Passions and Emotions

       In contrast to careful intellectually informed insight, it is common to let emotion and passions dictate our positions on issues and guide our choices in making important decisions.  Like fear, emotion and passion are not thought but rather reactive energy directed in a single direction; as reactions they seek resolution through immediate action. By nature, emotion cannot regard anything contrary to its desire; as a result, it makes a poor basis for problem solving. Insight arises from an exhaustive consideration of information from every possible perspective.  The difference between these two modes is also visible in the change society has undergone over the last several decades.

       Increasingly, careful thinking in problem solving has been pushed aside in favor of reactive action. Rather than take time to carefully devise solutions to problems, the society has come to expect leaders to take any action in the moment, regardless of its rectitude. With the advent of the internet, social media, and the possibility these tools have given average people to express immediate opinions without filtering, the problem had been exasperated. These technological advances have placed the individual person in the position of being capable to express their private positions to many millions of other people in a moment; conversely, millions have been given the opportunity to react and give their opinions on those positions. 

       When in former times, writers had to study ethics, had an editor monitoring their words, and were held accountable for their public opinions when they were in the position to reach millions of people with their words, the new democratization offered by social media is given without any real accountability being placed on those who use it. The result is millions of people expressing their opinions to each other, often without careful thought, and frequently motivated by immediate emotion. The phenomenon itself acts like a feedback loop for the society, pushing it for immediate action, immediate solutions, and emotional responses to problems rather than intellectual solutions.

       Slowly year after year, the society seems to divide along emotional lines into warring camps incapable of mutual understanding. Understanding requires thought; the divisions are not thought based, but rather emotional.  Many would disagree with this idea, stating that their positions are very much based on ideas; nevertheless, the proof of the statement lays in how they support their positions, without logic, but with passion and hate for their opposition. Again, emotion and not thought.  Currently, the material problems societies face can be managed with a fair amount of effort in support of well thought out plans; the greatest problem facing society is that passion and emotion are dictating the course of events and this is preventing the society from uniting and devising workable solutions to solve them.