It is obvious that our social and political structure in the United States is fractured. Our reliance on tribal vocabulary and communication is restricting the use our brains and critical thinking. Keeps us from taking note of what is happening and what we are creating or destroying. We like to believe we are intelligent. I am not so sure, at least not as a group, maybe individually.
“Once people join a political team, they get ensnared in its moral matrix. They see confirmation of their grand narrative everywhere, and it’s difficult – perhaps impossible-to convince them they are wrong if you argue with them from outside of their matrix.”1
“Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as thought the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.”2
As F. Scott Fitzgerald noted, ” The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
- “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion”. Haidt, Jonathan. Vintage Books, New York, 2012. pg. 365.
- ibid. pg. 366.