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Not Emotional, but Rational?

Is there a time when you are not emotional? That is, when you’re awake at least. 😄

What is that state? Is the only time you are emotional is when you are “feeling“ emotions? What are you feeling when you’re not feeling emotional? Are you then “thinking“ emotional?

It’s kind of an interesting exploration into what rationality is when we include emotions into our state of being.

For, rationality is kind of a ethical label. If one thinks back to the beginning of psychotherapy with Freud, it is difficult to see rationality as neutral when we see a specifically sexist mental disorder of the likes called ‘hysteria’.

And in case anyone didn’t know, hysteria is this mental illness that only women had. Never mind that there’s a whole critique of Freud in as much as all these great founding psychoanalytical issues and Theories were based upon Freud sitting in a room with various wealthy women who just talked with no interruption from him. Then the three hour session would be over and they would part and Freud would go into a study and pen these great theories of how the mind works.

So I’m still wondering what an emotionally neutral state is. What is “not emotional”? And then what does that have to do with being rational?

Is there a time in my day when the ability to think is not informed by my emotional state?

Maybe the “ratio“ of rationality is a measurement or a taking an account of emotion.

14 responses to “Not Emotional, but Rational?”

  1. maylynno Avatar
    maylynno

    Not only we are emotional as long as we are alive, but we are driven by desire. Rationality is triggered by desire. Why would one think if there is no trigger to this?

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    1. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      Perhaps desire is an ideological facet, and not an ontological constant.

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      1. maylynno Avatar
        maylynno

        Both. One nurtures the other

        Liked by 1 person

    2. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      You know, Maylynne; I see D and G as making statements about ideological reality. And I see metaphysics as ultimately concerning the mythology within which they are made. And then I see those authors, those postmodern authors, as making a statement about how ideology functions and how subjects arise within ideology or otherwise occur or behave with an ideology.

      My point is that discourse is not utterly contained in ideological manifestations of the subject. And then extend this proposal to say that D and G are really talking about only one aspect of the human being and the world, and are not actually describing a “whole“ process; or, to be more precise, the whole that they do describe we are able to locate and identify as an object that we call “the subject of ideology”. But that this subject of ideology is but one route to determine being, and at that the human being.

      And that’s moves to also say that desire, while identifying a certain type of psychological subject, does not explain the entirety of the being through which the subject appears. But not only that, but that we are able to talk about this being without having to constantly resort to ideological mechanisms. Which is to say, that two things occur at once, because of coarse discourse must partially be involved with ideology. However, the view which understands all discourse as ideological Or referring to ideological subjects, is but one route, one manner of viewing. One manner of two ways of viewing.
      Not one manner within a multiplicity if views; that describes the subject of ideology and is completely valid. That describes the object of the subject, as I say.

      two ways exactly: One way demands that all discourse must fall into one unitive category in which a multiplicity of opinions interpretations reside, and outside of which nothing can be determined; this is wet Miellassoux is termed “correlationalism”. And one way which describes that factual situation to its object in-itself, as well then the relations between them.

      What you think o that?

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      1. maylynno Avatar
        maylynno

        D and G don’t only talk about the ideological aspect of desire. They explain, after Spinoza and Nietzsche, that desire is an energy within us. This energy will shape up by ideology. So there are 2 aspects on which desire falls into: ontological as a definition of any living creature, including the Corona virus if a virus is considered as a living being (that’s a whole issue). And the ideological aspect that is how this energy is shaped up and how a person does respond to it.

        That’s why one can become paranoid (when the desire as an energy turns against itself like in fanaticism) or schizo (when desire takes an erratic form which leads to creativity that is completely different from the ideology that is trying to shape it up).

        Discourse is related to both. Yes u learn to speak in schools which are the representative of the bigger ideology. But also u can create words that alters the mother language. D and G give the example of formal official English and the ghetto English. They are different

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    3. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      I am not sure emotion is the same as desire. It’s like libidinal energy. What is it and how come we can’t measure it? I tend to want to say that ideology is a manifestation of the denial of the emotional investment in knowledge. And so to reduce everything to some large phenomenon called “desire“ is really to point to some magic that is sustaining the ideological economy, similar to the Marx and the fetish.
      This is not to say that there isn’t this strange phenomenon, but that it kind of shows what is being denied, and by that or in recognition of that allows an opening to speak of something that is not idealogical. Because now there less reliance upon some “driving force“ that animates everything. Instead there are particular and different instances of energy through which things appear.

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      1. maylynno Avatar
        maylynno

        I agree with u 👌

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      2. landzek Avatar
        landzek

        The other blog post was about me in hate with technology. I moved it to drafts. Because it was just a venting. Technology is the one thing that I absolutely have a love hate relationship with. And right then, I was in hate with it. 😝

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  2. cpluzc Avatar
    cpluzc

    Without emotion there is no rational

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    1. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      Perhaps rationality is simply a justification of emotional reactivity.

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  3. Hesiod Avatar
    Hesiod

    There is not a moment when you are not emotional. I’m still waiting for the “rational man.” We are undeniably erotic animals.

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    1. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      I have a book about 20th century existentialism called “the irrational man”. I think maybe you suggested it to me. 😆

      But I wonder sometimes if rationality which denies or otherwise discounts the emotional content of statements, leads to circularity and discussions that really get nowhere but eternal relativity and momentary meaning.

      I wonder if we could somehow take a count for our various emotional states, then we might be able to begin to discern which statements made under the guise of rationality actually mean something different according to their various emotional states that they were made amidst.

      And then maybe if we were to take a count of those two types of intelligence is, two dynamics that are actually informing discourse instead of flattening discourse within a realm of “common rationality”, that we might actually get to something more substantial and concrete about ourselves and the world.

      Do you think?

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      1. Hesiod Avatar
        Hesiod

        I believe I did! Barrett’s book is one of my favorite expository introductions to existentialism since I regard it as spot on–historically and philosophically and theologically–concerning the roots and development of existentialist thought.

        Well, I happen to believe that our emotional and erotic states are “rational”–that they have a good purpose teleologically. So I see the emotional and rational tied together. Just no hyper rationalism which destroys emotion and eros. So I’d tentatively agree that if we can account for these two types of intelligence you speak of, we would arrive at better understandings of ourselves and therefore, better prognastications of how to go forward.

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      2. landzek Avatar
        landzek

        Interestingtly you put rationality in a slightly different category than I usually do.

        I think I like yours a little bit better.

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