Negative emotions are just fine. I'll be angry if you don't agree.

Proving (sort of) that the cosmos agrees with the theme of this blog post, about an hour ago I finished episode 8 of the fourth season of The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu, which I belatedly started watching after seeing Elisabeth Moss in another streaming series and wanting to see more of her acting.

The Handmaid's Tale, of course, is an adaptation of the dystopian book by the same name written by Margaret Atwood. Women are treated extremely badly in the nation of Gilead, which used to be the United States until religious zealots managed to take over the country, motivated by a precipitous decline in birthrates for a reason I'm unsure about.

Hopefully fertile Handmaids are raped by male Commanders while their wives assist, jusifying this horrendous act on a twisted interpretation of Biblical scripture that says, basically, that if a woman can't conceive a child, it's fine to bring in another woman for that purpose.

By episode 8 in the fourth season, some Handmaids have escaped Gilead and made it to Canada, a country that hasn't been infected with the same virus of religious fundamentalism. Some of these women are having a group therapy session headed up by Moira. June is a well-known Handmaid, the main character played by Moss, who has endured lots of atrocities in Gilead prior to reaching Canada.

Here's a bit of dialog after several women in the group talk about how much they hate the men who raped them, describing how they'd like to get back at them and their wives by, for example, cutting off the Commander's penis and sexually abusing his wife with a broomstick.

Moira: We've talked about this. Anger is a valid emotion. It's necessary, important even, to heal. But we can't live there.

June: Why not? Why does healing have to be the only goal? Why can't we be as furious as we feel? Don't we have that right?

This interchange struck me as being in line, pretty much, with an article I read this morning in the June 8, 2024 issue of New Scientist, titled in the print edition: "The happiness trap: The idea that we should always look on the bright side has gone too far and may now be damaging our well-being." I'll share a PDF file of the article. Here's some excerpts.
Download The happiness trap

Our tendency to eschew the darker aspects of human experience isn’t new, especially in Western societies. Longstanding rules about how we display our emotions have led people to develop strategies to avoid negative ones, says Susan David at Harvard Medical School, who calls this the “tyranny of positivity”.

...Social media and the positively curated images of ourselves we create online add to this pressure to be happy, says Brock Bastian at the University of Melbourne in Australia, who was part of the research team. “When we are not willing to accept negative emotions as a part of life, this can mean that we may see negative emotions as a sign there is something wrong with us,” he says. In other words, with an overemphasis on positivity, we are more likely to perceive normal emotions, such as sadness and anxiety, as signs of a mental health condition needing treatment.

Research by Maya Tamir at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem highlights another reason why excess positivity may be toxic. She and her colleagues studied more than 2300 people from eight countries to explore whether the secret of happiness lies in experiencing more pleasant emotions or, as Aristotle argued, in experiencing the emotions we want to experience.

They found that, regardless of culture, greater mental well-being is linked with feeling emotions that we believe are appropriate to our situation, rather than just having positive emotions regardless of context – “feeling right” as opposed to “feeling good”, is how they put it.

We should be concerned if we don’t feel angry when we witness someone being exploited, for example. Such emotional episodes, while experientially unpleasant, indicate that we are ready to behave in accordance with our values. For Tamir, emotions can be thought of as a toolbox that helps us attain those goals that are important to us.

For about three weeks, ever since President Biden had a horrible performance in his debate with Donald Trump, I've been obsessively anxious about Biden being able to defeat Trump in the November election. I'd pour over the latest polls. I'd pay attention to news about the pressure being put on Biden to withdraw from the race. It was just about all I could write about on my other two blogs. 

I was feeling a bunch of negative emotions: worry, anxiety, fear, plus others difficult to name.

The prospect of Trump getting another four years to wreak havoc on our democracy was hard, if not impossible, for me to deal with. Talking yesterday with friends who are members of the monthly discussion group my wife and I belong to made me feel a bit better, because all eleven of us agreed that Biden should withdraw, as I wrote about in a HinesSight blog post. 

Then the news broke this morning that Biden had withdrawn from the presidential race, shortly before endorsing his vice-president, Kamala Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket. I was so happy! Not totally, because I realized that Harris still faces an uphill battle to overcome the lead Trump has both in national polls and those of battleground states.

But I sure felt much better.

