The Alberni Reach Podcast is taking a bit of a break at the moment. Apparently, we will be back on January the 14th. But the last episode got a bit of interesting reaction.
I had been asked to talk about feelings. Nothing more than feelings. The person who made the suggestion to me didn't give any other details, other than that we should talk about feelings. And when I pursued the idea that we should maybe get a little bit more specificity on that, the only additional feedback that I got was that some people seemed to be big on feelings, and other people didn't. So, because of some related work in regard to emotions (and particularly the work that I have done in developing men's grief support), I figured that I could address that pretty easily.
And so I did, starting with the fact that our society, in general, seems to think that feelings, and emotions in general, are less important than rationality. Feelings have to be kept under control. We have to assess our emotions rationally, and then rationally decide on some course of action. There are, of course, those who disagree, and feel that feelings are important, and should be expressed, and even celebrated. But those people tend to be in something of a minority, and, in general, are disregarded by the people who run things in our society. In general, rationality is considered to be superior to emotion. Feelings are *mere* feelings, and nothing more. (That wasn't *all* we talked about, but that was where it started, and what's relevant to this piece.)
Which completely ignores the fact that, if we were all computers (or Vulcans) and were completely rational, and not distracted by our feelings, we would never actually *do* anything. Emotions, and feelings, are our drivers and motivators. We have just seen an election in the United States that proves this point, and we have seen recent elections in a number of parts of the world that prove this point, and we are facing an election, in Canada, which is undoubtedly going to be run completely on emotional lines. It's really interesting to live in a society that prides itself on its rationality, and is driving its "rationality" completely on its feelings of the moment.
But that's as may be. Following the recording of our podcast on feelings, I got, relatively quickly, two extremely interesting reactions. It is intriguing that, almost immediately, in our society that prides itself on rationality, and from people who obviously, verbally at least, are on the side of rationality, I got two, very similar, reactions that were completely irrational, illogical, and possibly even inherently contradictory. Having done the podcast, starting right off the top pointing out that we do need our feelings and emotions as motivators for any kind of action, I got one reaction that, while not challenging this point, completely illustrated it. The person, in commenting about feelings, immediately expressed the opinion that feelings were, in fact, a tool of the devil. Possibly not in those exact words, but the person was very concerned that our feelings and emotions were, most often, sent to us from God's adversary, in order to distract us from what God wants us to do or think. This would, of course, mean that feelings are completely untrustworthy, and should be ignored whenever possible. In other words, feelings bad, rationality good. Just the position that I had taken to task right at the beginning of the podcast.
And, shortly thereafter, I got another, very similar, reaction. This one, once again, didn't challenge the idea that we needed both emotion and rationality, but charged right into the idea that feelings were everything (and I mean *everything*) that was wrong with our society. People feel that they are the wrong gender, and therefore decide that they should switch. And therefore feelings are the cause of all the problems in our society, and, once again, feelings bad, rationality good. And I was struck, quite literally, speechless by this assertion. I couldn't even respond to point out the complete irrationality of this position. If someone decided to change gender based on mere feelings, nothing more than feelings, how could you ignore the *strength* of those feelings; the pain and the distress that must have driven someone to those feelings? Changing genders is not easy, even in our somewhat more liberal society. Changing genders in some societies will get you killed. But even in our society, you are going to encounter tremendous opposition. You are going to lose friends, and possibly family. You may lose your job. You will undoubtedly lose position and status in society. Changing genders cannot be easy. So how is it that you can possibly take the position that the feelings, that you want to change gender, are "mere" feelings; are mere emotionality; in light of the difficulties someone is going to encounter in trying to do it?
It was the irony of this fact; two champions of rationality, making two such similarly, and completely irrational statements; that struck me so forcefully. They both felt their positions so strongly that they were unable to see the irrationalities, and inherent flaws, in their positions.
Such a position is illogical ...
(Just in case you don't get the subject line ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vI0uE9iqM)
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