Krimel --
[Previously]:
While emotions can be mediated by social patterns they are still purely biological. One can not will to "feel" happy or sad or fearful. Nor can we wish these emotions away when they occur. We can attempt to create conditions that draw out or suppress emotions but they remain inherently biological. It is not clear to me what you are throwing sensation and reason in here for.
[Ham]:
When you say "mediated by social patterns", do you mean "experienced by the individual"?
[Krimel]:
No, I mean that the expression of individual emotion is controlled by social context. It is not proper to laugh at funerals or to feel rage in church. Different cultures have different attitudes with regard to the appropriate times and places to express emotions.
If this is what you believe to be the extent of human emotions, I suggest you drum up a copy of Emily Post's "Etiquette" (1922). That should keep your emotions under proper "social control". Of course, Emily won't tell you how emotions arise, how they are the individual's response to value, or even how we might nurture the emotions by developing an aesthetic sensibility to nature, music, literature, and the arts.
But, then, since emotions are purely biological, they are probably best ignored, except for how they affect your social reputation.
--Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