I'd done what I could to put pressure on Biden -- sending messages to the White House asking him to withdraw, contacting my congressional delegation (Oregon's two senators and our representative) asking them to tell Biden to do this, writing blog posts about the urgent need for Biden to withdraw and sharing them as widely as possible.

If I hadn't felt so anxious and fearful about Biden's chance of beating Trump, my motivation to do those things would have been much less. So, yes, negative emotions often have an important role to play. They alert us of wrongs that need righting, of problems that need fixing, of injustices that need overturning. 

Comments

[Ron E.]

Brian’s summation at the end of this blog: - “So, yes, negative emotions often have an important role to play. They alert us of wrongs that need righting, of problems that need fixing, of injustices that need overturning.” I quite agree, it’s apparent that we have obviously been conditioned to believe that some emotions should be suppressed. It’s perhaps not necessary to display such emotions, just need to acknowledge them and if appropriate, act on them.

One of the things that ‘gets my goat’ (irritates like mad) is injustice. Politicians have always lied but lately such lying has been taken to new levels. Here in the UK people seem to have cottoned on to this rising phenomenon of lies and misinformation and have shown their exasperation by overwhelmingly voting out the conservative government. Whether or not the new government will be more open and honest is beside the point – people had become sick of politicians lies and deceits.

It seems that the zenith of such lies and misinformation reached their peak with Donald Trump. He doesn’t seem to be able to speak without lying, distorting and slandering. And it is contagious. He is a master of side-stepping the law; no doubt the fact that he has placed several ‘supporters’ on the Supreme Court will (and has) helped him avoid justice.

What’s amazing is the huge numbers of people he has brain-washed in the process. It’s as though they view his lying and constant misinformation as some sort of strength. His most consistent tactics are to repeat and repeat the lies, so much so that after a while they become accepted as ‘fact’. And sadly, in this time of easy access to information, one only has to click on sites to gain information that justifies his statements, they then become saturated with posts and sites that become more and more devoid of reality.

Sad and annoying times we live in.

[um]

Hahaha ....RON

How came half of the world to speak ENGLISH?
By brutal force

How could there be in the UK an upper, middle and lower class and even an UNDER-class living in slums and slum cities?
By brutal force and ignorance

If you want to understand the "EVIL of wealth" have a look in the UK and its history.

As said, in discussions with the almost forgotten Spencer, I explained that this evil is not that much the evil way how wealth was attained etc but in the suggestion that is attached to it that without that wealth, a living as a decent human is not possible.

Due to the use of brutal power and the lack of information the masses could be controlled but that is no longer possible in these days of localisation and information.

You see those in the slums, have TV RON and what do they say there, day in day out?

An focusing on ever growing wealth for ever smaller group of people and their circumstance deteriorating day by day....that contrast has become unbearable.

Study the fate of the coal miners etc .. loyal, the invested their whole life, their health etc and what did they get in return? Who looked after them when the mines were closed?

It should surprise nobody that the English people one day will revolt as the French did.

Everyday more and more people realize that they are no longer needed, nor wished.
That is against the inborn drive of survival.

[Ron E.]

Trumps at it again, unnecessarily stirring up more conspiracy theories. A news item states: - This time he aims a conspiracy rant at Joe Biden. Trump, a convicted felon who stands accused of trying to overturn a presidential election by inciting an angry mob to storm the U.S. Capitol took to social media late Sunday night to accuse President Joe Biden of representing a "threat to democracy." Former President Donald Trump shared on Truth Social his latest "conspiracy" theory against his political opponent who announced Sunday he would withdraw from the 2024 presidential election. "Biden never had Covid," Trump wrote. "He is a threat to Democracy!"

I get um’s point regarding today’s access to information: - “Due to the use of brutal power and the lack of information the masses could be controlled but that is no longer possible in these days of localisation and information.” Yes, this is true, but today, more subtly, people are being controlled by barrages of misinformation. It is a sad fact that some platforms of social media have got out of control and misused by people like Trump who uses social media, his meetings and any other means to scatter misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Millions of people across the world are suffering from the effects of global warming – not to mention the natural world with the destruction of habitats and eco-systems, yet according to those who seek only short-term benefits there is no global problem! I can see that in the distant future only those who have the wealth and power will be able to comfortably ride-out any catastrophe, the rest of the human race being expendable. What irritates the hell out of me is the conniving, self-promulgating manipulators that have no conscience about how and who they deceive.

