Re: Part 2 (I hate these LJ limits)guntarFebruary 2 2008, 14:51:57 UTC
I don't distinguish anxiety and fear based upon what causes them, but it goes back to Wittgenstein: we have no real vocabulary for emotions because they are not quantifiable. With a colour, you can point to it and say "red" and "blue." What can you do with an emotion? Describing it, I think, is useless--emotions aren't something we can have a precise language for. What is best is to describe a situation in which you would feel the emotion, so that the person hearing the description can say, "Oh, yes, I know what that feels like." Anxiety feels very different from fear. How do I describe that difference? By describing the situation in which I feel it, as opposed to the situation in which I feel fear.
How would I describe it to a being that had a completely different set of emotions? How would I even begin? You, too, described fear with what causes it ("injury, promised or perceived"). You then get to describing fear's function. But none of these actually describe fear itself. What does fear feel like? I know, you know, but what words are there?
Ekman's 6 emotions are not defined by the way people feel, but by a person's facial expression while feeling them. This is a big difference. The way people feel cannot be categorised so easily. I know that my experience of anger has changed completely over my life. I now feel differently when I feel anger than I did 5 years ago. My bodily expressions, however, have not changed.
Our social context dictates how we respond to the emotions we feel, and so whether a society generally feels "fear" or "axiety," "anger" or "rage," "happiness" or "joy" depends entirely on the social context. Asked to draw a picture of each emotion, the answers will change drastically from culture to culture. Imagine the difference between a Taoist's representation of anger and a Norseman's! For the taoist, anger is an evil emotion. For the Norse, anger was a holy emotion, something to be embraced--their culture, with their love of combat and flytings, was designed to put anger front and centre. What does not change is the facial expressions.
Any feeling of any emotion is part biological, yes, but also part social. We cannot divorce any feeling from the cultural context in which we felt it--not unless we wish to define it by its function: "Fear is an evolutionary quirk that survived because it allows people an extra boost of adrenaline when escaping from predators, and prevents people from doing things that are needlessly dangerous." Yes, we can all agree on that, just as we can all agree that anger tenses your muscles so that you look more opposing and are ready to fight. But what else is it? Any time you feel it, you feel it in your cultural context, and the effort to divorce it from that cultural context is impossible. Therefore, I have not tried.
Things are not trans-cultural by nature unless they are defined by their function--which is not any meaningful way of defining a thing, because it misses the thing's essence. What makes things trans-cultural, however, are cultural contexts that are so subtle that a person from a completely different culture can understand them and cross the cultural gulf themselves, and say, "Yes, I see how you think now." The Taoist will not recognise the Norseman's description of anger, but the Taoist may read their myths, and understand how the Norsemen feel because the Taoist, now, is able to feel that.
How would I describe it to a being that had a completely different set of emotions? How would I even begin? You, too, described fear with what causes it ("injury, promised or perceived"). You then get to describing fear's function. But none of these actually describe fear itself. What does fear feel like? I know, you know, but what words are there?
Ekman's 6 emotions are not defined by the way people feel, but by a person's facial expression while feeling them. This is a big difference. The way people feel cannot be categorised so easily. I know that my experience of anger has changed completely over my life. I now feel differently when I feel anger than I did 5 years ago. My bodily expressions, however, have not changed.
Our social context dictates how we respond to the emotions we feel, and so whether a society generally feels "fear" or "axiety," "anger" or "rage," "happiness" or "joy" depends entirely on the social context. Asked to draw a picture of each emotion, the answers will change drastically from culture to culture. Imagine the difference between a Taoist's representation of anger and a Norseman's! For the taoist, anger is an evil emotion. For the Norse, anger was a holy emotion, something to be embraced--their culture, with their love of combat and flytings, was designed to put anger front and centre. What does not change is the facial expressions.
Any feeling of any emotion is part biological, yes, but also part social. We cannot divorce any feeling from the cultural context in which we felt it--not unless we wish to define it by its function: "Fear is an evolutionary quirk that survived because it allows people an extra boost of adrenaline when escaping from predators, and prevents people from doing things that are needlessly dangerous." Yes, we can all agree on that, just as we can all agree that anger tenses your muscles so that you look more opposing and are ready to fight. But what else is it? Any time you feel it, you feel it in your cultural context, and the effort to divorce it from that cultural context is impossible. Therefore, I have not tried.
Things are not trans-cultural by nature unless they are defined by their function--which is not any meaningful way of defining a thing, because it misses the thing's essence. What makes things trans-cultural, however, are cultural contexts that are so subtle that a person from a completely different culture can understand them and cross the cultural gulf themselves, and say, "Yes, I see how you think now." The Taoist will not recognise the Norseman's description of anger, but the Taoist may read their myths, and understand how the Norsemen feel because the Taoist, now, is able to feel that.
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