Emotionalists Vs Rationalists

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Strict rationality would be toxic when it causes one to devalue and ignore their own feelings and/or the feelings of others and how those feelings can impact how people react and respond. Whether we like it or not, our fellow humans aren't strictly rational creatures and trying to understand them from a strictly rational perspective is inherently doomed to failure.

Further, as none of us are strictly rational creatures (no matter how much one might believe they are), making the assumption that one's self is only will compound the previous issue.

I have considered this previously and believe this would only become a significant social problem in an individual if they had sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies...just an opinion.

Embracing ethicality is an intellectual concept created as a result of the neocortex, not the reptilian brain.
All that is needed is a commitment/allegiance to an ethical code of behaviour...
For example, I myself made a conscious allegiance in respecting the truth, which I see as a more heavily intellectual, rather than emotional choice despite the close natural affinity that I (and most on the spectrum) have with truthfulness.

BTW, Interestingly, a psychopath does not have to be antisocial...
It is a matter of choice to conform or not conform to social conventions/protocols...
Conversely, not everyone who has a built in moral compass could be described as a pillar of society...
It is heavily dependent on the individual, surely...



Agreed as to our having both an emotional and rational side to us...
But...
Consider a court judge who, by definition of his job description, needs to be rational/impartial/objective and not influenced by his/her personal feelings...
Rationality can be adopted without becoming a homicidal sociopath or psychopath...

As to a rationalist not understanding emotionalist, I have to disagree...
Personally I believe a scientific approach in most things is more...errr...scientific...

FWIW: Psychopath is about as useful of term in this context as ret*d or moron.

Firstly, you asked for examples of can rationality be toxic, not if it must be. I would insist that strictly clinging to either has the possibility to be toxic, but also that neither is guaranteed to be toxic.

Most of your response fails to directly address my points and just gets lost on 'what ifs' and other tangents with some word salad thrown in for fun.

I am an emotionalist first, and then I become a rationalist I mean, being choleric by nature, first I do things, and then I think about what I did

"What we have here is a failure to communicate"... (movie quote)
Obviously we aren't "on the same page", which is fine...
Let me try again...

Yes, I agree that an individual needs to learn about themselves in their entirety to become self actualised...
I also agree that if interpersonal relationships are of importance, the integration of a person's emotional component is particularly advisable...

Moving to phase... 2

I should have defined the context of my statement with greater guide lines, but I initially intended to cast a wider net. Apologies...

Let us now assume the individual is psychologically/emotionally balanced to begin with...
Let us assume the individual has significant life experience...
Let us also assume a significant other relationship is not sort after nor required...

Do you now believe the development of the discipline of rational thinking and the bridling of emotional influences would cause a personality imbalance?
If this is still the case I respectfully disagree and give my previous example of the requirements of a court judge who is expected to be impartial/objective without their personal feelings interfering with their judgment.

Personally I don't see any downside in becoming more "Vulcan" if you have no intention of engaging in a significant other relationship...

However, I do see significant problems on the other side towards heightened emotionalism...
Would not excessively embracing emotional needs inherently cause emotional instability and result in poor judgement, questionable decision making and possibly episodes of denial to cope with emotional needs?
I have literally met people like this...
I am talking from experience here...

To me it seems like a false dichotomy.

The OP himself said he would prefer a big SUV to a small car if he could afford something beyond a cheap practical "rational" car. So he implied that that preference means that he himself is an "emotionalist". That is an interesting admission. Never expected anyone on this thread to ever admit that "I myself am an emotionalist".

So since you apparently classify yourself as an "emotionalist" how exactly do you differ from folks around you whom consider to be "rationalists"? Besides taste in cars?

Actually you are mistaken...
What I said was my emotions were encouraging me to go with the Jeep wrangler purely because I liked the look but my intellect interposed and "stopped the nonsense"...
My internal emotional lizard never had a chance, the poor thing...

