Politics of Emotions

 

I’VE been thinking of how to introduce this article for some time now. The concept at the center of this is a very unique one, one that only I have ventured to cover in detail, as far as I know. That being said, this means there is no clear precedent for me to take from in order to structure this text. However, I will try my best.

To anyone even slightly cognizant of the outside world it is clear that the political climate has changed quite drastically over the last half-century. Once a welcomed and expected civic duty in which civilians hatched out the course of their country, politics is now met with apathy and despair. Although, that is more so the political process, if anything. The political system is met directly by the citizenry via the new art of activism/civil unrest that has caught the World by storm.

Politics has certainly changed. Its rules, its ways, its etiquette, all these things have undergone a shift. Society has been impacted by these changes similarly and, thus, society itself has changed. Certainly, I – and those who follow me, surely – am of the belief that society’s changes in recent history have been negative. In a recent series, Active Measures, I examined what these changes were and how they worked. I also noted what was malignant about them.

However, I didn’t cover everything. I didn’t merely scratch the surface either though. Still, there is another angle by which we can, and should, approach these structural deformations that have occurred in society in decades past. There is a new school of art in politics forming here, and I believe I am the first to note it.

Have you ever thought of emotions? Bizarre question, I know. However, consider it. What are emotions? Whether a materialist or a dualist, as I am, the nature of emotions is that they are human phenomena that aid humans in their reasoning of themselves and others. Emotions bond humans to their own awareness of their selves and others. The materialist posits this is the complex interaction of neurochemical signals, while the dualist says the body is merely the conduit for things happening in the spirit (happiness or sadness in the spirit becomes varying concentrations of dopamine or serotonin).

Philosophy and metaphysics aside, emotions are very integral elements of the human being. Whether neurochemicals or the state of our spirit, the human being is an emotional being, and our emotions are constantly influenced. Indeed, I want to put forth the opinion that emotions are purely subjective. Since they are subjective, they are open to change and alteration, as the word “subjective” implies.

Our emotions can become negative, either by overapplication or innate quality. Too much happiness makes us illusory; we cannot perceive the World in any color but joy. Too much sadness makes us melancholic, demotivated; what purpose is there to engage with life if everything is so dreary? Anger makes us impulsive and cruel, jealousy makes us divisive and fearful, and I will discuss lust in a future article.

It is important to take this time to study emotions because they are central to the main thesis of this whole text. Emotions are very core to human life. Of emotional experiences we sing, we paint, we sculpt, and we do other things to express them. Yet, we realize that we must control them. Humans are imbalanced (detailing this imbalance is beyond our scope) and our emotions wail like crashing waves, and a grand motif among cultures has been mastering our emotions.

I was going to use the term “gaining control of” our emotions, which might sound viable and interchangeable, but it is not. Mastering is different than controlling. The swordsman knows how to cut this way and that, such as and so, but he does not control his sword. It could turn on him if he makes a slip. In more modern terms, the tech-wizard can master programming and software bugs, but he has no control as problems always arise. However, only having mastery is what has kept humans going for millennia, because mastery will always be below 100%; control is 100%.

A surprisingly worthwhile analysis of the phenomenon of emotional control is given by none other than Star Trek. This staple of American science fiction produced the equally noteworthy species of the “Vulcans”. These creatures defining feature is their entire suppression, control, of their emotions. Their entire demeanor is defined by one word beloved by the Vulcans: Logic.

However, the Vulcan way of living isn’t entirely portrayed as good by Star Trek. The Vulcans have advanced technology, they are much stronger than humans, they seem to be in better control of their lifestyles than humans, and they even seem to possess strong moral compasses (albeit utilitarian at times, such as with Spock’s well-known dying words in The Wrath of Khan).

Nonetheless, their lack of emotions makes them lose out on so many nuances of life. Humor, spontaneity, compassion, mercy, these are all emotions, but this brand of Xeno-Stoicism makes it impossible to register, manifest, nor ponder them. Emotions are not hindrances to logic, and while the Vulcans’ abandonment of logic is attributed by Star Trek to the aftermath of a global nuclear war on their homeworld caused by emotional excesses, the fact is a lack of emotion is just as capable of causing atrocity as an excess of it.

