believers at a TED Conference.
5
13000
3000
00:31
(Laughter)
6
16000
2000
00:33
Okay, here's another question:
7
18000
2000
00:35
Do you think of yourself as spiritual
8
20000
2000
00:37
in any way, shape or form? Raise your hand.
9
22000
2000
00:39
Okay, that's the majority.
10
24000
3000
00:42
My Talk today
11
27000
2000
00:44
is about the main reason, or one of the main reasons,
12
29000
2000
00:46
why most people consider themselves
13
31000
2000
00:48
to be spiritual in some way, shape or form.
14
33000
2000
00:50
My Talk today is about self-transcendence.
15
35000
3000
00:53
It's just a basic fact about being human
16
38000
3000
00:56
that sometimes the self seems to just melt away.
17
41000
3000
00:59
And when that happens,
18
44000
2000
01:01
the feeling is ecstatic
19
46000
3000
01:04
and we reach for metaphors of up and down
20
49000
2000
01:06
to explain these feelings.
21
51000
2000
01:08
We talk about being uplifted
22
53000
2000
01:10
or elevated.
23
55000
2000
01:12
Now it's really hard to think about anything abstract like this
24
57000
3000
01:15
without a good concrete metaphor.
25
60000
2000
01:17
So here's the metaphor I'm offering today.
26
62000
3000
01:20
Think about the mind as being like a house with many rooms,
27
65000
3000
01:23
most of which we're very familiar with.
28
68000
3000
01:26
But sometimes it's as though a doorway appears
29
71000
3000
01:29
from out of nowhere
30
74000
2000
01:31
and it opens onto a staircase.
31
76000
3000
01:34
We climb the staircase
32
79000
2000
01:36
and experience a state of altered consciousness.
33
81000
4000
01:40
In 1902,
34
85000
2000
01:42
the great American psychologist William James
35
87000
2000
01:44
wrote about the many varieties of religious experience.
36
89000
3000
01:47
He collected all kinds of case studies.
37
92000
2000
01:49
He quoted the words of all kinds of people
38
94000
2000
01:51
who'd had a variety of these experiences.
39
96000
2000
01:53
One of the most exciting to me
40
98000
2000
01:55
is this young man, Stephen Bradley,
41
100000
2000
01:57
had an encounter, he thought, with Jesus in 1820.
42
102000
3000
02:00
And here's what Bradley said about it.
43
105000
3000
02:06
(Music)
44
111000
2000
02:09
(Video) Stephen Bradley: I thought I saw the savior in human shape
45
114000
3000
02:12
for about one second in the room,
46
117000
2000
02:14
with arms extended,
47
119000
2000
02:16
appearing to say to me, "Come."
48
121000
3000
02:19
The next day I rejoiced with trembling.
49
124000
3000
02:22
My happiness was so great that I said I wanted to die.
50
127000
3000
02:25
This world had no place in my affections.
51
130000
3000
02:28
Previous to this time,
52
133000
2000
02:30
I was very selfish and self-righteous.
53
135000
2000
02:32
But now I desired the welfare of all mankind
54
137000
3000
02:35
and could, with a feeling heart,
55
140000
2000
02:37
forgive my worst enemies.
56
142000
3000
02:41
JH: So note
57
146000
2000
02:43
how Bradley's petty, moralistic self
58
148000
2000
02:45
just dies on the way up the staircase.
59
150000
2000
02:47
And on this higher level
60
152000
2000
02:49
he becomes loving and forgiving.
61
154000
3000
02:53
The world's many religions have found so many ways
62
158000
2000
02:55
to help people climb the staircase.
63
160000
2000
02:57
Some shut down the self using meditation.
64
162000
2000
02:59
Others use psychedelic drugs.
65
164000
2000
03:01
This is from a 16th century Aztec scroll
66
166000
4000
03:05
showing a man about to eat a psilocybin mushroom
67
170000
3000
03:08
and at the same moment get yanked up the staircase by a god.
68
173000
4000
03:12
Others use dancing, spinning and circling
69
177000
2000
03:14
to promote self-transcendence.
70
179000
2000
03:16
But you don't need a religion to get you through the staircase.
71
181000
3000
03:19
Lots of people find self-transcendence in nature.
72
184000
3000
03:22
Others overcome their self at raves.
73
187000
3000
03:25
But here's the weirdest place of all:
74
190000
3000
03:28
war.
