Egalitarians Unite
First of all, I thought it was interesting and rather bold (and to many, offensive) that the UK version of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion has a cover with a middle finger in place of the “i” in Mind of the title. I guess those Brits can handle more edgy things than us Americans :-). In fact, one reviewer stated that “this provocation is not out of place. Haidt’s book is indeed audacious, it holds ideas that aim to challenge many readers, particularly liberals.”[1] Despite this, I decided to approach the book with an open mind and ended up focusing on the chapter called The Conservative Advantage, where the author dives into what he calls the Liberty/Oppression Foundation. It is in this chapter where I found some interesting information on egalitarianism, which fits nicely with my research topic.
At the beginning of the book the author highlights Kohlberg’s development of his moral dilemmas and states that the “most morally advanced kids (according to his scoring technique) were those who had frequent opportunities for role taking—for putting themselves into another person’s shoes and looking at a problem from that person’s perspective. Egalitarian relationships invite role taking, but hierarchical relationships do not.”[2] It is interesting that the most morally advanced kids were the ones who could put themselves in another person’s shoes. This is at the core of egalitarian relationships because it supports this idea of the golden rule as opposed to just selfishly ruling over someone without any awareness of how it feels to be in their shoes. Kohlberg also thought that authority figures could be obstacles to a child’s moral development[3], and I would also add that this could affect their emotional and psychological development as well. People need to have the freedom to learn and grow without being blocked or told what to do or how to think all the time.
Haidt’s discussion about the ethic of divinity was fascinating. He could see the value and beauty of its purity, but like the dark side of leadership, he could also see the dark side of the ethic of divinity. He says “once you allow visceral feelings of disgust to guide your conception of what God wants, then minorities who trigger even a hint of disgust in the majority (such as homosexuals or obese people) can be ostracized and treated cruelly. The ethic of divinity is sometimes incompatible with compassion, egalitarianism, and basic human rights.”[4] I often see those focused on “divinity” in an unhealthy manner, use it as an excuse not to treat others as equal or provide opportunities for egalitarian leadership. The most hurtful element I hear from those I interview is how people in the church, “in the name of God”, exclude, marginalize, and flat out reject women from the table of ministry leadership. I met a woman while studying for my MSW who was at a seminary studying for the ministry and ended up leaving the ministry and the Christian faith altogether because she kept hearing the message that God and the Bible did not support her leadership in the church. A very sad story I will never forget, and one that keeps me wondering how many other dynamic female leaders the church has lost for the same reasons.
It was also interesting to me how the author came to add a sixth foundation to his five moral foundations. He states, “I looked into what was known about the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherers, and found a strong argument for splitting apart these two kinds of fairness. The desire for equality seems to be more closely related to the psychology of liberty and oppression than to the psychology of reciprocity and exchange. After talking about these issues with my colleagues at YourMorals.org, and after we ran some new studies on various kinds of fairness and liberty, we added a provisional sixth foundation—Liberty/oppression.”[5] He talks about how the hunter-gatherers decided that cooperating and sharing food and resources was a better way to live. This caused me to think about how we have been bred to be hierarchical and wonder how we have come to value egalitarian beliefs at all. Then I read about Boehm…”In his book Hierarchy in the Forest, Boehm concluded that human beings are innately hierarchical, but that at some point during the last million years our ancestors underwent a “political transition” that allowed them to live as egalitarians by banding together to rein in, punish, or kill any would-be alpha males who tried to dominate the group.”[6] Yikes, I don’t think all egalitarians want to kill alpha males, but I think many of us egalitarians would like to kill this idea of men dominating over women instead of supporting gender-balanced leadership.
Haidt goes on to confirm this idea that egalitarians who are fighting for equality are actually more passionate in their hatred for domination than they are for their love of equality. I have to agree that many people I have talked with who have felt oppressed and not treated as equals feel that if those trying to dominate them would adopt an egalitarian approach, the equality and reciprocity would follow. The author says this well…“When people trade favors, both parties end up equal, more or less, and so it is easy to think (as I had) that reciprocal altruism was the source of moral intuitions about equality. But egalitarianism seems to be rooted more in the hatred of domination than in the love of equality per se. The feeling of being dominated or oppressed by a bully is very different from the feeling of being cheated in an exchange of goods or favors.”[7] He later goes on to explain why he ended up adding the Liberty/Oppression foundation to his list of moral foundations. “We added the Liberty/oppression foundation, which makes people notice and resent any sign of attempted domination. It triggers an urge to band together to resist or overthrow bullies and tyrants. This foundation supports the egalitarianism and antiauthoritarianism of the left, as well as the don’t-tread-on-me and give-me-liberty antigovernment anger of libertarians and some conservatives.”[8]
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[1] Rebecca Litchfield, review of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt, LSE Review of Books (August 10, 2012) , http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/08/10/book-review-the-righteous-mind-jonathan-haidt/ (accessed April 2, 2018).
