ThinkBlog

The argument has been put forth that, while arguments are either evaulated in a binary scheme—as valid or invalid—feelings are necessarily valid. I think this is an example of a self-esteem gospel, some pop-psychology mumbo-jumbo along with the prevailing wisdom among parents that it’s best to be “great friends” with your kids (often at the expense of their respect for you, and to the great peril of their persons).

Emotions, like ideas, are faculties of rational minds. If all feelings were necessarily valid, then they would be unevaluable—nothing that our minds could comprehend would be able to sway our emotions. This is prima facie untrue: the art of rhetoric is based on certain precepts and reasons, and even a personal offense may seem more or less an imposition when all facts are taken into account.

An emotion that is based on faulty understanding, ignorance, or no apparent intellectual stimulus is, then, invalid. The child that pitches a fit over not getting a piece of candy in the drugstore check-out line at her will—that fit is invalid because it’s based upon the faulty reasoning that whatever she wills is the best thing for her. The man who laughs at a funeral is schizotypal—we call him sick, because there is a mental imbalance there. A mood swing from a chemical imbalance due to drug abuse is understandable from a pharmacological standpoint, but rationally invalid.

I stood among many under the tutelage of a speaker once who said, “Whatever you are feeling is always perfectly valid. Just let it out, or experience it as it comes; no one can tell you that it’s wrong, it simply is.” Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s wrong, Jack. I’m sure this is the same line of thought with which Bacchic prostitutes whored themselves; I’m sure this is the line of reasoning that keeps depressed people ill, and cruel people enraged.

When you’re feeling upset, stop and ask yourself if it’s reasonable for you to be so. Don’t buy the lie that you can’t control yourself. You will find that, if you’re willing to overcome your rationalizations, a bit of self-critique will quench the fire of your anger or balm the sting of your weeping.

The argument has been put forth that, while arguments are either evaulated in a binary scheme—as valid or invalid—feelings are necessarily valid. I think this is an example of a self-esteem gospel, some pop-psychology mumbo-jumbo along with the prevailing wisdom among parents that it’s best to be “great friends” with your kids (often at the expense of their respect for you, and to the great peril of their persons).

Emotions, like ideas, are faculties of rational minds. If all feelings were necessarily valid, then they would be unevaluable—nothing that our minds could comprehend would be able to sway our emotions. This is prima facie untrue: the art of rhetoric is based on certain precepts and reasons, and even a personal offense may seem more or less an imposition when all facts are taken into account.

An emotion that is based on faulty understanding, ignorance, or no apparent intellectual stimulus is, then, invalid. The child that pitches a fit over not getting a piece of candy in the drugstore check-out line at her will—that fit is invalid because it’s based upon the faulty reasoning that whatever she wills is the best thing for her. The man who laughs at a funeral is schizotypal—we call him sick, because there is a mental imbalance there. A mood swing from a chemical imbalance due to drug abuse is understandable from a pharmacological standpoint, but rationally invalid.

I stood among many under the tutelage of a speaker once who said, “Whatever you are feeling is always perfectly valid. Just let it out, or experience it as it comes; no one can tell you that it’s wrong, it simply is.” Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s wrong, Jack. I’m sure this is the same line of thought with which Bacchic prostitutes whored themselves; I’m sure this is the line of reasoning that keeps depressed people ill, and cruel people enraged.

When you’re feeling upset, stop and ask yourself if it’s reasonable for you to be so. Don’t buy the lie that you can’t control yourself. You will find that, if you’re willing to overcome your rationalizations, a bit of self-critique will quench the fire of your anger or balm the sting of your weeping.