75
193000
2000
03:30
So many books about war say the same thing,
76
195000
2000
03:32
that nothing brings people together
77
197000
2000
03:34
like war.
78
199000
2000
03:36
And that bringing them together opens up the possibility
79
201000
3000
03:39
of extraordinary self-transcendent experiences.
80
204000
3000
03:42
I'm going to play for you an excerpt
81
207000
2000
03:44
from this book by Glenn Gray.
82
209000
2000
03:46
Gray was a soldier in the American army in World War II.
83
211000
3000
03:49
And after the war he interviewed a lot of other soldiers
84
214000
3000
03:52
and wrote about the experience of men in battle.
85
217000
2000
03:54
Here's a key passage
86
219000
2000
03:56
where he basically describes the staircase.
87
221000
3000
04:01
(Video) Glenn Gray: Many veterans will admit
88
226000
2000
04:03
that the experience of communal effort in battle
89
228000
3000
04:06
has been the high point of their lives.
90
231000
3000
04:09
"I" passes insensibly into a "we,"
91
234000
3000
04:12
"my" becomes "our"
92
237000
2000
04:14
and individual faith
93
239000
2000
04:16
loses its central importance.
94
241000
3000
04:19
I believe that it is nothing less
95
244000
2000
04:21
than the assurance of immortality
96
246000
3000
04:24
that makes self-sacrifice at these moments
97
249000
3000
04:27
so relatively easy.
98
252000
3000
04:30
I may fall, but I do not die,
99
255000
3000
04:33
for that which is real in me goes forward
100
258000
3000
04:36
and lives on in the comrades
101
261000
2000
04:38
for whom I gave up my life.
102
263000
2000
04:42
JH: So what all of these cases have in common
103
267000
3000
04:45
is that the self seems to thin out, or melt away,
104
270000
3000
04:48
and it feels good, it feels really good,
105
273000
2000
04:50
in a way totally unlike anything we feel in our normal lives.
106
275000
3000
04:53
It feels somehow uplifting.
107
278000
3000
04:56
This idea that we move up was central in the writing
108
281000
3000
04:59
of the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim.
109
284000
3000
05:02
Durkheim even called us Homo duplex,
110
287000
2000
05:04
or two-level man.
111
289000
2000
05:06
The lower level he called the level of the profane.
112
291000
3000
05:09
Now profane is the opposite of sacred.
113
294000
3000
05:12
It just means ordinary or common.
114
297000
2000
05:14
And in our ordinary lives we exist as individuals.
115
299000
3000
05:17
We want to satisfy our individual desires.
116
302000
3000
05:20
We pursue our individual goals.
117
305000
2000
05:22
But sometimes something happens
118
307000
2000
05:24
that triggers a phase change.
119
309000
2000
05:26
Individuals unite
120
311000
2000
05:28
into a team, a movement or a nation,
121
313000
3000
05:31
which is far more than the sum of its parts.
122
316000
3000
05:34
Durkheim called this level the level of the sacred
123
319000
3000
05:37
because he believed that the function of religion
124
322000
2000
05:39
was to unite people into a group,
125
324000
2000
05:41
into a moral community.
126
326000
3000
05:44
Durkheim believed that anything that unites us
127
329000
3000
05:47
takes on an air of sacredness.
128
332000
2000
05:49
And once people circle around
129
334000
2000
05:51
some sacred object or value,
130
336000
2000
05:53
they'll then work as a team and fight to defend it.
131
338000
3000
05:56
Durkheim wrote
132
341000
2000
05:58
about a set of intense collective emotions
133
343000
2000
06:00
that accomplish this miracle of E pluribus unum,
134
345000
3000
06:03
of making a group out of individuals.
135
348000
2000
06:05
Think of the collective joy in Britain
136
350000
3000
06:08
on the day World War II ended.
137
353000
3000
06:11
Think of the collective anger in Tahrir Square,
138
356000
3000
06:14
which brought down a dictator.
139
359000
3000
06:17
And think of the collective grief
140
362000
2000
06:19
in the United States
141
364000
2000
06:21
that we all felt, that brought us all together,
142
366000
3000
06:24
after 9/11.
143
369000
3000
06:27
So let me summarize where we are.
144
372000
3000
06:30
I'm saying that the capacity for self-transcendence
145
375000
2000
06:32
is just a basic part of being human.
146
377000
3000
06:35
I'm offering the metaphor
147
380000
2000
06:37
of a staircase in the mind.