Obsession with anything, either being rational or as the case was maybe twenty or thirty years ago being macho, might be okay as a self-discipline device if a person is really failing themselves in a particular category but past that - when you know you either have the act down well or even too well for your psychological health, you'd want to back off of it and try to find your way back to balance. There are too many ways life can persuade you, quite rationally, that there's no point to being alive and that not existing even would be a better choice. One finds themselves in a strange place if reason is telling them to end their own life, or even that they have an obligation to honor suicide because they can't measure up to their peers for reasons beyond their control, and it's emotion and other intangible things too complex and powerful for analysis keeping them from following through.

I actually found myself in that space in my late 20's and very early 30's and I might have for a time bounced back hard toward pragmatism for a while but I think I learned that anything held on a pedestal tends to be a bit unhealthy and that life will always be a dynamic dance with your own personality attributes and faculties. You will be constantly disheartened by how you see people chose to behave out in the world, that's probably an unavoidable sorrow for most people, but it is a victory if you're able to stop beating yourself over the head in your own private space with other people's foolishness. It's easier said than done of course if that foolishness constantly waves threats at your ability to feed, cloth, and shelter yourself but when it doesn't its really best abstained from.

So? So you are an emotionalist who is constrained by a price tag. You are still an emotionalist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T65rW_SIzg0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBet_lgh4wc