[2] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, p. 9-10.
About the Author
Jake Dean-Hill
Currently a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice. Ordained minister with 10 years of prior full-time church ministry experience and currently volunteering with a local church plant. Also working with companies as a Corporate Leadership Coach.11 responses to “Egalitarians Unite”
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Jake,
Good post and nice job finding something that fits your dissertation research topic. Haidt, writing with a Darwin bias, made it difficult for me to relate to with him. I understood his arguments, just do not agree with his conclusions. Like I told Jay, Haidt does not have the spiritual perspective, wisdom, or discernment to give Christians advice on how to live or solve their problems. There is always hope for him, he started as a Jewish atheist, now partial to Buddhism, and who knows, if he keeps trying to act like a Christian, maybe he will “catch” Christ someday.
How do you feel about his egalitarian views after knowing he thinks we are “90% chimpanzee (selfish and individualistic) and 10% bee (altruistic and hivish)” as his model of humanity?
Stand firm,
M. Webb
I don’t have a ton of respect for the author because of his views of humans, which is why I picked out of his book what I could use for my purposes. Thanks for your thoughts my friend. Standing firm, Jake
Hi Jake,
I thought of you while reading this book, and figured you would have much to discuss relating to your research topic. Well done!
I am sure you have figured that I lean towards complimentarian roles in certain areas. I see your point in other areas being egalitarian. I am not trying to be contrarian, and I don’t want you to think I am against you, I am only trying to seek to understand. But I was wondering if there are any roles for men/women that you see as being complimentarian?
Although I know what the term complimentarian means, I personally believe the term complimentarian is misleading because I believe men and women compliment each other well and we need each other. I believe men and women can function as equals in every role and there is not a need for men to play a role above or over women ever. What roles do you think men need to play a different role than women? Thanks again for your thoughts and it doesn’t bother me at all for you to challenge me…I still love you brother 🙂
I would love to discuss specific scriptures sometime, if you want, that talk about Spiritual “Headship” as well as “Helpmeet”. Again, I am not trying to be argumentative in any way. I sometimes think that egalitarian lets men off the hook for their God expected roles…
Jake. So cool this book spoke specifically about the how egalitarianism works and what drives it. It’s interesting that it could be seen an driven more by anger than by love of unity.
I think that’s true of many things though. It’s often easier to rally around a common enemy than simply a shared interest.
thanks for sharing your evolution on your thoughts about your subject.
Hi Jake,
Yes to putting ourselves in another’s shoes! At the Vineyard church I attend with my wife, the last few Sundays we have experimented with changing the words to the worship to push forward to concept of God as “Mother” to level the playing field. So today, for example, in the hymn “Be Thou My Vision”, the second verse went:
“Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Mother, I Thy true child;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.”
What do you think?
I must say that I affirm exploring the metaphors we use for God, as God is beyond gender. But I also struggle with this — Jesus referred to God as “Father”, and so while God is not male nor female, is there something innate in the paternal imagery that we need to embrace?
I think there is something in retaining the paternal imagery but at the same time embracing a broader view of how God resists the typical hierarchical power position and self-sacrificially loves and invites response, rather than demanding our allegiance. God, in Jesus, demonstrates the way that men can lead. You are doing this as well with your focus on non-hierarchical coleadership for men and women together.
I totally agree and I think that is so cool you guys change up the hymns to reflect the feminine. We feel like the Holy Spirit is the feminine part of the Trinity. I can chat with more about this.
Hi Jake!
You have a passionate stance on this author! I had not seen the book cover – interesting observation! I’m glad Haidt addressed Egalitarianism…did you find anything else in Haidt’s text redeeming?
Jake,
Our lenses on how we see and view the world (as well as the books we read) are so interesting. I noted that Haidt addressed egalitarianism but I didn’t dwell there. Obviously I found the area related to culture. As much as you appreciate being informed on China, I appreciate being challenged to not overlook the area of equality. I often think that we are all alright, but as a white male that is an easy trap to fall into. Thanks again for highlighting some different (and unread areas) of this book.
I must admit…that alternate cover may have ended up the “elephant” I rode the book through, had it been my first impression. I Guess it is a good thing that it was not. However, I still found the book offensive at times.
Curious: how would you balance equality and diversity…is that possible?