Conspiracy of the “Intellectuals”

[coberst]

Conspiracy of the “Intellectuals”

 

I claim that most twentieth century intellectuals engaged, most probably unwittingly, in a cabal to accentuate reason and to denigrate emotion for the purpose of accentuating human “god-like” characteristics and denigrating human “animal like” characteristics.

 

Damasio informs me that “Philosophy…has not trusted emotion and has largely relegated it to the dismissible realms of animal and flesh. For a time, science fared better, but then it, too, missed its opportunity.”

 

Darwin, William James, and Freud gave emotion a privileged place in the nineteenth and very early twentieth century scientific arena. Yet twentieth century neuroscience and first generation cognitive science has, until recently, allowed “Darwin’s work on the emotions vanished from site, James’s proposal was attacked unfairly and dismissed summarily, and Freud’s influence went elsewhere. Throughout most of the twentieth century, emotion was not trusted in the laboratory.”

 

What is emotion and can it be dismissed?

 

Emotion guides the life of an organism. Emotion is the automatic unconscious initiation of biological forces that are designed to perform a complicated pattern of chemical and neural regulatory responses that will aid the organism to survive.

 

The denigration of emotion has seriously affected the life of the human organism.

 

The first function of emotion is to initiate a primary response such as anger, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, or disgust; a secondary response such as embarrassment, jealousy, guilt, or pride; background responses such as malaise, calm, or tension. These emotional responses, to which we have given various labels, are demonstrated in all living creatures to a degree dependent upon the creature’s particular characteristic.

 

The human species, unlike most if not all non human animals, has evolved with a characteristic we label the ego, which allows the human species to create a delay of immediate emotional response permitting some time for contemplation before response.

 

What dangers do you think has resulted to human survival as a result of this cabal?

 

Quotes from “The Feeling of what Happens” by Antonio Damasio

[Boerseun]

I wouldn't say that it's an attempt at suppressing "animal-like" characteristics and accentuating "god-like" characteristics.

 

I would rather say it's a constant battle between rationality and irrationality. And there's no conspiracy - it's unavoidable.

 

And with spreading education of an constantly advancing nature, the former will hopefully someday triumph over the latter. That's to say if we can ever get through the thick skulls of ID-adherents and their kin.

 

But there's nothing "godlike" about using your pip - it's simply employing it to the best of its capacity when rationality comes to the fore.