Here is a link to a Jordan Peterson less than 10
Minute Video Clip on how to develop one's 'Shadow';
originally a Jungian Concept but of course as Human Archetypes go
a deep down part of the psyche that is surely related to the 'Dragon' Brain,
also known as the Reptilian Brain. When Fatherless Sons and Daughters and
all the variations 'tween go without rough and tumble play or hardly any play at all
where Electronic Devices become the parent this is where our Natural Ability to Develop a
Back Bone to 'say no' (in general) can and will become a problem as per Epigenetic unpacking
of 'reptile' DNA and Neuroplasticity that wires us with the ability to say no no no now other wise
known as bowing up like a Snake and saying no no no to develop greater interdependence along
the lines of independence becomes a real problem for even the way we carry ourselves less like the
Eye of the Dragon, Eye of the Tiger, etc; lacking the self confidence once again to assert themselves without fear.
As my Father, a Career Law Enforcement Officer who left my Mother when I was age 3 around the Date in 1963
when John F Kennedy was assassinated and my Mother was faced with raising me and my sister who by the way
again is diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome too as yes, there is no doubt we received the Genetics from my
Father's Side of the Family as both my Father and his Identical Twin Brother were coated with symptoms of
at least the Broader Autism Phenotype as Such; let's just say, I became a very loving child but without the
privilege of the rough and tumble play that is more often precipitated by the male influence of what
my family became as a Matriarchal one almost without any of that Gender Specific related
activity more related to Androgens and rough and tumble play. It took me a long time
to become my own Father; yes, decades as far as 'these' things go and really
it was a free style of Martial Arts that allowed me to finally become
friends with the Dragon and or Shadow within that is almost
entirely innate, instinctual, and intuitive as of course it
is farther away from intellectual speak per se, still now.
Funny thing is after being so lost most of my life about
how to be 'one of the guys', and to be clear girls have always been
my 'thing' but never the less when one doesn't learn how to naturally walk
with the grace of one who gets in tune with their dragon to master it in sync;
the nonverbal language of that lends a certain vulnerability for those who are in
the feel and sense of the mastery of their dragon/snake/eye of the tiger and stuff
like that. Thing is, with life; use it or lose applies in all stuff animal and overall existence stuff.
And for me at least, I am not 'stupid' enough to expose myself to repeated traumatic style injuries
and it doesn't matter in the Art of Martial arts as a 'force of one' whether or not i ever strike another person
or not for I personally found that the Epigenetic Result in Challenging myself to this New 'Dragon/Reptile' style
of Physical and Emotional; and yes, Existential Intelligence in terms of regulating my emotions and integrating
my senses brought about an actual Physical Change and Emotional and Yes, Sensory Change from Head to
toe in increases of Strength Empirically Measurable on a Leg Press from 500 Lbs to 1020 Lbs in terms
of 52 reps, recently at My Military Gym and please keep in mind that for most of my life, folks viewed
me as the Typical Nerd per Sheldon Cooper in the way I carried myself every where i went without
that experience of rough and tumble play from a very young age. In short, and yes in shorts
never getting cold now even in the recent 20 Degree Weather of North Florida; i transformed
from Nerd into Kind of a Smart Ape not only per say but per do too, hehe. No, i am not saying
i am Superman now but in empirical Measure per averages i am surely super normal
per my current age of 57. Yes; i was also mistaken as a Girl by the Mcdonald's
Cashier at age 12; a very Androgynous chid was i then for no doubt much of my Epigenetic
Potential as far as Enhanced Androgen ways of Being was likely impacted in some real physical way
being raised by a Household Dripping with Estrogen although it is true both my Grandmother and my
Sister were Androgynous too but my Mother had enough Estrogen to be voted as having the Best Figure
in both 11th and 12th Grade back in the 50's, heheR. Hmm, anyway, from remembering the text in this
Discussion; I remember Pepe asking how to get rid of his Reptilian Amygdala associated anxiety and while
I am not suggesting getting enrolled in a Martial Arts Class at age 54; as i dam sure wasn't gonna do it approaching
3 months away from age 54 when i started doing this in March of 2014; i just experimented with what my body
per my Dragon/Shadow wanted to do to get unleashed released and tamed for zero anxiety with a grace of
Confidence in how my African American Friends walked in the mall. Side note: Social Science shows that
despite socio-economic ethnic demographic disadvantage; African American Men have the highest
overall levels of self-esteem of any Ethnic Group with factors cited per reptilian brain of confidence
in the ability to defend oneself along with the ability to reproduce successfully too. So even per
Science it appears as far as overall feelings of well being; it might not be such a great idea
to neglect the Dragon that and who is us that and who lives within as part of the
Triune of our mind and body balance. Interestingly enough too as Jordan
Peterson speaks to in the short video; 'real men' tend to develop a
Grace and Loving way that is much more sincere after they tame their
Dragon always ready 'just in case' in their back pocket of Free. I tend to agree
and to be clear, I had no idea this possibility existed for me in Epigenetic and Neuroplastic
Change until I just did it and started seeing my life change from head to toe and in emotional
regulation and sensory integration, then. Let's just say, I was bullied most of my life in verbal ways
and in non-verbal ways for i didn't have the Kind of Mind and Body Balance then that carries a countenance
of fearless grace. Now, generally speaking, if anyone comes close to me they say excuse me, my bad, and
get out of the way; keeping in mind that this is when i dance in very large bars with testosterone fueled males
competing for available females as that story goes too, each week. And it is true too, through 8600 miles of
Public Dance now approaching the 53 Month Mark; i used to get some ridicule before i started doing the
Martial Arts routine with that but now folks tend to keep their distance as i also do from them not to
scare any 'little old ladies' and the such as that. And back to the epigenetics and neuroplasticity from
head to toe as i still have the photo documentary evidence and the tale of the scale, i moved up
from 210 Lbs to what rather looks somewhat like a College Linebacker now at 240 Lbs but it is
true i do still have what shows on X-rays as Severe Degenerative Arthritis in my Spine
and Spinal Stenosis along with some of that in my knees of course and other joints
as that's what happens when a person gets older. The most amazing thing though
now that my Dragon is fully employed with the 'Chi' Force that is really real
and documented well for those who incorporate that Human Higher
State of Dragon Being; I can make any pain melt away with
the bio-feedback that has come from becoming
best Friends with the Shadow of Actual
Higher Potential as remember
'the so-called wild animals'
don't go to the Doctor or the Hospital;
if they survive they heal themselves to make the
next meal and reproductive mate a reality; still now.
Seriously, like any Straight A Kid who earned 3 College Degrees;
i used to sort of see my Athletic Friends as somewhat Inferior and thought i would
go much further 'cause of my Grades. Meanwhile, some of my other 'smart' peers
never actually left their families homes and are still living in those homes now that their
families have 'moved on'. And true too, I didn't actually leave the Maternal Nest for Good until i got
married close to my 30's too. It's
true what was missing
was the
Shadow;
the Dragon;
the eye of the Tiger;
more specifically; My Father.
Just a Suggestion from experience;
Smiles, don't discount your Dragon for it is true
that not all Fathers who stay and or Mothers have
become Best Friends with their Shadow Dragon alive now too.
Fear destroys all that is good in life including the experience of the
Comfort of a Being who can and will Freely Love with Grace and a Strong
Will of No to those who would otherwise dominate us into submission. Smiles;
even if the only target is as Leaf on a Tree; Kick to the Sky and Bring Your Dragon
(And don't bruise the Leaf like Bruce Lee)
Alive
Tamed
as Fearless Grace
and Willful Love; again;
just a suggestion with smiles
for it is true a Life without Fear is worth it to me, at least.
I Love Cats. so i call my Dragon Katzilla. My Wife's name is
Katrina and she living in very poor socio-economic circumstances
in a big family who all struggled for the only piece of bread on the plate
per do, developed her fiery Dragon at a very young age. And i guess my Grandmother
who dropped out of School to Pick Cotton to help raise her sisters after her Mother Died
at a very young age from Breast Cancer did the same thing. I remember her Hands; she really
had the Cotton Picking Hands of a Man; so rugged they were. True, Epigenetics and overall
Neuroplasticity for Positive and yes Negative adaptation to Environmental Struggle is amazing
almost Magical
and yes, Supernormal
Results for the change our
Human and overall Evolutionary
Still Nature in terms of Eye of the
Tiger and Heart of the Lion and overall Reason do Bring now.
Again; use it or lose it and exposing oneself to the Intermittent Gratification
that comes from struggle
seems
key
to me;
Hehe, and the overall consequence
is Young Woman smile more at me.
That Dragon and Shadow is a best friend now to me, now.
In Middle School the 'same types of women' named me skank.
Things
Change..

