Tuesday, August 24, 2010

My Thumb Hurts

I was listening to a rather worthless song today (okay, I admit it, I like the song even though it is pop) and I was struck by one pathetic line in which the singer describes her thought process about her emotions upon being heartbroken. She states that "It's not as if New York City/Burnt to the Ground/the moment you drove away/". She appeared to me to be engaging in what many of us do whenever we experience strong (usually negative) feelings related to some personal occurrence. She is trying to understand why such a small event (so she thinks) should have such a great impact on her. She compares the cause of her emotional devastation to another event and intimates that her event should not be so powerful. After all, no one died in her case, no great losses of wealth or property were incurred, and finally, she is only one person. Why should she feel so bad? This mental process seems unhealthy and disingenuous to me. Her "rational" side is playing the role of the prompter who tells the audience when to laugh and when to cry during a show. The only thing that the prompter ends up doing, however, is turning the show into a stiff, heartless production that no one watches. The audience is not allowed to find its own meaning and enjoyment in the show. The fact is that it is as if New York City burnt to the ground when "he drove away".

Said another way, New York City burning to the ground might not mean a thing to us unless there is some connection to ourselves. I have often wondered at this same process in myself of trying to rationalize my feelings away by comparing them to some objective factors like life (in the abstract) and money. I suppose that this can be healthy on one level--trying to "get perspective" on things--but it also seems destructive and self-denying to me. We attach meaning and importance ourselves to things in life and without emotion in the first place, a lost life would not matter to us at all. What "reason" ends up doing in the end is robbing us of our precious subjectivity and continually reintroducing us into the "herd" by pointing us in the direction of "objective" values that dictate to us what has meaning and what does not have meaning. I admit it would be dangerous to let go of "reason" all together--and let the world go up in flames--but when reason is introduced to suffocate individuality and to inhibit coming to terms with our own emotions (however inconsequential they may seem), then we need to let go of what reason may say is unimportant.

I suppose I agree with Hume (with a modern pragmatic twist) that we are not merely rational creatures. It is more satisfying and important to us to scratch an itch on our thumb then to stop Rome burning to the ground. Grimly put, and even though I think that we are just as much rational creatures as emotional, I think Hume has a point. In an extreme case, what happens when we let society, church, or other people dictate our values and what we can feel good or bad about? We end up with a whole lot of discontent housewives and guilt-ridden young men.

8 comments:

Cassandra said...

You think Rilo Kiley is POP?!?!

Timothy said...

ha! I always categorize music wrong. I'v only heard this one song from her and it sounded like pop to me (don't kill me!). I guess maybe it could be country? Kind of has that twangy sound to it. Please tell me the truth.

Unknown said...

Well, allow me to say that that last paragraph is a lot of disjointed logic.

There is a difference between values being promulgated as correct and values being forced upon. If by 'values promulgated' (say: by government or religion) you mean values forced upon, a more fitting quote would have come from Nietzsche: "A man who gazes at the stars has already ruined his experience when he says he's looking 'up'" (It's paraphrased, but roughly his words).

Hume's thought, the one you bring up, has to do more with the Enlightenment idea that we don't have a moral faculty (or 'ought' statements cannot exist--MacIntyre and Charles Taylor try to refute this and they do pretty well) was supplanted by a 'biological faculty of taste' which in the end doesn't mean anything.

As for suffocating individuality, I think you got too involved with this song. You know, there used to be a time when saying whatever you wanted was 'bad' because it wasn't 'refined' or 'accurate' of how you felt.
For example, those who think the classical or medieval period was filled with people who all thought the same, that's a huge misconception. The difference is that most people then were all educated in the same manner so that their individuality might inform a common set of tools given to them.

I would also argue that as 'social' creatures, our 'precious' subjectivity is not under attack by what is constituted as norms, nor do our rebellions from it make us 'more a man.' C'mon.

Emotion has its place concurrently with reason, but some situations call for emotion and others for reason. What's the point of a dichotomy?

So:
1) I don't believe in your society musings
2) 'Subjectivity' is so grounded in the 'other' that to 'lose' our subjectivity means that we no longer associate with something outside ourselves either. See where that landed Descartes?
3) Reason/Church/Government are not some looming obelisk whose shadow encompasses the oppressed man. I appreciate Orwellian metaphors in their proper place. This is not a proper place.

I know, also, I answered the question you used--when it was only mean to be rhetorical/hypothetical. I went for it.

-Matt

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Unknown said...

Sorry, something messed up and it ended up posting this like 6 more times.