Ditching the "Emote" Control

Yesterday, Jazz Shaw and I had the distinct pleasure of again talking to author Barbara Oakley about her book "Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend". Barbara has been our guest on more than one occasion and every time her insight has been eye opening to say the least.

Yesterday's discussion was on the concept of the "emote" control....the concept where people base their reactions to issues on emotion rather than on fact or logic. It is a concept that we see every day, especially in discussion on "hot button" issues like abortion or gun control. Neither side holds the monopoly on the "emote control" as we discussed yesterday. In the book, Ms. Oakley relates a conversation that she had with the captain of a Russian fishing trawler that she was working on at the time.

“The terrible things your own people say about their country,” said Captain Shevchenko one night as we sat up drinking after another late night trawl was tucked into the hold. “No self-respecting person should ever say things like that about where they live. Not if they have any respect for their history and their culture and their race. Not if they have any patriotism.”
“You can’t teach patriotism,” I began.
But Shevchenko interrupted contemptuously, as if I’d just drooled. “Of course you can teach patriotism. We do it all the time.”
The conversation rolled on, but that part of it stuck, bothering me.
I remembered dozens of one-sided tipsy Slavic arguments, which from the Soviet’s perspective involved clear-cut dichotomies of good against evil. Excessive Western personal freedom, for example, versus sacred duty to the state. All-pervasive Western drug addiction versus minor Russian drinking habits (not quite!). The wicked American invasion of Vietnam versus the high-minded Russian invasion of Afghanistan, which was solely for the good of the Afghans.
I could see the crumbling decay of the Soviet Empire all around me, from the rotten fish processing plant below decks, to the hollow eyed fear of the political commissar and the KGB, to the “who cares” attitude toward work, to the rampant alcoholism of the crew. But despite the all-pervasive rot, it was a rare Russian who could see—much less admit to—any problem with the system of government.

It is then that she introduces the concept of the "emote control" and links it politics and how defenders of both sides use it to justify every action of "their guy".

A recent imaging study by psychologist DrewWesten and his colleagues at Emory University provides firm support for the existence of emotional reasoning. Just prior to the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential elections, two groups of subjects were recruited—fifteen ardent Democrats and fifteen ardent Republicans. Each was presented with conflicting and seemingly damaging statements about their candidate, as well as about more neutral targets such as actor Tom Hanks (who, it appears, is a likeable guy for people of all political persuasions).
Unsurprisingly, when the participants were asked to draw a logical conclusion about a candidate from the other—“wrong”—political party, the participants found a way to arrive at a conclusion that made the candidate look bad, even though logic should have mitigated the particular circumstances and allowed them to reach a different conclusion.

We saw an example of there here just this week, where a commentor chose to respond to remarks I made with the standard "well your guys are just as bad" rather than looking at the facts presented.

Now I will not be so bold as to say that I have not engaged in that behavior myself, but it is a habit that I am trying to break myself of. It is, however, a habit that we ALL need to break ourselves of if we are ever going to get past the bitter divide that we find ourselves in currently.

It's not easy, but it is past time. We need to ditch the "emote control" and get back to dealing with facts and logic. Then maybe we can come together and really move on with doing the people's business.