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Is mixing politics with emotion dangerous or at best unhealthy?

Is mixing politics with emotion dangerous or at best unhealthy?


  • Total voters
    14
I hope not. Logic isn't the end all be all. Without emotion, we aren't human.

Emotion makes us human sure, but if we look at politics in the sense that we are voting for men and women to represent our best interests for the country. You would want the good majority of those votes to be pragmatic at the very least.
 
Emotion makes us human sure, but if we look at politics in the sense that we are voting for men and women to represent our best interests for the country. You would want the good majority of those votes to be pragmatic at the very least.

There is a difference between being pragmatic and without emotion. When you take emotion out of the equation, possible solutions to problems like overpopulation would be to just kill off a billion people.
 
Emotion makes us human sure, but if we look at politics in the sense that we are voting for men and women to represent our best interests for the country. You would want the good majority of those votes to be pragmatic at the very least.

I do believe that you can reasonably have both. And when you read the history of the debates taking place during the formation of this political system that we have in America, as well as read letters and diaries from the founders, there was anything but a lack of emotion involved. And to that, I think that Your Star has a point.
 
There is a difference between being pragmatic and without emotion. When you take emotion out of the equation, possible solutions to problems like overpopulation would be to just kill off a billion people.

Not all objectivity and pragmatism leads to eugenics and social Darwinism if that's what you're suggesting.

I do believe that you can reasonably have both. And when you read the history of the debates taking place during the formation of this political system that we have in America, as well as read letters and diaries from the founders, there was anything but a lack of emotion involved. And to that, I think that Your Star has a point.

Not every politician and person in our country is a Jefferson or a Franklin. And even then plenty of the founding fathers were far from these perfect beings many of us try to give them credit for.
 
Not all objectivity and pragmatism leads to eugenics and social Darwinism if that's what you're suggesting.



Not every politician and person in our country is a Jefferson or a Franklin. And even then plenty of the founding fathers were far from these perfect beings many of us try to give them credit for.

Lol, perfect beings. Ok fast forward, you don't think there's any emotion in politics in Washington today?
 
Lol, perfect beings. Ok fast forward, you don't think there's any emotion in politics in Washington today?

I think there's plenty of emotion today. Which is part of the problem.
 
I think there's plenty of emotion today. Which is part of the problem.

Well look about the country and see how Americans are more polarised then ever before. Hell, look about DP. Guess it would make sense we'd see it in Washington too. But, you can't have humans in politics without emotion. Perhaps if we were Vulcans.
 
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Well look about the country and see how Americans are more polarised then ever before. Hell, look about DP. Guess it would make sense we'd see it in Washington too. But, you can't have humans in politics without emotion.

I won't argue that we could ever have a world where politicians and voters are ruled by their hearts more often than their brains. All I am suggesting is politics would vastly improve if we were somehow able to be more rational than emotional when it came to problem solving on a political level.
 
Victim politics is, sadly, the pandering weapon of choice for far too many politicians, officials, and activists.

Anymore, all the panderer has to do is state that some group of people is being victimized and subtly allude to things that get the listener to connect the nature of the alleged victimization to the unresolved family-of-origin mistreatment suffered by the listener and the listener can become thereby seduced into the panderer's "cause".

It's classic manipulation employing a cult-like method, that plays upon the repressed/suppressed feelings of the listener and the listener's unresolved idealization or contempt/resentment toward those they think mistreated them when they were a child.

Everyone, to some extent and degree, has experienced what they believe was unfair treatment when they were a child, treatment that may have indeed also been abusive.

Those harboring contempt and resentment for a parent or someone from their family-of-origin often become the most zealous lieutenants as adults for their cause in this manner, projecting themselves as victims onto the subjects of the issue in the public political arena where they transfer and displace those that hurt them onto "evil" politicians and parties and factions and what have you "who are hurting the poor victims".

