It's Friday, October 25th, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds.

I'm Chris Mooney.

And I'm Indra Viscontas.

Each week, we bring you a new, in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide.

We endeavor to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it all matters.

You can find us online at climate desk.org.

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So, Indre, we are not, strictly speaking, a political show, but that doesn't mean we can't do a show about politics, as long as there's science mixed in there somewhere, and in this case there is, because there's emotion in politics. There's psychology and politics, and our guest this week is literally able to put the politicians who are behind all the recent upheaval in the United States on the

couch, which is probably where they belong, and psychoanalyze them. He's Jonathan Haidt. He's a professor

at the Stern School of Business at NYU, and he's author of last year's bestseller of the

righteous mind, why good people are divided by politics and religion. And here's a little

part of what he had to say to me.

It's just hard for you to understand the moral motives of your enemy, and it's so much easier

to listen to, you know, listen to your favorite talk radio station, which gives you all the

moral ammunition you need to damn them to hell.

You know, Chris, I think it's a little sad that we've gotten to a point in this country where someone with a different political view is considered the enemy rather than a partner or a friend, you know, the us versus them mentality.

But that's exactly where we find ourselves.

Yeah, I mean, the emotions are intense and I think that the word hate is sometimes accurate to describe how people on the

left and right feel towards each other, especially during the shutdown. I think it definitely

got that intense. So getting back from there, whoa, going to be a difficult thing. But that's,

we have to understand the kind of science he's talking about in order to have any hope of doing that.

Well, I'm looking forward to the interview.

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