148
382000
2000
06:39
I'm saying we are Homo duplex
149
384000
2000
06:41
and this staircase takes us up from the profane level
150
386000
3000
06:44
to the level of the sacred.
151
389000
2000
06:46
When we climb that staircase,
152
391000
2000
06:48
self-interest fades away,
153
393000
2000
06:50
we become just much less self-interested,
154
395000
2000
06:52
and we feel as though we are better, nobler
155
397000
2000
06:54
and somehow uplifted.
156
399000
3000
06:57
So here's the million-dollar question
157
402000
3000
07:00
for social scientists like me:
158
405000
2000
07:02
Is the staircase
159
407000
2000
07:04
a feature of our evolutionary design?
160
409000
3000
07:07
Is it a product of natural selection,
161
412000
3000
07:10
like our hands?
162
415000
2000
07:12
Or is it a bug, a mistake in the system --
163
417000
3000
07:15
this religious stuff is just something
164
420000
2000
07:17
that happens when the wires cross in the brain --
165
422000
3000
07:20
Jill has a stroke and she has this religious experience,
166
425000
2000
07:22
it's just a mistake?
167
427000
2000
07:24
Well many scientists who study religion take this view.
168
429000
4000
07:28
The New Atheists, for example,
169
433000
2000
07:30
argue that religion is a set of memes,
170
435000
2000
07:32
sort of parasitic memes,
171
437000
2000
07:34
that get inside our minds
172
439000
2000
07:36
and make us do all kinds of crazy religious stuff,
173
441000
3000
07:39
self-destructive stuff, like suicide bombing.
174
444000
2000
07:41
And after all,
175
446000
2000
07:43
how could it ever be good for us
176
448000
2000
07:45
to lose ourselves?
177
450000
2000
07:47
How could it ever be adaptive
178
452000
2000
07:49
for any organism
179
454000
2000
07:51
to overcome self-interest?
180
456000
3000
07:54
Well let me show you.
181
459000
2000
07:56
In "The Descent of Man,"
182
461000
2000
07:58
Charles Darwin wrote a great deal
183
463000
2000
08:00
about the evolution of morality --
184
465000
2000
08:02
where did it come from, why do we have it.
185
467000
3000
08:05
Darwin noted that many of our virtues
186
470000
2000
08:07
are of very little use to ourselves,
187
472000
2000
08:09
but they're of great use to our groups.
188
474000
2000
08:11
He wrote about the scenario
189
476000
2000
08:13
in which two tribes of early humans
190
478000
2000
08:15
would have come in contact and competition.
191
480000
2000
08:17
He said, "If the one tribe included
192
482000
3000
08:20
a great number of courageous, sympathetic
193
485000
2000
08:22
and faithful members
194
487000
2000
08:24
who are always ready to aid and defend each other,
195
489000
2000
08:26
this tribe would succeed better
196
491000
2000
08:28
and conquer the other."
197
493000
2000
08:30
He went on to say that "Selfish and contentious people
198
495000
2000
08:32
will not cohere,
199
497000
2000
08:34
and without coherence
200
499000
2000
08:36
nothing can be effected."
201
501000
2000
08:38
In other words,
202
503000
2000
08:40
Charles Darwin believed
203
505000
2000
08:42
in group selection.
204
507000
2000
08:44
Now this idea has been very controversial for the last 40 years,
205
509000
3000
08:47
but it's about to make a major comeback this year,
206
512000
3000
08:50
especially after E.O. Wilson's book comes out in April,
207
515000
3000
08:53
making a very strong case
208
518000
2000
08:55
that we, and several other species,
209
520000
2000
08:57
are products of group selection.
210
522000
2000
08:59
But really the way to think about this
211
524000
2000
09:01
is as multilevel selection.
212
526000
2000
09:03
So look at it this way:
213
528000
2000
09:05
You've got competition going on within groups and across groups.
214
530000
3000
09:08
So here's a group of guys on a college crew team.
215
533000
3000
09:11
Within this team
216
536000
2000
09:13
there's competition.
217
538000
2000
09:15
There are guys competing with each other.
218
540000
2000
09:17
The slowest rowers, the weakest rowers, are going to get cut from the team.
219
542000
3000
09:20
And only a few of these guys are going to go on in the sport.
220
545000
2000
09:22
Maybe one of them will make it to the Olympics.
221
547000
3000
09:25
So within the team,
222
550000
2000
09:27
their interests are actually pitted against each other.
