A fascinating idea that is worth considering, at least in respect to the notion of emotions and that of the inward expressed through the method of writing which one may argue is by its nature a sort of external action that, no matter how hard one may try, may never truly capture that which a writer may intend, is the idea of rationality. Writing in a clear and concise way may very well come close to it, but it is not necessarily the case that a writer’s intent is perfectly encapsulated in the choice of words they use or the intent behind their specific words. As absurd it may seem, Hemingway could even be subject to misinterpretation, regardless of how flavourless as the thanksgiving turkey Tiny Tim had his writing is.

Thus it seems to fall to us to attempt to describe the influence of rationalism on society and thus people’s willingness to engage with it, ignore it, or to perhaps do something else with it. One may well argue today to be the age of emotion being brought to the fore, or at least being acknowledged. One can see it in the various mental health initiatives and the destigmatisation of mental illnesses in society at large. It may well be said to be the case that acceptance has only come about due to reason finally having the capability to understand these illnesses. However, it can be said there are more questions than answers as treatment that may work for one person may have an adverse effect on another, even if by all accounts both people should be the same. Such an example would be the case of separated twins who may be identical and yet differ for a multitude of reasons which would be insane to try and analyse on a case by case basis. Now what has this got to do with the idea of emotion in writing? Give it some time. One may see soon enough.

But let us consider the Greeks now with Socrates and the lineage of students of his who have provided the core catalogue of philosophical texts to go through, in particular the basis of the rational schools of thought which have left the modern analytical school which dominates modern philosophical thought as the modern representative to carry the standard. It started with Socrates’s method of inquiry where he questioned conclusions in a bid to try and get the truth behind something, even if he looked foolish all the while. That method began to descend over the years through Plato and Aristotle who taught a modified version as the dialectic method which certain rational thinkers like Kant apparently found areas of disagreement with. The Greeks had been temporarily lost to the West for several hundred years until Muslim traders who preserved and built on the tradition brought them back into Europe allowing for the development of multiple branches of rational thought over the centuries which all placed a great deal of faith in the logical system crafted over the millenia rather than the absurd that man experiences in his life daily such as the impulse to help another person or to laugh for seemingly no reason.

One sees this fragmentation and faith in a logical system using different propositions like the rationalists who viewed human reason as the way to truly understand all of reality as everything is organised using logic. Such thinkers of course would say emotions and the absurdities that occasionally make them come to be can all be explained through the power of human reason and that as long as someone can use logic, there is a way to explain things, even if they may seem or be absurd. This is where you get many Christian thinkers such as Descartes who crafted meticulous proofs of the existence of God in the form most Christians in Christendom at the time viewed God to be. That is to say a form that is more universal rather than that others may see to believe to be a more accurate way of viewing God.

There are also the empiricists who believe that one can only use empirical evidence in conjunction with reason and logic to come up with satisfactory conclusions. Of course, many today find that a very intuitive and seductive way of thinking. It is not without its merits, but it also has a way of making emotions simpler to think about for it is only about observing the emotions and drawing conclusions based on those observations. That is all well and fine for animals or celestial bodies, but for variable humans who have their sense of self tempered by many moments of absurdity and those which the empiricist may not be able to analyse or even understand such as the intention of those who have experienced faith, as understood by Johannes de Silentio. Thus, we fall into the domain of the scientists who think one can apply what intuitively works in the natural sciences to more social disciplines like humanities and the social sciences.

Now we can briefly glance at the more baffling positivists who take the idea of observing natural phenomena, but interpreting it with logic and connecting everything with a strain of the time honoured system in an attempt to reconcile every approach to explain everything. This is most apparent based on what I know of Hegel who was the great systematiser working on reconciling everything with the absolute and thinking of Christianity and things of the sort in an attempt to reconcile the human power of reason that has subordinated everything to it, in particular emotions who have been kept as remnants of a more primitive time as certain art texts may deign to guess.

It is precisely the simplification of everything promised by these ways of rational thinking which trouble me for they have allowed us to abstract that which is absurd within us to make it harmless rather than something human that we must work through. To put it in other terms, it is a phenomenon that can be sublated (aufheben) so that something less emotional comes in until the Absolute can be perceived, at least based on how the Hegelian positivist system is supposed to work.

One sees this expression of rational thought as a way to prevent the absurd expressions of one’s own emotions, at least in the realm of those who are not granted permission by society to do so such as poets or other professional writers of long form compositions. This I believe is one of the manifold reasons behind our lack of desire to communicate emotion through the written form for it is also more difficult to do so when trained in the analytic way of writing that is as barren as the world of Mad Max.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.