Lost in all the acting out is weather there are really any victims at all in the referenced political issue here and now .. and sometimes those alleged by the manipulated to be suffering geopolitical-socioeconomic victimization are actually trying to take unfair advantage themselves, which the so-manipulated are simply thereby emotionally blinded to seeing!

So, I vote "YES" in the poll in response to the OP thread-titled question.

Such victim politics pandering and manipulating is dangerous to the country because it can create an emotional appeal-to-unresolved-hurts mob-rule attitude that doesn't respect justice for all, due process and the rule of law.

And, it's extremely unhealthy for those so manipulated and sucked into the victim politics mentality, as once sucked in, it's impossible for them to effect recovery from the lingering hurts of the mistreatment they suffered as children while they're in the process of acting out their victimization revenge in the public political arena.

Those who haven't healed from childhood hurts end up succumbing to acting them out in their romantic relationships and other relationships as adults, thereby causing often fatal harm to the relationship .. and, they then pass the unresolved hurt onto their children by either behaving in the same idealize-the-mistreating-parent manner toward their children or swinging in-contempt-of-the-mistreating-parent manner to an opposite extreme where they inflict the opposite type of harm upon their children.

When people truly face the mistreatment they suffered as children, often with the help of a therapist and/or support group, and work their program of recovery, all their subsequent relationships are thereby greatly improved over what they otherwise would have been without recovery .. and, they're then considerably less likely to be manipulated by victim politics as well.

Those politicians, factions and activists that play the victim politics card are really hurting everyone, obviously, merely for an easy vote. Manipulating people in this manner is additionally unhealthy for those so manipulated because the authority-validation of the political leader so pandering creates a substantiation to the manipulated person that "I''m doing the right thing by this victimized group of people". Such appeal to authority by the manipulated person serves to keep the so manipulated-into-acting-out person from entering psychological recovery from the childhood mistreatment they suffered because, like an alcoholic must first stop drinking to begin recovery from alcoholism, to begin recovering from childhood damage they'd have to first let go of the acting out in the political arena, acting out which now they're cult-like sucked into compulsively continuing .. some, sadly, for the rest of their lives.

Victim politics is truly very sad for all.

Such victim politics appeal to un-recovered childhood hurts is despicable.

Officials, politicians, activists, all who commit victim politics pandering need to be identified, exposed, and severely reprimanded.
The current poll stands 8-2-3 supporting the reality that emotion-based victim politics is damaging and unhealthy .. as the psychological realities of it quoted above attest.

The victim politics in support of the oxymoronic "gay/same-sex marriage", amnesty and legalization for illegal aliens, abortion on demand, etc., are not only based on cognitive distortions of reality, they greatly psychologically harm those who are cult-like sucked in.

Just say "NO!" to victim politics .. and say so angrily.
 
Some of the most disturbing and tense atmospheres I've experienced is when people worked up about their politics (usually by others) are fearful their their sued is about to lose or has already lost an election. It's the closest thing I think I've seen to mental illness without the people involved actually being mentally ill. Over the top outrage over the supposed positions of the opposition ofter when their political camp did similar things first and they had little to no outrage. Paranoid about an impending doom. Accusations that the opposition is evil. Accusations that those who support the opposition WANT to see the destruction of society. Knowingly making false assertions of supposed moral character deficits of those who support the opposition. Vilification of anyone they do not personally view as wholeheartedly supporting their side including people still deciding which candidate to support. The use of violent metaphors in describing political discourse. In some countries real violence is sadly seen.

I remember a while back having lunch with a group of friends around election time. One of the people in our group casually mentioned he wasn't sure how he was going to vote but didn't buy all the negative hype surrounding one of the candidate. Another guy in the group practically lost his mind and I was afraid he was going to start throwing plates at the restaurant.

Sorry, poll didn't post. Not sure what I did wrong.

Yes
No
Other

Politics IS emotion. That's why they call it 'politics'.
 
I think having some passion about politics is fine, but if it's to the point you can't have a healthy debate, need to calm the hell down and not get THAT passionate about it.
 
If you couldn't make emotional arguments, the libs would never win another election again.
 
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