In my opinion, this Beta/Alpha male myth thingy
is not a way of being set in innate stone. Moreover;
Here's a couple more short videos by Jordan Peterson.
I don't agree with all of his ideas but he is doing a pretty
Good Job of Systemizing the More 'Fuzzy' Parts of Human Nature..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZH0N9aECa0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAsR6DZTvS8

i'm an emotionalist constrained by life itself. life forces me to be more rational than I temperamentally am. an astrologer would say that Saturn [delays and setbacks] is governing my emotionalism/impulsivity.

Oy Vey! This discussion has taken a turn to the dark side...EEP!
Having said that, I welcome your contribution but I am a little baffled as to what inspired you to go down this path...

Perhaps it might be prudent to explain where I am coming from...
Despite the popular belief that we humans should march to the same drum beat, as someone who is on the autistic spectrum, I know this is unreasonable/fallacious...
As a member of a group which is considered by the more enlightened to be examples of ultimate individuality, I am simply defending freedom of choice and freedom of thought...

You say "...might be okay as a self-discipline device if a person is really failing themselves in a particular category "...
Failing by who's standards, btw?
My assumption in my contribution to this discussion is that a person is emotionally balanced, but I take your point.

From a rational point of view the shedding of "dead wood" and focusing on what is personally pertinent makes a great deal of sense to me.
I call this "cleaning the psychological attic"...
And here is the thinking behind what I have said:
When we are born no one truly knows our true potential so we are bombarded with generic memes and parental guidance philosophies...
As children we simply don't have the intellectual tools to critically appraise the indoctrination directed at us.
When adolescence occurs due to the development of reasoning centres of our brain reaching "critical mass", we begin to realise that not all of the childhood indoctrination is relevant to our particular situation and the shedding wisely and unwisely begins in depth from a more logical point of view no matter how very primitive...

