Book pick: Jonathan Haidt's 'The Righteous Mind'
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Kerri Miller's book Pick of the Week is Jonathan Haidt's 'The Righteous Mind.' Haidt is an evolutionary psychologist who explores why we believe in what we believe, and why others don't have the same political or religious worldviews.
From the New York Times review:
To the question many people ask about politics -- Why doesn't the other side listen to reason? -- Haidt replies: We were never designed to listen to reason. When you ask people moral questions, time their responses and scan their brains, their answers and brain activation patterns indicate that they reach conclusions quickly and produce reasons later only to justify what they've decided.
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