Opprobium

When one has a visceral dislike for someone else ... be it a politician, a celebrity or even a neighbor ... then, depending on degree of emotion, one will often amass a parcel of reasons to justify this opprobrium ... many having nothing to do with the original aversion. 

And the same layering of rationales occurs in reverse ... as a result of an infatuation. This suggests that our emotions too often have a leash on our logic ... and this is a flaw that keeps pulling mankind down.

Heart vs. Head

Call me hard hearted, but I am increasingly annoyed by those using emotional images and sounds to get me to do or not do something. Many, many years ago when I was riding the New York  subway, we riders were confronted by a crying baby. I saw myself and others getting increasingly agitated and tried to understand why. I concluded that this angst has been built into our genes from a long time past. When humans were clans living in caves, children were the future of the clan .... meaning it was to every one's long-term survival interest to be concerned if a child was distressed ... so the whole clan responded.

This tropism is clearly used by opinion shapers in our current media. Today I saw a political ad against Trump's immigration policies which included message text and no sound but a crying baby. In the above context, this sappy appeal didn't get my sympathy, it only pissed me off. Just as other heart-strung strumming ads that show shivering (in the winter) or sweltering (in the summer) dogs ... asking for ASPCA donations ... or "starving" holocaust survivors ...  or crippled children ... or etc. piss me off  ... not that these sufferings don't exist ... . but that they are being exploited for gain to others than these sufferers. (The ASPCA had to put that dog out in the freezing cold in order to get it to shiver.)

I guess Democrats really are a party of the heart and Republicans, of the head. All I ask from the phony lefties  and charities is to stop using emotional images and sounds to  get what they want. Appeal to my logic for a change. It is clearly less exploitative.

Fortune Cookie Politics

A long time ago I got a fortune cookie which had the following message: "If your head and your heart agree, you are seldom wrong."  Interestingly, I have had this adage proven correct many times since.  My last post here discussed the Paul Ryan pick for the V.P. slot on the Republican ticket and concluded that it was a decision of the head and not of the heart ... as a Marco Rubio selection would have been.  To me, this had clearly diminished Mitt Romney's chances of being elected President.

The reason that I had thought this is that I believe that the American people too often vote using their emotions and not their logic.  However, seeing the enthusiasm at some of the Romney/Ryan rallies over the weekend, has moved the needle somewhat away from my initial conclusion.  Also, some of the talking heads on television have pointed out that, recently both in liberal New Jersey and Wisconsin, voters have responded to cerebral arguments about the economic futures of their states.  There, they have elected fiscally conservative politicians who have treated them like adults ... and leveled with them about what would happen if meaningful austerity measures were not enacted.  And so, although I still believe that the upcoming campaigns will be over-loaded with emotional vitriol, I now believe that the Republicans may still have an outside chance of prevailing.

Incidentally, the last fortune cookie I broke open said, "If all you do is hope, change is dangerous."