Mary, Mary, so contrary
> [Mary Replies] > As the resident expert on emotions (the token female) I take umbrage at > your > statement, John. Let's face it, men have only a tangential connection to > their emotions. It is not allowed in Western culture. You have only two > socially acceptable outlets for masculine emotion, verbal violence or > physical violence. That's it. I hate that, but I did not make the rules. > > Let me tell you how MY garden grows... not like that. I mean, you obviously have a lot of negative experience to base such a conclusion, but you have to admit you haven't personally interviewed every single male on the planet. And personally, I take umbrellage if you're gonna put me under the umberage-ella you describe. And I'm lucky cuz I even have my wife to vouch for me. I just yelled at her across the room and I have a feeling she'll have some comments It is absolutely untrue that "all emotions have some reasoned assumption as > their basis." Nope. Well, I believe they do. But perhaps what I mean by "reason" is different than the one you're using. If I have a reason for something, then I have cause. That's what I mean by reasonable. Hormonal flaring is a reason. The emotion of being depressed because one's hormones are out of whack is entirely reasonable and based on reasons and can be reasoned out in introspection and dialogue/perspective. It can't always be verbalized or conceptualized, but still is reasonable - linked to a knowable cause. Most have no relationship to reason at all. In my > experience there are only two things that elicit emotion in us: fear of > loss > (including loss of face, loss of loved ones, loss of 100 other kinds of > things - all related in some way to EGO) or a threat to something we > believe > ourselves to believe (about ourselves, the world at large, or others in > particular). In other words, EGO. They're both ego - threat to self. I heard a fascinating guy take on this topic on NPR the other day. Or was it Democracy Now? He called the immune system the "floating brain", and when we repress anger, we basically tell our system to not protect itself, and that's how cancers and diseases overcome our immune responses. We tell them to not-protect when we experience emotionally anger or fear that we can't express or aknowledge. His whole thing was that the AMA has had this research for years, but they actually repress it. The medical establishment as a capitalistic enterprise owes to its shareholders the duty of keeping people sick and needy. Isn't that hilarious? For instance, bereaved widows who donate large funds to the cancer research which is devoted to keeping the money coming in for more research. Let's face it, the worst thing that could happen is they actually cure the disease. > Perhaps you will notice that I include only negative emotions > in this? That is because negative emotions are far more powerful and > long-lasting than the strongest positive ones. > They are the same sort of energy, with mirror aspect. We long to be accepted to the same extent that we hate being rejected. If we don't care much one way, we probably won't get excited over the other. The only thing that doesn't correspond to this formulation, is it seems that those that love life most, fear death least. All emotions are based in the Biological Level, including love. Nope. All emotions are based upon social pattern interactions. They express biologically but they are rooted in social being. You don't respond to the opposite sex because your heart pounds, your heart pounds because you are responding. All emotions are based upon ego-threat, right? Ego formation is a social phenomenon and observable basically in mammalian animals. They cannot > be invoked and cannot be assuaged by reason. They most certainly can. Sometimes it takes reason to work out that there is a threat, especially in complex human social systems where sometimes you don't understand the ego threat until you've reasoned out the whole matrix of interactions and reactions. And often an initial emotional reaction arises that get's blamed on one set of causes or reasons, but with more reasoning is recognised as unappropriate - a misunderstanding - or misplaced, as in a sublimation. > Reason is powerless in the > face of strong emotion. Not true. As I've described above, reason has great power in the direction and appropriate sublimation of emotional reactions,and with practice the emotional reactions can be adjusted or exacerbated through habit. > At best all we can do is use reason to temper the > same emotion the next time - but never THIS time. Emotion must be > respected > and anyone who doesn't respect their own emotions is asking for trouble. > You can "pay me now or pay me later" is a good analogy for emotion. If not > resolved, they never go away, they just get worse - stronger the next time > the subject comes up. > > I agree that there is an unhealthy squashing of emotions that embodies this "pay later" idea. But I do think it's possible to temper one's emotions, even in the heat of the moment. For instance, you're in a bad mood and get pulled over by a cop. If you have a strong enough reason to temper your temper, you'll do it. But often, it's better to let the emotion out where it can be analyzed and dealt with. > I challenge you guys to convince me this is not true. Who among you has > not > experienced a long running disagreement with your significant other? > > It's possible to have disagreement without strong emotion or animosity. But personally, I've never had a *long *disagreement with my second wife. She's reasonable. My first wife though, that was a different story. That disagreement lasted as long as the marriage, and a bit longer. And it wasn't very funny or much fun. Grins, > Mary Smiling, John 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/
