Conspiracy of the “Intellectuals”

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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Conspiracy of the “Intellectuals”

I claim that most twentieth century intellectuals engaged, most probably unwittingly, in a cabal to accentuate reason and to denigrate emotion for the purpose of accentuating human “god-like” characteristics and denigrating human “animal like” characteristics.

Damasio informs me that “Philosophy…has not trusted emotion and has largely relegated it to the dismissible realms of animal and flesh. For a time, science fared better, but then it, too, missed its opportunity.”

Darwin, William James, and Freud gave emotion a privileged place in the nineteenth and very early twentieth century scientific arena. Yet twentieth century neuroscience and first generation cognitive science has, until recently, allowed “Darwin’s work on the emotions vanished from site, James’s proposal was attacked unfairly and dismissed summarily, and Freud’s influence went elsewhere. Throughout most of the twentieth century, emotion was not trusted in the laboratory.”

What is emotion and can it be dismissed?

Emotion guides the life of an organism. [b]Emotion is the automatic unconscious initiation of biological forces that are designed to perform a complicated pattern of chemical and neural regulatory responses that will aid the organism to survive.

The denigration of emotion has seriously affected the life of the human organism.[/b]

The first function of emotion is to initiate a primary response such as anger, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, or disgust; a secondary response such as embarrassment, jealousy, guilt, or pride; background responses such as malaise, calm, or tension. These emotional responses, to which we have given various labels, are demonstrated in all living creatures to a degree dependent upon the creature’s particular characteristic.

The human species, unlike most if not all non human animals, has evolved with a characteristic we label the ego, which allows the human species to create a delay of immediate emotional response permitting some time for contemplation before response.

What dangers do you think has resulted to human survival as a result of this cabal?

Quotes from “The Feeling of what Happens” by Antonio Damasio

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I believe that this is a misinterpretation of the male-female gender gap that has widened throughout history and shows trends of widening further. What “emotion” are you referring to, that of males or females, because to me, there is a clear distinction between the “intellectual-logical” knowledge of a man and the “emotional-intuitive” knowledge of a woman…

There is no conspiracy taking place, except for a lack of understanding, an ignorance that plagues common ideology, especially of those “intellectuals” out there who bow to Scientology.

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You really see this as a cabal, coberst?

There is really an enormous disconnect between the conventional understanding of the scientific community and the perceptions of the society.

In actual evidence, emotionalism has been steadily on the rise, at least since the second half of the century, and shows no signs of abating.

Emotion is dangerous, individually and socially. It causes the rise of “belief”, which requires not only zero factual or rational reference for its presence, causes or effects; but it is also the direct cause of extremism, intolerance and social degeneration.

I think I might need to find this book you are reading and have a go at it myself.

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Our culture is under the influence of erroneous beliefs. Damasio, among others have shown the fallacy of objectivism and positivism.

I would say that morality is the art and science of effective communal relationship. The American culture has made morality a Sunday-School project, we have given over to religion the development of this art and science and as a result morality in our world has been an abject failure, our wars are proof of that, I think.

I think that as a result of our cultural dismissal of emotion and our failure to appreciate our embodied cognition we have been unable to create a domain of knowledge centered on developing a communication rationale that would allow us to have a much better moral atmosphere which might allow us to prevent our self destruction.

We have failed to develop a rational moral structure commensurate with that of our instrumental rational structure. Thereby we have created a technological structure far too sophisticated for our moral structure to control. We are very sophisticated in matters of technology and lack a commensurate sophistication in matters of morality. Our problem is that we do not “know how to get along” at the level in which we can create the means for preventing our self destruction.

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Dimasio’s take on the subject of emotions is only one outlook; and it may be speaking of a division where none exists. I would suggest that many current writers in the biological sciences and in evolutionary psychology are sufficiently aware of the impact of the limbic system on the rationalizations in the cerebral cortex not to see emotion and reason as inimical brain/mind constituents. That emotion can lead to man’s inhumanity against man owes more to social biasis and power/politial conflicts than to any findings among current sciences.

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Mastriani: In actual evidence, emotionalism has been steadily on the rise, at least since the second half of the century, and shows no signs of abating.
Emotion is dangerous, individually and socially. It causes the rise of “belief”, which requires not only zero factual or rational reference for its presence, causes or effects; but it is also the direct cause of extremism, intolerance and social degeneration."

K: Let us follow this through. I believe the political ideology called “Conservatism” is emotionalism at its height. Conservatives discount
rational thought in favor of faith, which is emotionalism. For a conservative, “feelings” are far more important then any facts or logic at hand.

