Emotional Logic

In the 115 class someone commented on how Americans don't think and reason because they are not very highly educated. I countered that the problem is not that they don't think, but that thinking is impossible without the aid of our emotions and emotions run high on certain topics. I wanted to expound on this and do so below.

Mariana, you will find this is directly opposite of what you stated. Nothing personal. I simply disagree.

My primary knowledge of this subject comes from a speaker I heard on Alternative Radio (http://www.alternativeradio.org/) back in 2007/2008 in Athens. So it has been a while. The speaker was a well respected academic who was speaking largely on the topic of why the Democrats had done so poorly through the Bush years. My apologies for not being able to provide the name or a link to the original source.

In short, the speaker emphasized the failure of the Democrats to recognize and utilize a new area of cognitive science that the Republicans had latched on to. The science looked at how we conduct reason and logic and where our emotions come into play in these processes. One of the more empirical studies the speaker cited was particularly telling. It is nearly impossible to study the impacts of emotions and feelings on reason and logic in a perfectly normal human being. However, in an individual who has had their emotional process knocked out by some traumatic event, it is possible. What they found when they studied these people was that their ability to reason and logic was impaired. The speaker also cited studies about how people react strongly more strongly to certain words and how this can possibly impact their decision making process (we see truth of this in Stats when we talk about careful choice of words so as not to flavor a question). The Democrats, the speaker claimed (and I agree), naively chose to (there are two ways to frame this) 1) "not use this information to manipulate people"; 2) "believe that well explained reason and logic would rule over emotion."

So what does this mean to us? Well, when the Republicans rephrase Cap and Trade as "Energy Tax", it means they've won. For someone who understands cap and trade and knows what it could mean for the fight against global warming, they get warm and fuzzy feelings when they hear the words "Cap and Trade" as it signifies hope. For the rest of America that doesn't understand Cap and Trade, they don't get the warm and fuzzies when they hear the term. They definitely don't feel so hot when they hear Cap and Trade explained as a "tax" or that it could lead to "job loss". As an aside, I heard a lot back when Bush gained his second term that the Republicans did an excellent job playing on people emotions (mainly fear) with things like the constant use of the word "terrorism". In the opposite seat, the Democrats back then tried to appeal to people's ability to reason and logic. Big win.

For the Environmentalists, the above principle is the reason why they turned to polar bears. Polar bears are big, warm, fuzzy creatures that illicit big, warm, fuzzy emotions. Certainly much warmer than charts and graphs showing CO2 increasing, ice melt, temperature rise, etc. Of course, as folks were pointing out in class today, how many times can you look at a polar bear (or an oil-covered pelican) before you loose interest? I think the articles we read for the this past Monday very nicely captured the issue. To take it to its logical conclusion: the environmental movement needs to find a way to connect with folks emotionally and personally. Until people literally feel it, they won't care about it. This means finding the right words and the right issue, literally bringing the negative impacts of climate change into the home and directly relating it to the American family unit.

So in Mayer's terms, I am essentially arguing that symbolism, used by institutions, trumps reason and logic where complex, poorly understood policies and the masses are concerned. The motivations behind allowing or blocking a policy at the institutional level are reasoned through, however. The Republicans don't try to block everything the Democrats try to do out of spite (I'd like to think). They do it because it disagrees with their views and the views of their constituents. The Democrats, on the other hand, act in the opposite direction (pushing the policy) for the same reason. Where this whole thing starts to come full circle is when the Republicans tell the masses that Cap and Trade = "energy tax" (a strong negative symbol) and the Democrats suddenly find swing voters threatening to swing the other way. So the Democrats dropped the bill right before elections to try to minimize damage over the mid-terms.

Take 'em or leave 'em, those are my thoughts. I'd love to hear critiques as I definitely don't know this stuff half as well as most of yall.

Morgan Fleming