For me in particular, you reach an age where you realise you are carrying considerable social expectational baggage...
For a woman who has reached menopause, the changing physiological conditions requires mental adjustment...
Or, for a much younger individual for example, the realisation that their sexual orientation is different to social expectations constitutes a need to reassess their life direction which involves the shedding of some aspects of the generic social blue print...

You said this: "when you know you either have the act down well or even too well for your psychological health, "
Could you give an example? Are you suggesting we need to lower our standards because others have limitations?
Once again, I believe you are considering those have not reached emotional integration...I.E. younger people

You said: "you'd want to back off of it and try to find your way back to balance."
Having a discipline in rational thinking enhances greater emotional balance I would have thought.
What context are you using? A younger developing individual?
I am actually considering the fine tuning of a more mature individual...I.E. me...and people like me...

You said:"One finds themselves in a strange place if reason is telling them to end their own life, or even that they have an obligation to honor suicide because they can't measure up to their peers for reasons beyond their control, and it's emotion and other intangible things too complex and powerful for analysis keeping them from following through. "

Firstly the idea that an emotionally balanced mature rational person is denied the choice of existing or not existing is laughable...
There is no secondly...

Your focus seems to be on younger people, understood...
As a more mature person in age and philosophical development I realise the nonsense of neurotypical social expectation hamstring philosophical enlightenment. The concept of "measuring up" or "keeping up with the Joneses" is an absurd NT based concept which is a manifestation of their primitive roots where the human animal competed for status to gain greater mating rights, as would a stallion who defeats it's male rivals for genetic dominance in the heard...
Before I am vilified, let me state for the record that not all NTs embrace this mindset and most of the emotionalistic philosophies (religious/spiritual) would actively reject this principle...

But once again, EEP! Where are you taking this thread...And why?
But to be clear, I value your contribution and other more eclectic and esoteric intellectual constructs...

I will end here because of the complexity of this post (and my exhaustion ) and will probably address the rest of your post some other time...

Oy vey...
I was actively/consciously avoiding saying this but money is not an issue for me...<sigh>

The jeep is an off road vehicle which doesn't have a particularly comfortable driving experience on bitumen roads.
I will not do off road travel through conscious choice...
It didn't have the amount of space in the back that I needed...
It reportedly has a problem with leaking...
The company which produces it has a very poor reputation for after sales warranty requirements here in Australia...

It had nothing to do with price...
It is "pretty", not practical...

if I was less rational, i'd be in debt up to my eyeballs driving a luxury car instead of the SUV I inherited from my mom. I figure I can have all the luxe I want when I'm in heaven, it will make "lifestyles of the rich and famous" look like poverty.

For clarity I wasn't saying 'It doesn't sound like the OP has himself together'. What i was saying is that if a person says 'Elp. I'm reason. Reason and only reason, and I wouldn't have it any other way', it could be so, if that's effortlessly where they are well okay. I think when people get obsessed with a particular target though, especially if they're running from pain of some type, or running from something in themselves that they can't stand, it can get them in trouble. You know the way an anorexic can feel wonderful self-control and feel great about it but at the same time get themselves down to 80 lbs and just about need an IV? That's kind of where I'm going - if a person finds themselves having an unhealthy relationship with reason they can drive themselves into severe depression, anxiety, etc. and they might not know just how much of their own foundation they're chipping away at until it's almost too late.

Let me know if I'm still speaking a foreign language - I'll try to find a different way to phrase it.



I'm not 100% sure that's even a pure reason thing so much as hard competition. When you're in your 20's, for a lot of people, anything less than king of the human mountain is failure. If you're in a band trying to make yourself big you feel a fair amount of sickness with the joy of hearing another artist write a song that moves you to the core (ie. that it's not you - yet - writing like that). When you look up the chain of command at a company as an intern you're often planning a dash for the top. You're constantly weighing yourself against your friends and if your not your friends are digging into you regardless if you start to slack.

That is a natural stage of life, ie. trying to establish yourself with enough drive to have a family, by your mid 20's, have the house, the barbecue grill, membership to the golf club, etc.. Society definitely pushes that image on us. Some of us get there, some of us don't, and those who don't have to find a way to acclimate themselves to where they're at - either planning to get there maybe a little later or, if that either looks impossible or completely undesirable, they then have to discover who else they can be or where they can be that better fits them.

Clearing out the dead wood though, IMHO, whether it's cleaning your attic, in Petersonian terms cleaning your room, or in Jungian or Freudian senses cleaning your basement, you will be doing what you can - if you're sensible - to always acclimate yourself better to life. The demands placed on our time and energy generally don't get lighter and to survive in a meaningful sense we have to increasingly watch what we tell ourselves, how much effort we expend on what, and even sometimes really need to get creative about the different ways we can recharge and replenish with respect to work and family activity so we can keep our energy levels in the black.

I see good reason and balance helping one make those decisions but it's reason that's inward facing, exploring emotion, taking emotion seriously, and doing what one best can to keep emotion healthy. Maybe this is where we're just running into an odd semantic gap but I don't consider that being 'reason only'.

Also - I was sharing something I've legitimately been through in the above quote, I was really pointing out that excessive reason at the cost of emotion, especially when life's not treating you well, is far from an unabated good.



I know what this means in general, I just said a fair amount of similar things above, so I'm not sure what disagreement it would touch on.


I think anyone who has a fixation on 'how logical they are' as a badge of honor is at risk of being under that sort of neurosis. Not everyone, it's just unhealthy if they'd feel horrified if someone thought of them differently or if they weren't seen by everyone as paragons of reason.


I said nothing against rational thinking.


So abuse doesn't happen? Ah, no you're not suggesting that. I'm also not suggesting that a perfectly sane, healthy person who uses reason in the right way is likely to kill themselves unless they're under a heck of a lot of external duress, which may not be their fault but - regardless - they're clearly not capable in that case of being fully emotionally balanced.

I would say this though - if you do not believe, at all, that there are people in certain situations, or going through certain things - long term - who could possibly, for rational reasons, not want to keep living - I think we would have something to debate, ie. I'd suggest that notion would be painting the world with one's own glasses. If you were suggesting that let me know, if not I won't bother you it except to say that was a particular component of what I was getting at.


This happens to grad and Phd students sometimes as well if they have a mixed up orientation to what their aiming for. Some people can keep that orientation a considerable ways into their career, even for life. I'm not disagreeing with you that it's stupid, in fact I'm still confused on what our fundamental disagreement is in this conversation because it sounds like we both agree that its unhealthy.


You're forgiven, but you've sincerely got me wondering if I might be one of the worst communicators alive. Almost everything in this posts seemed orthogonal to my intentions in what I said and to what I meant by it.

The thought had crossed my mind but I was more concerned that you might be seeing my comments negatively affecting younger minds ...

I believe I had clarified my position when I used the example of a court judge having to be rational and objective and not let his personal feeling interfering with his judgment...
I gather yours was a general comment and not specifically directed at moi...

ACHTUNG! WARNING! Off the topic verbosity in progress!

So there is no confusion as to my intent in creating this thread:
The raison d'etre of this thread was to proffer my ideas, and by so doing, to clarify in my own mind the concepts I was formulating...
I.E.
What I am saying is that it is never too late to reassess one's position and refine one's skills...
I am saying that an objective mindset is a rational/intellectual discipline that is advantageous if developed...
That, even though I consider myself to be a very rational and objective individual generally speaking, objectivity is like walking on a tight rope...it is difficult to initiate and maintain without a more effective methodology, practice and persistent focus... well, so it is for me...


In conclusion:
The reason I predominantly post at wrong planet is to investigate ideas often initiated by real life events. This has been primarily a learning event for me and not a teaching situation for others. (So kids, don't try this at home. )
I do think it important that people, especially the young'uns, know where I am coming from even though it might seem to be "orthogonal" to the topic of this thread.

I thank you all...<bow> <exit stage left>