The cornerstone of conservatism is the belief in God. Every other belief flows from this particular belief. For example, when a conservative
says, “The United States is the greatest country on Earth” this statement flows from the fact they believe that God has blessed america.
It is a feeling about america rather then any logic or facts about America. Because feelings have no bounds or limits because they are just
feelings ( instead of facts or logic which by their nature create boundaries) this leads to extremism and intolerance. In our current age,
emotion is far more important then any facts or logic. As emotions and feelings is the domain of women, we can safely say that this is the
age of women. Conservatism is the natural domain of women as they want stability and as little change as possible as that ensures
their agenda of child rearing and marriage. Both child rearing and marriage function better when there is stability and as little change
as possible. When a man is conservative that means he has given dominance to his feminine side. He has become more concerned
with style and the superficial than substance and depth. Feelings over facts.

Kropotkin

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Peter,

Emotionalism is dominated by women??? Then please explain all the male suicide bombers swept away by religious fervor. Their mommy told them to kill themselves? I think that the old tired cliche of women being emotional and men being rational needs another look in today’s world.

Coberst,

Like the others, I’m having problems seeing where there is less emotionalism in any aspect of our society… or any other society for that matter. All one has to do is look at the paradigm in which communication occurs. Rational discussion is replaced by diatribe. If anything, we need less emotion in social dialog, not more.

There is nothing “intellectual” in this observation. It is simply looking at what is happening on the ground.

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tentative: Emotionalism is dominated by women??? Then please explain all the male suicide bombers swept away by religious fervor. Their mommy told them to kill themselves? I think that the old tired cliche of women being emotional and men being rational needs another look in today’s world.

K: I stand by my statement. Religious fervor is emotionalism and I don’t know who you hang around with but I have been around women all my
life, ( in fact outnumber by women in my personal life, my entire life) and yes, women are emotional and men are rational or at least more so.
Religions are driven and dominated by women, especially in the beginning of them. You might say, women are not in the hierarchy of any church
and I say, so what. Take any organization and you will have the people in front and then you have the people who stand in the background
who drive and have as much say, ( and quite often more so) then the people in front. Religion is as gender driven as any organization, and in fact
more so,it just isn’t said out loud, that’s all. Study any religion with an eye out for gender and it becomes very clear. Now one might say, not
Islam and I say baloney. They are so afraid of women, they force them to hide themselves and yet it is clear that women hold a key place in
the home which helps drive their hold in religion. The jesuits used to say, give me a child until the age of 7 and we will hold them for life.
Note that suicide bombers are uniformly young. That is because they are still indoctrinated in their childhood training. Islam exist because women
allow it to exist, when women change their mind about Islam, it is toast.

Kropotkin

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Phenomenal statement … might I add that Islamic women are changing their mind about aspects of their religion, as well as other ideologies by women worldwide. Western feminism is slowly affecting women around the world when they realize that they can gain more of an “equal” footing with men. In fact, I would say this is the frontier force of American globalization.

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If western feminazism is leading the world, humankind is very soon to its end.

I am not complaining, I long to see the world of humanity ablaze for it’s stupidity.

Emotionalism, unless coberst has a new definition of such, is ever the root of chaos and destruction. Ask the Romans. Oh wait, you can’t, they were overrun.

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Save up and buy a pad on the outskirts of New York overlooking the city. A hydrogen bomb is going to look glorious from the distance. Make sure to buy some sun screen SPF 1,000,000 and some meat to BBQ well in advance though.

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Yes and no. In the greater sense our cognitive ability is leaving us. Rather, we are giving up on it. Knowledge is becoming less and less a “tool of the trade” for humankind, and something to resent in those who work to obtain it, and work from its benefits. I think this apathy is what reduces the “communication rationale”, where it is obviously approaching a nadir.

On the moral aspect, is where we part company. I don’t mean to say that morals/morality is/are negative as a default condition, but the lack of controllable nature of them, certainly has become. Morality has become “whatever authority” says it is … and an increasing number of individuals take the position that “I’d rather be amoral if that’s morality”.

I think as a matter of pure genetic impetus and drive, our self-destructive fate was long ago sealed in stone. We received an enormous capacity, with which, we really don’t have the follow up tools to do much with, historically or presently. The animal still has more control than the man.

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The claim that emotion is somehow to be blamed over and above the individual for the “downfalls” of human intelligence and reasoning is a naive way of conceiving the whole discussion. There is a bit in Dewey where he points out that Art has historically been seen as a somehow unique form of communication that exists outside of other more “normal” or rational forms of communication, that speaks to this way of thinking. Specifically, it is indicative of an attempt to separate what is inseparable. In the same way that art is not a special or unique form of communication, but just another form of human expression equal to any other, emotion is not a unique or special form of motivation or impetus to action. It works in conjunction with reason and is inseparable from it in human agency. This is a far more powerful way of understanding the human.