223
552000
3000
09:30
And sometimes it would be advantageous
224
555000
2000
09:32
for one of these guys
225
557000
2000
09:34
to try to sabotage the other guys.
226
559000
2000
09:36
Maybe he'll badmouth his chief rival
227
561000
2000
09:38
to the coach.
228
563000
2000
09:40
But while that competition is going on
229
565000
2000
09:42
within the boat,
230
567000
2000
09:44
this competition is going on across boats.
231
569000
3000
09:47
And once you put these guys in a boat competing with another boat,
232
572000
3000
09:50
now they've got no choice but to cooperate
233
575000
2000
09:52
because they're all in the same boat.
234
577000
3000
09:55
They can only win
235
580000
2000
09:57
if they all pull together as a team.
236
582000
2000
09:59
I mean, these things sound trite,
237
584000
2000
10:01
but they are deep evolutionary truths.
238
586000
2000
10:03
The main argument against group selection
239
588000
2000
10:05
has always been
240
590000
2000
10:07
that, well sure, it would be nice to have a group of cooperators,
241
592000
3000
10:10
but as soon as you have a group of cooperators,
242
595000
2000
10:12
they're just going to get taken over by free-riders,
243
597000
3000
10:15
individuals that are going to exploit the hard work of the others.
244
600000
3000
10:18
Let me illustrate this for you.
245
603000
2000
10:20
Suppose we've got a group of little organisms --
246
605000
3000
10:23
they can be bacteria, they can be hamsters; it doesn't matter what --
247
608000
3000
10:26
and let's suppose that this little group here, they evolved to be cooperative.
248
611000
3000
10:29
Well that's great. They graze, they defend each other,
249
614000
2000
10:31
they work together, they generate wealth.
250
616000
3000
10:34
And as you'll see in this simulation,
251
619000
2000
10:36
as they interact they gain points, as it were, they grow,
252
621000
3000
10:39
and when they've doubled in size, you'll see them split,
253
624000
2000
10:41
and that's how they reproduce and the population grows.
254
626000
2000
10:43
But suppose then that one of them mutates.
255
628000
3000
10:46
There's a mutation in the gene
256
631000
2000
10:48
and one of them mutates to follow a selfish strategy.
257
633000
2000
10:50
It takes advantage of the others.
258
635000
2000
10:52
And so when a green interacts with a blue,
259
637000
3000
10:55
you'll see the green gets larger and the blue gets smaller.
260
640000
2000
10:57
So here's how things play out.
261
642000
2000
10:59
We start with just one green,
262
644000
2000
11:01
and as it interacts
263
646000
2000
11:03
it gains wealth or points or food.
264
648000
3000
11:06
And in short order, the cooperators are done for.
265
651000
3000
11:09
The free-riders have taken over.
266
654000
3000
11:12
If a group cannot solve the free-rider problem
267
657000
3000
11:15
then it cannot reap the benefits of cooperation
268
660000
3000
11:18
and group selection cannot get started.
269
663000
3000
11:21
But there are solutions to the free-rider problem.
270
666000
2000
11:23
It's not that hard a problem.
271
668000
2000
11:25
In fact, nature has solved it many, many times.
272
670000
3000
11:28
And nature's favorite solution
273
673000
2000
11:30
is to put everyone in the same boat.
274
675000
3000
11:33
For example,
275
678000
2000
11:35
why is it that the mitochondria in every cell
276
680000
3000
11:38
has its own DNA,
277
683000
2000
11:40
totally separate from the DNA in the nucleus?
278
685000
3000
11:43
It's because they used to be
279
688000
2000
11:45
separate free-living bacteria
280
690000
2000
11:47
and they came together
281
692000
2000
11:49
and became a superorganism.
282
694000
2000
11:51
Somehow or other -- maybe one swallowed another; we'll never know exactly why --
283
696000
3000
11:54
but once they got a membrane around them,
284
699000
2000
11:56
they were all in the same membrane,
285
701000
2000
11:58
now all the wealth-created division of labor,
286
703000
3000
12:01
all the greatness created by cooperation,
287
706000
2000
12:03
stays locked inside the membrane
288
708000
2000
12:05
and we've got a superorganism.
289
710000
3000
12:08
And now let's rerun the simulation
290
713000
2000
12:10
putting one of these superorganisms
291
715000
2000
12:12
into a population of free-riders, of defectors, of cheaters
292
717000
3000
12:15
and look what happens.
293
720000
3000
12:18
A superorganism can basically take what it wants.
294
723000
2000
12:20
It's so big and powerful and efficient
295
725000
3000
12:23
that it can take resources
296
728000
2000
12:25
from the greens, from the defectors, the cheaters.
297
730000
4000
12:29
And pretty soon the whole population
298
734000
2000
12:31
is actually composed of these new superorganisms.
299
736000
3000
12:34
What I've shown you here
300
739000
2000
12:36
is sometimes called a major transition
301
741000
2000
12:38
in evolutionary history.
302
743000
3000
12:41
Darwin's laws don't change,
303
746000
2000
12:43
but now there's a new kind of player on the field
304
748000
3000
12:46
and things begin to look very different.
305
751000
3000
12:49
Now this transition was not a one-time freak of nature
306
754000
2000
12:51
that just happened with some bacteria.
307
756000
2000
12:53
It happened again
308
758000
2000
12:55
about 120 or a 140 million years ago
309
760000
2000
12:57
when some solitary wasps
310
762000
3000
13:00
began creating little simple, primitive
311
765000
2000
13:02
nests, or hives.
312
767000
3000
13:05
Once several wasps were all together in the same hive,
313
770000
3000
13:08
they had no choice but to cooperate,
314
773000
2000
13:10
because pretty soon they were locked into competition
315
775000
2000
13:12
with other hives.
316
777000
2000
13:14
And the most cohesive hives won,
317
779000
2000
13:16
just as Darwin said.
318
781000
2000
13:18
These early wasps
319
783000
2000
13:20
gave rise to the bees and the ants
320
785000
2000
13:22
that have covered the world
321
787000
2000
13:24
and changed the biosphere.
322
789000
2000
13:26
And it happened again,
323
791000
2000
13:28
even more spectacularly,
324
793000
2000
13:30
in the last half-million years
325
795000
2000
13:32
when our own ancestors
326
797000
2000
13:34
became cultural creatures,
327
799000
2000
13:36
they came together around a hearth or a campfire,
328
801000
3000
13:39
they divided labor,
329
804000
2000
13:41
they began painting their bodies, they spoke their own dialects,
330
806000
3000
13:44
and eventually they worshiped their own gods.
331
809000
3000
13:47
Once they were all in the same tribe,
332
812000
2000
13:49
they could keep the benefits of cooperation locked inside.
333
814000
3000
13:52
And they unlocked the most powerful force
334
817000
2000
13:54
ever known on this planet,
335
819000
2000
13:56
which is human cooperation --
336
821000
2000
13:58
a force for construction
337
823000
2000
14:00
and destruction.
338
825000
3000
14:03
Of course, human groups are nowhere near as cohesive
339
828000
2000
14:05
as beehives.
340
830000
2000
14:07
Human groups may look like hives for brief moments,
341
832000
3000
14:10
but they tend to then break apart.
342
835000
2000
14:12
We're not locked into cooperation the way bees and ants are.
343
837000
3000
14:15
In fact, often,
344
840000
2000
14:17
as we've seen happen in a lot of the Arab Spring revolts,
345
842000
2000
14:19
often those divisions are along religious lines.
346
844000
4000
14:23
Nonetheless, when people do come together
347
848000
3000
14:26
and put themselves all into the same movement,
348
851000
2000
14:28
they can move mountains.
349
853000
3000
14:31
Look at the people in these photos I've been showing you.
350
856000
3000
14:34
Do you think they're there
351
859000
2000
14:36
pursuing their self-interest?
352
861000
2000
14:38
Or are they pursuing communal interest,
353
863000
3000
14:41
which requires them to lose themselves
354
866000
3000
14:44
and become simply a part of a whole?
355
869000
4000
14:49
Okay, so that was my Talk
356
874000
2000
14:51
delivered in the standard TED way.
357
876000
2000
14:53
And now I'm going to give the whole Talk over again
358
878000
2000
14:55
in three minutes
359
880000
2000
14:57
in a more full-spectrum sort of way.
360
882000
3000
15:00
(Music)
361
885000
2000
15:02
(Video) Jonathan Haidt: We humans have many varieties
362
887000
2000
15:04
of religious experience,
363
889000
2000
15:06
as William James explained.
364
891000
2000
15:08
One of the most common is climbing the secret staircase
365
893000
3000
15:11
and losing ourselves.
