Learn about the basic software of your mind and you will develop moral humility.

Jonathan Haidt: My advice, my counsel, is that people learn some moral psychology. We’re discovering a lot these days. Learn about the basic software of your mind, of your social brain. And if you do that, you should develop some moral humility.

You will realize that despite our constant feeling that we are right, and there’s pure evil out there, and there are stupid people and ignorant people and enemies who are making things terrible, you’ll discover the truth is a lot more complicated.

And once you do that, I think you’ll be a least more open to talking to people on the other side. And that’s the crucial first step. Expose yourself to people, not just to ideas on the other side, but actually to people. We have an enormous capacity to like people when we meet them face to face. Once we like people, we can take their ideas seriously. To the extent that we only hear about people through their ideas, it’s just too easy to hate and to dismiss them.

Recorded on: May 9, 2008