Comments like “emotion is dangerous”, is about the most absurd thing one can say. Emotion drives the impetus for any action, be that the behavior of a Mugabe or the behavior of a Buffet. What is dangerous is to deny the role it plays, to set it aside, and thus insure ignorance and confusion in matters of emotion.

The naivety comes in when one thinks emotion is completely negative, and must be destroyed or extirpated because of it’s dangerous consequences. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it leads to a misunderstanding and ignorance regarding emotion, and thus it prevents one from knowing when one is being manipulated emotionally. Don’t you see it Mastriani, you are and will always be an emotional creature, hiding from or despising this is what leads to easy manipulation. Understanding and embracing it is what leads to self-mastery and a more rational discourse.

Someone that hates humanity for it’s stupidity, is someone that hates humanity period.

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“It is through feelings, which are inwardly directed and private, that emotions, which are outwardly directed and public, begin their impact on the mind; but the full and lasting impact of feelings requires consciousness, because only along with the advent of a sense of self do feelings become known to the individual having them.”

First, there is emotion, then comes feeling, then comes consciousness of feeling. There is no evidence that we are conscious of all our feelings, in fact evidence indicates that we are not conscious of all feelings.

Antonio Damasio, Distinguished Professor and Head of the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, testifies in his book “The Feelings of What Happens” that the biological process of feelings begins with a ‘state of emotion’, which can be triggered unconsciously and is followed by ‘a state of feeling’, which can be presented nonconsciously; this nonconscious state can then become ‘a state of feeling made conscious’.

Human emotion and feeling pivot on consciousness; this fact has not been generally recognized prior to Damasio’s research. Emotion has probably evolved long before consciousness and surfaces in many of us when caused by inducers we often do not recognize consciously.

The powerful contrast between emotion and feeling is used by the author in his search for a comprehension of consciousness. It is a neurological fact, states the author, that when consciousness is suspended then emotion is likewise usually suspended. This observed human characteristic led Damasio to suspect that even though emotion and consciousness are different phenomenon that there must be an important connection between the two.

Damasio proposes “that the term feeling should be reserve for the private, mental experience of an emotion, while the term emotion should be used to designate the collection of responses, many of which are publicly observable.” This means that while we can observe our own private feelings we cannot observe these same feelings in others.

Empirical evidence indicates that we need not be conscious of emotional inducers nor can we control emotions willfully. We can, however, control the entertainment of an emotional inducer even though we cannot control the emotion induced.

I was raised as a Catholic and taught by the nuns that “impure thoughts” were a sin only if we “entertained’ bad thoughts after an inducer caused an emotion that we felt, i.e. God would not punish us for the first impure thought but He would punish us for dwelling upon the impure thought. If that is not sufficient verification of the theory derived from Damasio’s empirical evidence, what is?

In a typical emotion, parts of the brain sends forth messages to other parts of the body, some of these messages travel via the blood stream and some via the body’s nerve system. These neural and chemical messages results in a global change in the organism. The brain itself is just as radically changed. But, before the brain becomes conscious of this matter, before the emotion becomes known, two additional steps must occur. The first is feeling, i.e. an imaging of the bodily changes, followed by a ‘core consciousness’ to the entire set of phenomena. “Knowing an emotion—feeling a feeling—only occurs at this point.”

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Men think rationally and women think emotionally, :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

That has to be the biggest load.
Its rational to start a war? Its rational to create civil dependcy on gov’t subsidies?
Its rational to hire and fire on a whim?
Oh male rational list can go on and on.
Men think with egos which is the most irrational way to think. It is also a very strong emotion that warps the thought process.
Males deny and hide emotions so of course they can’t think rationally if perchance those emotions surface. Women utilize emotions daily they have the ability to use them to enhance rational thought. without emotional use the thought process becomes marred when an emotion surfaces if you work to hide it or deny it instead of using it in a healthy sane way.

Again the only emotion males truly use is the ego. and that is more warped and misused then any emotion women have used.

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And think how oppressive it has been for sensualists!

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I don’t think anyone here could even define “rational” and “emotional” in a way that couldn’t be broken down by a simple question and answer session. All this sexist stuff is unintellectual and boring.

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Naive is to think that emotions and rationality reside within the same neural pathways and biochemical actions of the brain.

They don’t. It’s called neuroscience, read up on it.

In any incorrect action, an emotional drive will be found. Hence, history forever repeats.

Naivety comes from thinking that feelings/belief do anything but lead humanity into further negativity. Emotion lacks fact, objective basis and thusly leads to error. Emotion invariably leads to a negative outcome, sometimes quickly and in the moment or sometimes over a duration; regardless, emotion causes error.

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Mas opines:

Or one could say that emotions lead humanity into positive actions. Emotion may spur the discovery of new perspectives that lead to new facts with a not considered before objective basis. Emotion can lead to positive outcomes as often as error.

Cup half empty, cup half full. :wink: