June 17, 2008

• Anti-Emotional Bias

  It’s really all this guy’s fault:
   
  

  You see some idiot writer decided to make Vulcans the logical race. OK well that part’s actually pretty brilliant. But then in terms of being “logical” they made Vulcans emotionless. And not just emotionless, but absolutely opposed to emotional expression. That was dumb.

  But now we’ve all got it in our head that being emotional is illogical. It’s irrational. And as a result it’s somehow wrong. Or worse it than wrong, it makes us stupid. And we feel this little sense of guilt whenever we express ourselves in an emotional way.

  How often do I read blog entries that are all apologetic? “I’m so sorry I wrote this emotional piece” or “I know I don’t usually write emotional stuff like this” and blah blah blah.  And you know it’s really weird cuz generally the emotional entries are often amongst the most popular entries on xanga. So why do people feel bad about it? Same thing in real life. If someone cries or shouts they go all effusive in their excessive apologies. What for?

  It’s worse than that too, we critique and attack emotional displays as a society. We do it almost without thinking, it’s become so ingrained in us. Emotional people are oft the product of our scorn and ridicule. It’s in fad to complain about how we don’t like it when people:

  gets angry too easily
  is too negative
  is too giddy
  rants and raves and complains too much
  is too sappy
  whines and moans too much
  cries too much
  is too “emo”
  is too cowardly
  is always down or depressed
  is too cheerful and happy go lucky
  is not serious enough

  etc. etc. etc.

  All of these are examples of the same complaint really. Stop being emotional! That’s what we are saying to each other. Or at least stop, *showing* us your emotions. Be as depressed or angry or giddy as you want, I just don’t want to see it. That’s right clam up! Shut your mouth, hide in your hole and conform. You’re a Vulcan damn it! Act like one.

  Oh wait… if you’re reading this, you probably aren’t a Vulcan.

  But even if you were or wanted to be, does it really make sense for us to be so condescending toward emotional display? Why do we get to the point that we feel so disgusted by it? I don’t get it.

  It would make sense if it were a social protection mechanism. That is to say, if emotions really are the bane of logic then society needs to encourage people not to exercise them so as ensure that we progress as a people in rational ways.

  But is that true? Is Spock right?

  I don’t think so.

  I can prove it rather easily, actually. Imagine I get into a fight with you and all of a sudden I scream at you in rage and anger something along the lines of:

  “IF A IMPLIES B  THEN NOT B IMPLIES NOT A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  Well… did that become not true? Did my anger make it false?  Would it make a difference if I was shivering in fear or floating in a cloud of love sickness?  What if I insert a bunch of random curse words and insults? No? I rest my case then.

  So if logic and emotions are not logically opposed, the idea has to be that emotions just make us less likely to exercise our logic.  But I wonder how true that is?  Emotions are definitely motivators. I mean if I get pissed at you chances are I’m going to want to do something about it. But that doesn’t mean I will be motivated to the point that I will act unreasonably. I might. But I might not too. There’s no reason I have to.

  Quite the opposite I’d say. Emotions on some level are always our motivators. There is nothing else that can motivate a human being to make any choice.  So in that case emotions are behind both are rational acts *and* our irrational acts. It’s just the irrational ones get all the attention.

  Logic without emotions is quite impoverished in fact. If you ignore emotions in all your logical inferences you are in a sense blocking off a whole massive category of information and intuitions upon which to base your decision making processes. A truly logical person would be very cognitive of his or her observations of emotions in his or her self  as well as in others  and would analyze them all equally when determining a logical course of action.  And a logical means of communication between people should involve using emotion evoking terms, phrases, and actions otherwise you are likewise closing off an entire category of expressiveness limiting the amount of information you can confer.

  The last point I will make is that far from being helped by it, society is actually harmed when we perpetuate the anti-emotional bias. That is people are hurt in a very concrete and noticeable way when they repress or suppress emotions.

  First lack of practice in studying and talking about our emotions makes us emotionally ignorant. That leads to all kinds of conflicts and confusions. We don’t even know or understand what we are feeling cuz we’re taught not to analyze it and not to talk about it. So of course we make poor inferences on the basis of our own emotions let alone that of others.

  Second, fear of critique of our involuntary emotional displays makes us all feel ashamed, self-conscious, and limited. We can even get to be depressed. And those feelings can be a barrier to our being happy. Ironically here our anti-emotional bias actually leads to an excess of certain emotions rather than an elimination of them.

  Thirdly, obsessive repression of emotions just leads to longer term wilder and more extreme emotional displays where in fact logic is more likely to be left aside. If I try as hard as I can not to get angry, the one time someone really pisses me off I’m likely to really explode in a manner that will probably be destructive and dangerous.

  So we’ve just gotta say so long to Vulcanism, abandon our hero Spock, and just stop criticizing everyone for expressing their emotions. We should encourage it. Logic and emotions need not be opposed. They can go hand in hand.

  • 1:10 pm
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