An angry comment came in for the article, “3 Reasons Why You Can’t Kill Your Emotions.”
I edited out the first sentence in the published version because my comment policy is no personal attacks.
For this article, the comment’s left intact:
“You people are stupid. Emotions are merely defense mechanisms to make sure you reproduce. They don’t mean shit to people who have no intention of reproducing. All they do is piss you off for irrational reasons. Fuck irrational misery, I’d give up rational happiness if it meant I didn’t have to deal with irrational misery.”
Given that the comment used the words “stupid,” “shit”, “piss off,” and “fuck” all in one go, it’d be tempting to dismiss it as trolling.
But there’s plenty of juice here for us to discuss.
Are emotions merely defense mechanisms?
“Emotions are merely defense mechanisms to make sure you reproduce.”
From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, what we are today is a result of how we’ve evolved over long periods of time — in order to propagate our geneses, or reproduce.
Some of the traits we’ve passed on over time are adaptive — they help us reproduce. Other traits don’t help, and are considered maladaptive.
Take sugar for instance. Why does it taste so good? Because it’s a burst of energy, and energy is something we need in order stay healthy and live long enough to successfully reproduce.
But is it really adaptive for us to satisfy our taste buds and consume large amounts of sugar? Of course not. Our global consumption of candy bars, sodas, and rich desserts is maladaptive behavior. It damages our health, impairs our chances of living long enough to raise healthy offspring, and increases the chances that we’ll pass on unhealthy habits to our offspring.
We’ve adapted (evolved) to savor the taste of sugar. But in environments were sugar is readily available, and when humans don’t exercise healthy self-control, the behavior becomes maladaptive. We need to evolve such that we consume (the right kinds of) sugar in healthy amounts.
Okay, let’s get back to emotions. Research has shown that emotions are more likely to be adaptive rather than maladaptive. They help us engage in many types of behavior that promote relationships and child-rearing, and overall, keep us alive.
Emotions are here to help us reproduce.
But is that a bad thing?
Let’s put this into perspective. When you bring in the language of evolutionary psychology, you can’t pick and choose, and single out emotion.
Evolutionary psychology holds that all human behavior evolved to help us reproduce, or evolved by way of natural selection. Meaning, if we have emotions in the flesh today, it’s only because it was useful enough to our ancestors — to keep them alive and reproducing (to create us).
It’s human to want to reproduce; that’s how the species has survived.
Saying that emotions are somehow inferior because they merely help us reproduce is like saying that being able to make friends is inferior (which does involve emotion, what human behavior doesn’t?) because it also helps us reproduce.
If you’re good at making friends, your chances of forming romantic attachments are even greater, and then your chances of reproducing also increase.
If you’re good at making friends it’s because your ancestors were, and they subsequently reproduced (that’s why you’re here).
So can’t just single out emotion.
But maybe the point of the comment was to single out being human — as if it’s inferior (to what, being another animal?)
If that’s the case, good luck, because you’re stuck being human.
Do emotions mean shit to people who have no intention of reproducing?
“[Emotions] don’t mean shit to people who have no intention of reproducing.”
Here’s the thing about evolution. “We’re all here what we’re all here to do,” said the Oracle to Neo.
I mean, we’re all here because our predecessors did enough things right to reproduce. We have emotions because they helped in that process.
The people who aren’t interested in reproducing — who presumably don’t want anything to do with emotion — are going to get washed out of the gene pool, from the evolutionary perspective. If dissociation from emotion is maladaptive, it won’t exist forever, again, according to evolutionary psychology.
But who’s to say that those who don’t want to reproduce don’t care about their emotions? Lots of people who don’t reproduce do form romantic relationships. The basis of romantic relationship is emotion, hopefully love.
Do emotions only piss you off for irrational reasons?
“All [emotions] do is piss you off for irrational reasons.”
Emotions can indeed piss you off for irrational reasons. But is that all they can do?
They can inspire you do great things for good reasons, noble reasons.
They can piss you off for good reason too.
It’s good that emotions are so good at getting your attention and pushing you around.
Without your emotions to tell you what information you better pay attention to, you’d be left with few clues and no clue about how to be effective.
Or more importantly, you wouldn’t know how to stay alive, long enough to reproduce.
Are we stupid?
“You people are stupid… Fuck irrational misery, I’d give up rational happiness if it meant I didn’t have to deal with irrational misery.”
Yeah, fuck irrational misery.
