Friar Bijou wrote:
I've read tens - maybe hundreds - of thousands of words covering many, many topics concerning the Lord of the Rings.
Which is nothing like having actually read The Lord of the Rings.
Sure. Details of plot and characters would not be known. But no one would argue that you don't know what Orcs are, or Elves, or Dwarves, because you haven't read LoTR, right? There are numerous second and third sources for information about these species, all based on Tolkiens work. Numerous D&D novels, games, etc use these creatures. Thus, you would not need to have read the original books to know about them well enough to discuss them (or role play them, right?).
We're not talking about details from the book here. I'm not claiming to know which anecdotes he used, or what examples he gave in the book to illustrate his points, or what arguments he used. We're just talking about one theory that he developed (independently of the book btw), which he talks about in the book. But he also talks about it in other works (like on his web site). And others have talked about it. It's a sociological theory, and has been much discussed in many locations.
Are you seriously arguing that one can't go
here and gain sufficient information about the theory to discuss it intelligently? The book was written about the theory. It's not the sole source of the theory. I'm sure it contains some great insights from Haidt himself on the subject, but it's not the sole source of information about it, nor is it necessary to have read the entire book to understand the theory itself. That would be like arguing that you can't understand how to repair a car unless you read a specific book written about car repair. There are tons of sources about this idea. It's not like a magical secret that only those in the inner circle know about by using their Ophan Annie decoder ring or something.
Joph is trying to argue that because I haven't actually taken the time to read the book, and have only read some articles and papers about the foundation theory contained within, that I can't understand said theory. I disagree. I don't think it's such a complex theory to grasp, and have yet to encounter any counter argument or discussion to those I've already seen to make me think I'm missing anything. But, as I mentioned earlier, despite claiming to better understand the work, Joph repeatedly and consistently displays the very blindness in liberal thinking that the theory talks about:
the freaking website wrote:
Much of our present research involves applying the theory to political "cultures" such as those of liberals and conservatives. The current American culture war, we have found, can be seen as arising from the fact that liberals try to create a morality relying primarily on the Care/harm foundation, with additional support from the Fairness/cheating and Liberty/oppression foundations. Conservatives, especially religious conservatives, use all six foundations, including Loyatly/betrayal, Authority/subversion, and Sanctity/degradation. The culture war in the 1990s and early 2000s centered on the legitimacy of these latter three foundations. In 2009, with the rise of the Tea Party, the culture war shifted away from social issues such as abortion and homosexuality, and became more about differing conceptions of fairness (equality vs. proportionality) and liberty (is government the oppressor or defender?).
Haidt's book is not the source for the theory, but Haidt's own musings about how the theory can be applied to explain some of the cultural conflicts in our modern society. It's not necessary to read the book to understand the theory itself. And it's not even necessary to read the book to understand the underlying concept in terms of how liberals and conservative think differently on social issue, and how those affect our discussions. Heck. Many of the things Haidt talks about are things that I (and many conservatives) have understood for decades. It's almost like Haidt, as a liberal, one day suddenly managed to understand what conservatives are actually talking about when we talk about politics and society, and then wrote a book about it from a liberal's perspective (at least that's what I assume he's mostly doing in the book, again, haven't read it). Um... I don't need to read it to know this. I'm a conservative. I already know that liberals don't get our arguments. I see that every day I post here. I already know that liberals redefine things like liberty and rights and freedom in ways that fit into their own victim obsessed viewpoint. I've known this, and talked about it on this forum, for like 15 years now.
It's nice that Haidt has taken the time to define and label various moral principles and then fit these differences between liberal and conservative thinking into them, the underlying concept isn't anything new to conservatives. Maybe Joph needs to read the book to get it (and I'd argue that he doesn't actually "get it" at all btw), but I don't. I may, someday, take the time to read it to see what precisely Haidt has to say along the way, but I doubt seriously that at the end of the journey I'll have learned much at all about the theory itself. I'll perhaps have learned a bit about Haidt himself, which might be interesting (but I can and have done that by reading stuff on his site), but I've read enough of these kinds of books to know that they usually consist of 18 different ways to say the same thing. Which is useful for people who can't grasp the concept quickly, but not so much for those who get it back in chapter 1 (or by reading an abstract and a few articles).
Edited, Jan 5th 2016 6:37pm by gbaji 