366
896000
2000
15:13
The staircase takes us
367
898000
2000
15:15
from the experience of life as profane or ordinary
368
900000
3000
15:18
upwards to the experience of life as sacred,
369
903000
2000
15:20
or deeply interconnected.
370
905000
2000
15:22
We are Homo duplex,
371
907000
2000
15:24
as Durkheim explained.
372
909000
2000
15:26
And we are Homo duplex
373
911000
2000
15:28
because we evolved by multilevel selection,
374
913000
2000
15:30
as Darwin explained.
375
915000
3000
15:33
I can't be certain if the staircase is an adaptation
376
918000
2000
15:35
rather than a bug,
377
920000
2000
15:37
but if it is an adaptation,
378
922000
2000
15:39
then the implications are profound.
379
924000
2000
15:41
If it is an adaptation,
380
926000
2000
15:43
then we evolved to be religious.
381
928000
3000
15:46
I don't mean that we evolved
382
931000
2000
15:48
to join gigantic organized religions.
383
933000
2000
15:50
Those things came along too recently.
384
935000
2000
15:52
I mean that we evolved
385
937000
2000
15:54
to see sacredness all around us
386
939000
2000
15:56
and to join with others into teams
387
941000
2000
15:58
and circle around sacred objects,
388
943000
2000
16:00
people and ideas.
389
945000
2000
16:02
This is why politics is so tribal.
390
947000
3000
16:05
Politics is partly profane, it's partly about self-interest,
391
950000
3000
16:08
but politics is also about sacredness.
392
953000
3000
16:11
It's about joining with others
393
956000
2000
16:13
to pursue moral ideas.
394
958000
2000
16:15
It's about the eternal struggle between good and evil,
395
960000
3000
16:18
and we all believe we're on the good team.
396
963000
3000
16:21
And most importantly,
397
966000
2000
16:23
if the staircase is real,
398
968000
2000
16:25
it explains the persistent undercurrent
399
970000
2000
16:27
of dissatisfaction in modern life.
400
972000
2000
16:29
Because human beings are, to some extent,
401
974000
3000
16:32
hivish creatures like bees.
402
977000
2000
16:34
We're bees. We busted out of the hive during the Enlightenment.
403
979000
3000
16:37
We broke down the old institutions
404
982000
3000
16:40
and brought liberty to the oppressed.
405
985000
2000
16:42
We unleashed Earth-changing creativity
406
987000
2000
16:44
and generated vast wealth and comfort.
407
989000
3000
16:47
Nowadays we fly around
408
992000
2000
16:49
like individual bees exulting in our freedom.
409
994000
2000
16:51
But sometimes we wonder:
410
996000
2000
16:53
Is this all there is?
411
998000
2000
16:55
What should I do with my life?
412
1000000
2000
16:57
What's missing?
413
1002000
2000
16:59
What's missing is that we are Homo duplex,
414
1004000
2000
17:01
but modern, secular society was built
415
1006000
3000
17:04
to satisfy our lower, profane selves.
416
1009000
3000
17:07
It's really comfortable down here on the lower level.
417
1012000
3000
17:10
Come, have a seat in my home entertainment center.
418
1015000
3000
17:13
One great challenge of modern life
419
1018000
2000
17:15
is to find the staircase amid all the clutter
420
1020000
3000
17:18
and then to do something good and noble
421
1023000
3000
17:21
once you climb to the top.
422
1026000
3000
17:24
I see this desire in my students at the University of Virginia.
423
1029000
3000
17:27
They all want to find a cause or calling
424
1032000
2000
17:29
that they can throw themselves into.
425
1034000
2000
17:31
They're all searching for their staircase.
426
1036000
3000
17:34
And that gives me hope
427
1039000
2000
17:36
because people are not purely selfish.
428
1041000
2000
17:38
Most people long to overcome pettiness
429
1043000
2000
17:40
and become part of something larger.
430
1045000
2000
17:42
And this explains the extraordinary resonance
431
1047000
3000
17:45
of this simple metaphor
432
1050000
2000
17:47
conjured up nearly 400 years ago.
433
1052000
3000
17:50
"No man is an island
434
1055000
2000
17:52
entire of itself.
435
1057000
2000
17:54
Every man is a piece of the continent,
436
1059000
3000
17:57
a part of the main."
437
1062000
3000
18:00
JH: Thank you.
438
1065000
2000
18:02
(Applause)
439
1067000
8000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jonathan Haidt - Social psychologistJonathan 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.
Jonathan Haidt | Speaker | TED.com