Here’s one way to deal with it. Work with your emotions in ways that are rational in order to reduce misery and self-imposed suffering.
Also, “rational happiness” is a bit of an overgeneralization.
Because you’re human, you’re built to associate “happiness” with behaviors and experiences that ensure that you stay alive, form healthy relationships, and engage in many other behaviors that help you reproduce. Whether you actually reproduce is a entirely different matter.
The term “happiness” is a human invention, designed to explain the human experience… which according to evolutionary theory, has and will continue to reflect the psychology of those people who are good at reproducing and passing on their genes.
What is stupid?
Stupid is a matter of perspective.
There are a lot of things about being human that are stupid or far worse.
But how smart is it to deny what you are?
And try to somehow rid yourself of human traits that are designed to keep you alive?
The use of tools have kept humans alive. It’s partly why you’re here.
Here’s one stupid thing to do: ignore the fact that emotions were designed to be incredibly powerful tools.
What do you think? Speak your mind below.
This is the third article in the series “Juicing Negative Blog Comments,” where I respond to real comments left here on the site.
About the Author: Melissa Karnaze founded Mindful Construct to explore the tools of emotions. Sign up for her 10-part e-class on how to work with your emotions, which comes from understanding how your life is your construct.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
It is also worth nothing that in evolutionary psychology a lot of human behavior is described as byproducts of evolution. Take for example music. On the surface, it is hard to say how making music can aid our survival or reproduction, but evolutionary psychologists like Steven Pinker argue that music could be a byproduct (even a “superstimulus”) of our sensitivity to speech (harmony/tone), emotional causes, and even motor control (keeping body actions in a rhythm). You can see a discussion between Pinker and Dawkins about this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIMReUsxTt4#t=3m50s
My point is that not everything needs to be motivated by the crude rubric of survival and reproduction. It’s odd for your commenter to say that emotions are SOLELY for reproduction, when they obviously aid in so many other things that we enjoy out of life. Although, maybe he/she just doesn’t enjoy life? That would make me sad.
Living in a completely reason-driven lifestyle sounds terribly unfulfilling. It is safe to say that, by definition, one can not be happy living this way.
Melissa,
I’m glad you brought up the point about sugar! Everyone needs to read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, or at least familiarize yourself with the thrust of his argument which is basically: excess sugar, flour, and other refined carbohydrates are the cause of modern “Western” disease, which we have been falsely attributing to saturated fats and cholesterol. Check it out.
But I digress…
Yeah, this commenter seems to me to be in a lot of pain. Emotions can be especially painful if bottled up due to societal pressure to do so. I’ve been there and I know what it feels like to have emotions roiling inside with nowhere to go but deeper and deeper down. Men especially are taught early on that emotions are signs of weakness. Politics tells us that we can never have a woman president because she would be too emotional, and like blow up the world or something.
The thing that makes me most sad about George’s comment is that it appears that the Internet may be his only emotional outlet, and hence his vitriol spewed here on this site. I hope that he finds the courage within himself to seek out support instead of beating himself up in this way.
I don’t view his comment as a personal attack, but as a symptom of a painful affliction. I hope he will open up his mind to the ideas on this site so that he doesn’t just become, for the rest of us, an example of what not to do.
George, if you’re reading, with the deepest sincerity, hang in there. There’s an awesome world on the other side of the learning curve of working WITH your emotions, instead of against them.
Hi Steven, yes byproducts are also involved, and are usually considered neutral. I didn’t want to go into that much detail, so thanks for noting it!
My feel from the comment is that George was unhappy to find my article when he wanted to find something that would instead confirm how annoying or inferior emotions are. I didn’t get the impression that he wanted to to hear the other side (since that article commented on was the other side), which is why I turned my response into a new article/discussion.
It is really sad when people leave comments here — insulting emotions — and ignoring what’s written. Because what I see are people lashing out in anger because they don’t know how (or yet want) to cope with the pain.
Hi Cory, I share your perspective on the comment as a symptom of painful affliction and don’t personally feel attacked, but I made the edit because name-calling toward other commenters or readers is not something I want to promote in comments.
The commenter does seem to prove their point about emotions being defensive don’t they?
I do think that emotions are different to thoughts. That’s because they’re emotions not thoughts. It is only a problem for emotions to be ‘irrational’ if we want them to be thoughts.
As you say, I think emotions are a great way to get our attention for what may be very important.
Thanks.
I feel compassion for the person who left you this message. I think he is in pain. It can be so hard to face the pain.