I read 3 books by Jonathan Haidt: The Happiness Hypothesis (2006), The Righteous Mind (2012) and recently The Coddling of the American Mind (2018). I enjoyed all three. They are great books. Better than most that I read. I would recommend the first the most, the second then and his most recent work as the last. Not that his writing would have become worse. I find it to be awesome in each of them. It is just, that the topics of his books follow what is going in the world. In 2006 it was fine to focus on how it is, that circumstances are not horrible, yet people are not happy. In 2012 it was worth looking into how people became so partizan, and in 2018 it seemed that people freaked out quiet a bit. Which, in light of 2020, was rather prescient.
Haidt is a rare author that takes science and explains what goes on. And he does so in a way that does not cater to the usual left / right dichotomies. He makes an effort to look at the world, and tries to understand something about it. Whatever it might be. Then he does an outstanding job to condense it and explain it well, so that even people like me can benefit from it. With each of his books I was left with the feeling, that I understand life and society a little bit better once I had read them. Which is really awesome and much appreciated.
It is not his fault that between 2006 and 2018 the world fell into this info-cesspool and people in general rub their noses bloody on the Internet by means of their phones. He would deserved a better world. And there could have been one. If more people would have read his 2006 book it would have made a big impact. Likewise would we have had different candidates in 2016 if ‘The righteous Mind’ would have found a better and broader audience. They would have been better candidates too. I have nobody particular in mind, just that the election of 2016 only could happen in a certain ignorance that he already had elucidated a way out of.