If you know about the New York Times crusade against leftists on college campuses, he's the guy who provides them all sorts of "scientific" findings to prove that being on the left is psychologically wrong and bad.
I own this guy's famous book but never read it. picked it up in like 2018-19 before I was much of a leftist, thinking mayyyybe he had a point and then never read a word. A couple years later I saw some of his takes being parroted online and decided I probably didn't need to go back for that one, like ever
on the other hand, based purely on this NYT subhead, he may at least have some knack for ideas that hold some surface appeal in the current zeitgeist (fuck smartphones)
Haidt was named one of the "top global thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine in 2012, and one of the "top world thinkers" by Prospect magazine in 2013.[40][41]
While himself an atheist,[8] Haidt has argued that religion contains psychological wisdom that can promote human flourishing, and that the New Atheists have themselves succumbed to moralistic dogma.[8] These contentions elicited a variety of responses in a 2007 online debate sponsored by the website Edge. PZ Myers praised the first part of Haidt's essay while disagreeing with his criticism of the New Atheists; Sam Harris criticized Haidt for his perceived obfuscation of harms caused by religion; Michael Shermer praised Haidt; and biologist David Sloan Wilson joined Haidt in criticizing the New Atheists for dismissing the notion that religion is an evolutionary adaptation.[8]
David Mikics of Tablet magazine profiled Haidt as "the high priest of heterodoxy" and praised his work to increase intellectual diversity at universities through Heterodox Academy.[42]
In 2020, Peter Wehner wrote in The Atlantic, "Over the past decade, no one has added more to my understanding of how we think about, discuss, and debate politics and religion than Jonathan Haidt." He added that, "In his own field, in his own way, Jonathan Haidt is trying to heal our divisions and temper some of the hate, to increase our wisdom and understanding, and to urge us to show a bit more compassion toward one another."[43]
Okay, I have a stupid theory. No one gets a wikipedia this big about something so fucking boring without being fucking rich somehow. This guy sounds like he can put a skeleton to sleep. What a fucking nerd.