This is an age where political debates often devolve into shouting matches over who's more "rational" or "enlightened," Jonathan Haidt's seminal book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012), offers a refreshing – and humbling – corrective. Haidt, a social psychologist, dismantles the Enlightenment myth that morality is primarily a product of reason. Instead, he argues that our moral judgments are driven by deep-seated intuitions, with reason serving mostly as a post-hoc lawyer, scrambling to justify what our gut already feels. From a conservative perspective, this framework not only explains the intractable divides in modern politics but also vindicates the conservative emphasis on tradition, loyalty, and sanctity as essential pillars of a stable society. Liberals, by over-relying on a narrow rationalism focused on individual harm and equality, often miss the bigger picture – and that's why their policies so frequently lead to unintended chaos.
Haidt's core metaphor is the "elephant and the rider." The elephant represents our automatic, emotional intuitions – those snap judgments shaped by evolution, culture, and experience. The rider is reason, perched atop the beast, pretending to steer but mostly rationalising wherever the elephant wanders. As Haidt puts it: "Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second." This isn't a flaw; it's how humans evolved to navigate social worlds. Morality isn't about solitary philosophers deducing universal truths; it's a team sport, binding groups together through shared values and enforcing cooperation. Reason, when it tries to override these intuitions without understanding them, often backfires – leading to self-deception and partisan blindness.
Conservatives intuitively grasp this. Our moral worldview draws from a fuller palette of what Haidt calls the "six moral foundations": Care/Harm (protecting the vulnerable), Fairness/Cheating (proportional justice, not just equality), Loyalty/Betrayal (group allegiance), Authority/Subversion (respect for hierarchies and traditions), Sanctity/Degradation (purity and sacredness), and Liberty/Oppression (freedom from tyranny). Liberals, Haidt's research shows, predominantly lean on Care and Fairness – interpreting the latter as equality of outcomes rather than merit-based proportionality. This makes liberal morality feel "rational" and compassionate on the surface: Who could argue against reducing harm or promoting fairness? But it's incomplete, like trying to build a house with only two tools. Conservatives use all six, creating a more balanced, resilient structure that accounts for human nature's tribal, hierarchical, and spiritual dimensions.
Take political divisions, for instance. Liberals often view conservatives as heartless or backward because we prioritise loyalty to nation, family, or faith over unchecked individualism. But Haidt's work reveals this as a projection of liberal limitations. In experiments, conservatives can accurately predict liberal moral reasoning, but liberals struggle to understand conservatives – they assume we're motivated by greed or bigotry rather than genuine concerns for group cohesion and sacred values. This asymmetry fuels the culture wars: When reason is weaponised without acknowledging intuitions, debates become futile. As Haidt notes, "The partisan brain has been reinforced so many times for performing mental contortions that free it from unwanted beliefs." From a conservative standpoint, this explains why Leftist critiques of "systemic oppression" ring hollow – they're rationalisations for dismantling institutions that have sustained societies for millennia, without replacing them with anything durable.
The article "Why Everyone Else Is Wrong" from American Renaissance echoes this Haidtian insight, applying it to contemporary issues like diversity and group identity. The author argues that liberals' WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) mindset blinds them to the evolutionary role of morality in fostering in-group trust. Haidt himself discusses how religion and shared rituals build "moral capital," enabling large-scale cooperation: "Religions exist primarily for people to achieve together what they cannot achieve on their own." Conservatives recognize this; we see patriotism, religious observance, and cultural homogeneity as vital for social harmony. Policies promoting mass immigration or radical individualism erode this capital, leading to fragmentation – a point backed by studies on diversity's impact on trust (e.g., Robert Putnam's findings on how ethnic diversity reduces social cohesion in communities).
Why don't we hear more about reason's limits in mainstream discourse? Because the dominant liberal elite clings to the rationalist illusion, dismissing conservative intuitions as irrational relics. But history sides with conservatism: Societies that honour authority, loyalty, and sanctity – think of enduring civilisations built on family, faith, and nation – thrive longer than those chasing utopian equality through reason alone. Haidt warns that suppressing these foundations risks "moral collapse," and we're seeing it play out in rising alienation, family breakdown, and cultural decay.
In the end, Haidt's book isn't just psychology; it's a conservative manifesto in disguise. It reminds us that true wisdom lies in humility before our intuitions, not in hubristic reason. Conservatives aren't anti-reason; we simply know its place – as a servant, not a master. By embracing the full spectrum of human morality, we build societies that are not only just but enduring. Liberals might claim the moral high ground through rational appeals to empathy, but without the anchors of loyalty and sanctity, their vision floats adrift, vulnerable to the very divisions Haidt so brilliantly exposes. If we want a healthier politics, it's time to let the elephant lead – and trust that conservative instincts have gotten us this far for a reason.
https://www.amren.com/news/2026/02/why-everyone-else-is-wrong-2/