So, this shows us a bit more about emotional control versus mastery. I mentioned an imbalance earlier, and mastery helps us with achieving balance. Take the swordsman analogy again. A master of the sword might wish to execute a strong move which goes through three forms and exerts a lot of forward force, but the wisdom of their mastery tells them they cannot do such a thing. Knowing how to balance one’s skill with one’s desires is equivalent to having emotions and tempering them with logic.

Pure pathos cannot exist, but neither can pure logos. While I prefer to tend away from pagan terminology, there is a sort of yin-yang symbiosis going on here. We need emotions for the very sake of being human, but our susceptibility to passion and fervor means we need logic. That old motif of emotional mastery is found in Christian teaching, too.

So, how does this relate to politics? How do we get from the philosophy of emotions to political theory? Well, first let us consider how political theory is grounded on logos. Locke and Montesquieu in their respective magna opera make careful, logical analyses of human nature and societal mechanisms to draw their conclusions. By logical I mean driven by logos, rather than true or perfect; even the considerations of Hobbes or Rousseau, neither whom I agree with, were done “logically”. Simply, being driven by logos invites and permits more open discourse and, if possible, more ready repudiation.

Compare this with some figures as Marx. Marx was a very pathos-driven man. He could have mused all he could about communist politics and economics, but he needed to force something into his ideology to inspire people to believe it. Logos only went so far in an inherently flawed philosophy as Marxism, but pathos could infinitely fill the gaps:

“Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”

What we see here is pathos, seething rage against the oppressor. It is a desperate otherism. There is no reconciliation, and classicide, seen as the catharsis of the proletariat in response to ages of capitalist oppression, is made the solution. Whether dekulakization or Tǔgǎi, the Marxian legacy has repeatedly preferred a pathos strategy to a logical one.

Notice how I mentioned that Christianity, too, teaches the doctrine of emotional mastery. Other than being fundamentally anti-Christian, Marxism proves it is at odds with this system for one other reason: the above quote contradicts a prominent scriptural teaching. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26-28). The words of the Apostle Paul, and a core aspect of the Christian identity.

Christian logos teaches the unity and equality plus unification and equalization of the World. Lockean logos teaches the innate unity and equality of Mankind, plus government’s role in ensuring that. Marxian pathos, however, teaches division and slavery, and the violent rebuttal of cruelty and control.

To put this another way, systems of logos acknowledge that there is slavery, but that pathos is the cause and logos the cure. Systems of pathos acknowledge the same, but accuse problems that are not there and declare pathos the cure. In many ways, logos is what is accused, and by targeting it an imbalanced system is produced. Here there is control, not mastery.

Let us get closer to the main thesis now. I see, observing the changes in the World over time, that we are morphing from a system of logos into one of pathos. This is the central idea of this article, that a climate of logic in politics is giving way to a climate of emotion in politics.

Where do we see this? In so many ways. Not only by the broadening acceptance of Marxism, but also by the downgrading of logical reasoning in favor of emotional reasoning. A number of examples of the sensationalization of politics exist and permeate our political culture. We can focus on three specific exhibits for our purposes here today: transgenderism, slavery reparations, and COVID-19 fanaticism.

The matter of gender dysphoria/gender ideology has already been covered by this blog before. In that article we examined clear scientific evidence that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, and that reassignment doesn’t work. Logically, humans are binary in gender, only capable of producing XX or XY chromosome pairs. Emotionally, trans people are humans and deserve to be left alone and it is rude, “transphobic”, hateful to criticize gender ideology.

There is no way to defend transgenderism by logos. It simply implodes under an authentic logical study. Emotionally? There is no combatting the emotions of it all. Should we feel sad for trans people? Should we pity cruelty they face? Of course, this is an expression of logos-mastered pathos. What is the logical conclusion of this pathos tempered by logos? That clearly trans people are biological anomalies, and mentally ill, and therefore any cruelty is abated by treating them (properly).

Slavery reparations are another scheme of runaway pathos. What logically binds over 150,000,000 Americans to pay African-Americans anything? We don’t even need to discuss that the number of White Americans descended from slave owners is most likely much lower, simply the legal and logical absurdity of the concept.

Slavery was not a job, but a cruelty; no ounce of labor was expected to be remunerated. Even if there was some sort of monetary obligation, this would be between the slave and the master. It was these generations of slaves, the first to last, who could ask for reparations. For every emancipated African-American born since then there exists no tie to the obligation held by their ancestors. Even these post-slavery Blacks have nothing to whine about, because – as esteemed African-American economist Thomas Sowell has made known – they were better off socioeconomically before the minimum wage and welfare policies that they believe help them were enacted.

