Two Ideas Spurred on by Jonathan Haidt

I just listened to an enthralling interview with the social psychologist and NYU professor Jonathan Haidt. (It's pronounced “height,” by the way.) In it, Haidt makes a clear case for why our human disgust reaction is natural and why it’s part of our human ethical life, but also the cause of much of our cultural polarization.

Simply put, contemporary culture is inflaming our natural tendency to be disgusted by those we disagree with. And Haidt is particularly troubled by how that plays out in academic life, which is why he began the Heterodox Academy: "To improve the quality of research and education in universities by increasing open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement."

Since I’m writing this during the week of the Democratic National Convention, do I need to add that I’m watching the back-and-forth of our putative political “dialogue,” which is really polarized disgust that's familiar, far too familiar?



At any rate, as I listened and watched Haidt (in conversation with Jordan Peterson), I was fascinating and intellectually provoked. This led me, as a scholar of religion, to two brief reflections.

On the one hand, we are fundamentally religious, and ethical disgust is characteristic of religion.

Yes, polarization and ethical disgust are emblematic of religion. When Haidt (and to a lesser degree, Peterson) talked, they highlighted our religiosity (even though Haidt says of himself that he is not religious). This is the basis for much of our separation into what’s “clean” and “unclean,” Holy and the Unholy, “human” and “inhuman.” For example, “Harvey Weinstein is an animal” means he’s disgusting and not part of human society. Or when President Trump told congressional members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar to "go back" home, he was inflaming Republican disgust that they're not part of "us" and "our country."

Remarkably, the Apostle Paul definitively undermines these dichotomies in his letters. He particularly takes aim at the Jewish division of circumcised and uncircumcised. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love,” (Galatians 5:6).


On the other, we as Americans are decreasingly less able to direct our desire for transcendence.

Formerly, religions had various methods to return people to the fold, and some were obviously quite elaborate—15th and 16th century indulgences represent famous examples of acts of penance. But my concern lies elsewhere: with the rise of the religious disaffiliation, we pursue fewer explicitly religious means to offer us ways back into the fold. (Currently, between 20 and 25% mark "none" when asked "what is your religion?" About 50 years ago, that number was around 5%.)

As I mentioned, robust and enduring religious traditions have means to find forgiveness and restoration. (This is one reason they've been around for awhile.) Here I’ll focus on Christianity. It’s certainly not the “cheap grace” that Dietrich Bonhoeffer once complained about, but a patient path of repentance that restores us back to ourselves, to God, and to community. 

In losing our religious affiliation, the United States has let these well-tried practices gradually slip from our grasp. And this, I believe, leads to the market rise of ethical disgust and social polarization. Which ought to trouble us.