I believe that we, as humans, have a constant conflict going between our minds and hearts. Modest Mouse sings about this conflict in their song “Heart Cooks Brain,” and author Terry Goodkind uses this conflict as the basis for the wizard’s third rule: “passion rules reason; for the better or worse.” But, which is more important? When making and important decision do you base your decision on what “feels” right, or what is more logical? Personally, I believe that reason and logic should precede feeling and emotion in all decisions and actions. Sadly, I think most Americans believe the opposite.
Let’s begin with some small examples. You probably know, or have known, someone in a bad relationship. It is obvious to you that the person your friend is with is bad news, whether they are cheating on your friend, using them, or possibly abusing them. You also know what it’s like when you try to bring this up to your friend… usually the end of the friendship. Why is that? This is an example of someone putting emotion over reason. For whatever reason, they feel the need to stay in this relationship so they totally ignore all logic and reason to continue to be with that person. Likewise, this can also happen with the relationship between parent and child. There are some parents, who are increasing in number, who honestly believe their child can do no wrong. Failing grades at school? The teacher isn’t doing their job! Got in trouble? It was the other kids’ fault! Got fired from their first job? The boss shouldn’t be so strict! This is yet, another example of what happens when a person puts emotion over reason.
But, is that such a bad thing? After all, your friend in the relationship seems happy and the parent is just improving their child’s self esteem. Or are they… Sure, the person in the relationship seems happy now, but what about in a few years after the “in love” feeling wears off? After they may have married that person, or perhaps had a child with them? It will be much harder to end the relationship then, when they come to their senses, then it would have if they would have just harnessed in their emotions at the start and used reason to make the choice of whether or not they should be with that person. The parent may think they are doing a great thing for their child, but what happens to that child after being raised without being held accountable for their actions. This is what ushers in the entitlement philosophy that is plaguing our nation today. This is what happens when people can’t rely on their parents for everything they need any more so they turn to ol’ Uncle Sam. “I don’t have money for food! …I spent it all on that iPhone,” “I can’t keep a job! …I called in twice this week… There were some parties I just HAD to be at!” I’m sure you can think of many other examples of this. So, what does the government do? It comes to the “rescue” with handouts, further suppressing any need for these people to help themselves.
Many times when emotion is used to make a decision, it is only for immediate gratification. Emotion isn’t very good at looking into the future. Reason on the other hand, may make the choice that is not very fun or desirable in the present, but will pay off in the future. It’s kind of like saving money. Sure, I can use all my money to buy up all these gadgets and gizmos now, or I can put some away in savings or make investments. But, what good are all those gadgets going to do for you when you get layed off and can’t make your house payment? On the other hand, if you save or invest your money you will be in better shape should something unexpected come up.
For an even bigger example, look at the last presidential election. Barack Obama got elected on nothing more that promising “Hope and Change.” People attached themselves to this slogan, making it into whatever they wanted it to be. Some even believed that this meant that Obama would pay their rent and gas bills… There were even people fainting at his campaign stops. People got so caught up in the emotion that they just threw all logic out the window. Obama was going to “make the tides recede, bring peace to the world, and undo what those dastardly republicans have done the previous eight years! And, if you disagreed with him, you are obviously a RACIST!” You could not have a reasonable debate with these people; they were completely using emotion alone. But now that the “honeymoon” period is over, people are starting to wake up to the cold hard facts. The economy is in even worse shape than when Bush left, we are involved in another war (Libya), unemployment is hovering around 9%, we got Obamacare forced down our throats without the congress even reading the bill, and now he’s talking about tax hikes on the “rich.” What good is that satisfaction you felt at the polls or during the inauguration doing for you now? Are you better off now than you were under the Bush years? For many, the answer is no.
You don’t even have to look at politics to see the wave of emotion based decisions that has hit this nation. The media love to play things up in order to get ratings and people usually fall for it hook, line, and sinker. One example would be the crisis at Fukushima as a result of the Great Eastern Earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011. The nuclear power plant at Fukushima was on the verge of a meltdown and the media were hypothesizing what would happen should it occur. This had some people in the US in a frenzy! Some people in East Texas were even going into the pharmacy where my mom works asking for Potassium Iodide pills for fear of the radiation reaching them, even after some nuclear scientists went on the news to tell the people that the amount of radiation that would make it here was minimal. I even saw one meteorologist on Nancy Grace, saying how the radiation found on the coast of California may not even be from Japan due to the fact that many things emit radiation naturally. (Ever eaten a banana? Then, you’ve ingested radiation!) Nancy Grace went ballistic on him! Basically, telling him he was wrong and said brought up the fact that she’s a trial lawyer… This is what happens when someone clings to emotion over reason. They may take a fact that coincides with what they are feeling and run with it, totally ignoring the other facts. They see a dead tree in a forest and claim the whole forest is dying! The media have done this with everything from the Toyota gas pedal sticking story to swine flu. To see how the media can get people’s emotions to run rampant look at these statistics: an estimated 12,000 people died from swine flu in 2009, yet it is estimated that the regular flu kills around 36,000 people per year. How many people do you see running around terrified of the normal flu?
Things would go so much better if people would just stop and think about something before getting their emotions involved. It wouldn’t solve all the problems, for after all, we are still human and limited in our knowledge and understanding. But at least it would get people to start educating themselves on a subject before spouting off what they heard someone else said. At the very least, we wouldn’t have to see all the posts on Facebook about Facebook’s plan to charge a monthly fee every year or so, when it states clearly on the login page that it will always be free.
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