Yet, why do reparations come up? Because of their emotional appeal. Think of how much emotion is tied into slavery, it’s not hard. Slavery is constantly caricatured as a Hell on Earth, as the pure embodiment of evil, hatred, despair, death, etc. Plantations and slavery have been made into the American Holocaust.

Guilt is an emotion, and we all know of the rising “White guilt” doctrine that is more or less concomitant with reparations. There is so much use of sadness, pity, anger, guilt, and other emotions caught up in the movement for reparations. It is this flurry of emotions that gives the case for reparations, not anything based upon logos.

Thirdly, as we have dealt with COVID-19 and all the political menagerie behind it, we have seen ecstatic use of sensationalism and other pathos strategies. The media has been doing a masterful job at fearmongering throughout the whole pandemic. I have not seen much logic exercised by our COVID policymakers.

What are the big emotions running rampant due to COVID? I’d say they are grief, anxiety, and fear. Grief over dying/dead relatives, anxiety over whether or not you are doing enough to be safe, and fear of getting this plague. These emotions have been running wild, and have been fed like crazy by the media.

The media has made us feel grief by plastering us with (possibly manipulated) death counts, stories of people dying from COVID, and other means. Anxiety has been spread by the emphatic enforcement of masking mandates, social distancing, vaccine mandates, and other superfluous diktats and telling us that we will die (grief) without them. Fear has been spread by portraying COVID-19 as an apocalyptic boogeyman (not the diabolical bioweapon it is).

Fear is behind all of this. Fear is the dastardliest of negative emotions, and the most tyrannical. People are entirely blinded by a belief that COVID-19 is a terrible disease, even though it is barely deadly, and they have fallen head over head for media/government propaganda, gobbling up without applying some critical thinking skills government-sponsored remedies like draconian lockdowns and vax mandates.

I have been faced several times with examples of this directly, namely by people saying, “You cannot worry about the economy, you need to worry about people!” This statement usually came in response to me, or others, saying that lockdowns and other COVID diktats are detrimental for the health of the economy. However, the idea that we shouldn’t emphasize economic health is absurd, as the economy is the dynamic whole of financial and economic arrangements between millions of people. People, individuals, the very things the emotivists are worried about; if the economy is sickly, so are the people.

So, looking over these three case studies, we see that in contemporary society’s dialogue there is a great deal of emotion-driven, rather than logic-driven, blabber. We no longer take a time to consider if something is coherent, practical, and rational. We simply jump the gun and take up propositions willy-nilly. Both leftists and conservative suffer from this; the American conservative declares his pride in the Second Amendment and anti-immigration, and works to elect federal politicians who are consistent with his views, even though – logically – the federal government does not have power over either. Millions have also fanatically fallen for the QAnon bluff, which is – in all likelihood – a military psyop.

If we do not restore balanced, logical discourse to the political system, then we will fail. The infamous novel Nineteen-Eighty-Four has a fascinating emphasis on emotions, which partly served as the inspiration for this article. If our emotions lead us, rather than the other way around, and the primarily influence on them is the State, we will give into statism/totalitarianism rapidly. The rise to power of the preeminent historical totalitarians, the Nazis, was driven by emotional propaganda (hatred, anger, and the like).

A book like Critical Thi  nking by Travis Holiday and Kevin Hollins is an excellent treatment of how to be logos-driven, rather than pathos-driven. Alienating oneself from the television and constant barrage of news media can be a detox experience, freeing oneself from an industry dedicated to fear. I haven’t listened to the news media in years, probably, and I only read it, as something written is far easier to analyze than speechcraft, which is designed to be manipulative (as Hitler said in Mein Kampf, “Particularly the broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech”).

If we give up sovereignty of our emotions to the State, rather than focusing on self-control and our personal mastery of our personal feelings, we will be doomed. Millions, I say hundreds of millions worldwide, have given into this already. Few true freethinkers and logicians remain, but I do not fear this, as fear is contemptible; over this I hope, hope that logos will return to our society and enrich our dialogue with one another. Beyond that, I also hope that the Logos returns soon and quickly, and frees us from all this garbage.