I watched the video when it was first posted here, back in mid-September, but I don't recall commenting on it. I should've, because you're right to anticipate that I'd find it a powerful perspective on my pet quest to understand the "conservative mind" (and by implication, the mostly-familiar "liberal mind" insofar as it provides a contrast).

'Course, opinion will vary, and Tom's Sept. 18th comment exemplifies the conservative mind's compulsion to label any such analysis that fails to flatter conservatives as "fatally flawed" and of course biased. I've already learned the hard way that trying to discuss the subject of "the conservative mind" itself illuminates the difference: Liberals want to understand and find the inquiry interesting; conservatives find the topic deeply uncomfortable. Kind of like the different reactions to seeing David's winkie exposed to all the world...conservatives feel "violated" when liberals try to understand them.

Nevertheless, Haidt's summary characterization of liberals and conservatives rings true to me:

"Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed; want change and justice, even at the risk of chaos"

"Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions; want order even at cost to those at the bottom"

And perhaps that summary's neutral enough to not outrage the right. But Haidt's prescription at the end is distinctly liberal:

If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease."

--Sent-ts'an, ca. 700 CE

Sounds a bit like "moral relativism", doesn't it? And there's another fundamental difference between us: Liberals strive to let go of gratuitous judgment ("judgmentalism"--passing judgment when nothing of substance is at stake), conservatives live to condemn others.

Another insight Haidt expresses so well was when he looked at game theory and studies of cooperation, which reveal that "cooperation decays without punishment" (from a slide). In other words, this is why we need formal governments, and why doing good is often better accomplished through formal governmental programs than by hoping that private charity will shoulder the burden. Conservatives claim that without government people would still be moved to help others; but the science shows otherwise, that even with the best of intentions, "charity fatigue" will set in, and private support of social welfare programs will decline over time. The liberal predilection for government programs to achieve social good makes pragmatic sense in light of game theory.

Good stuff. One final nugget that ties it all back to the HabitableZone:

"Even when we don't have tribes, we go ahead and make them."