Social media – a potential source of good – that has been usurped by either ill-informed people and/or those who use it to maintain their own ego driven desires, really needs to be moderated. But of course, who can be trusted to do the moderating?

[sant64]

Sometimes anxiety and fear are signals there's something wrong with the world.

But that's not always the case. Quite often, anxiety, fear, and anger are signals there's something wrong with us. Signals that what we're angry about isn't the problem. Rather, we are the problem. Our anger is then nothing more than a symptom of our frustration in not having our way. We usually think that our anger is founded on our sense of justice and concern for the world, but this is just the braying of ego in its demand to be in control.

As per this presidential election season, I'd think a progressive would at the very least want Joe Biden out of the race given his blatantly obvious senility. That's leaving aside the horrible performance of the Biden admin these last 4 years, a performance so inept that it resulted in the most abysmal poll numbers seen in ages. This is the leader of the free world we're talking about. If someone is angry that a senile failure won't be POTUS for 4 more years, I gotta believe that anger has to be founded on something apart from actual concern for the commonwealth. I'd strongly suspect it has to be based on little more than personal dislike of a politician's personality.

No denying that both Biden and Trump have personality problems. Speaking for myself, if I had to choose, I'm much rather live next to the guy who dated a porn star than the guy who let his dog bite his employees on 24 occasions yet did nothing about it.

I simply want a president who will do a good job as president. Trump did a good job in his first term. Biden did a bad job in his sole term. The choice then is easy. There's nothing to be angry about.

The larger point is that my opinions and choices really don't matter. That's because we live in a democracy of sorts, which means the people get to choose their leader. If I truly respect American democracy, then I won't fear what the people's choice will be.

Some people are just party lines all the way, like satsangis of whatever guru. I don't understand that thinking. I lean conservative, but I never had a problem with Clinton as president. Same with Obama, who bored us all for 8 years but performed with competent mediocrity. I had no use for GW Bush, foremost because of the utter travesty of the Iraq war, which I was against from the beginning. When Trump became president in 2016 I admit to being pleased, mostly because forces both left and right were against it..yet he won anyway! This demonstration of real democracy in action warmed my heart. And despite epic headwinds from both the left and right, Trump in my estimate did a great job as president -- no war, progress in the Middle East, great economy, low inflation.

And yet, despite Trump's A- performance, a certain segment of the public is mesmerized by his personality and spends most of their waking hours thinking about him, and angrily declaring to all who will listen that Trump will somehow kill America.

These people are angry all right, but their anger seems rooted in their distaste for Trump's personality, and not his actual job performance as president, or in his ideas for America's future.

[sant64]

How about sending some message to the White House demanding that Biden do what he should have done 9 days ago -- fire Director of Secret Service Cheatle.

The Secret Service allows a shooter to a rally -- complete silence from Cheatle on all questions before Congress.

The nation is in complete bipartisan agreement that Cheatle should be fired for her obvious gross incompetence -- and complete silence from Biden on this. Cheatle stays in her job. Biden won't even comment.

Wow, how that Trump hatred informs every decision the Dems make.

A former president and a leading presidential contender is shot in the face at a rally, all evidence shows the SS passively let this happen, and all they have to say about that is "it was just a bit of his ear, no big deal."

The people who are constantly saying care about democracy should realize that, whoever is in office, we most definitely won't have a democracy if we put our political opponents and their underlings in prison, or worse, give them shit security protection.

[umami]

"in discussions with the almost forgotten Spencer..."

Where did he go? I hope I didn't hurt his feelings somehow.

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

ok. about the anger thing..

This time I do agree with you.

[Appreciative Reader]

Yep, anger's called for at times. When you see your nation, that you are immensely proud of, when you see your dear nation hijacked by a bunch of low hypocrites and self-serving lowlifes, and led by a truly vile creature, the vilest to ever crap on the highest office in the land; and supported and enabled by a bunch of inhumanly stupid and completely amoral and entirely dishonest lowlife supporters: then it is good and right to be very, very angry. In that anger lies the hope that you may yet snatch your beloved homeland back from the clutches of these lowlifes.

It was a treat to watch Kamala Harris's address. She lays it on like good, real good. Clearly called out the sexual predator Trump, the fraudster Trump, the serial cheater Trump, the foul lowlife Trump. Clearly contrasted the criminal and felon Trump, and her own diametrically opposite role in her professional capacity.

Given the vileness of Trump, you can't be civil and diffident and respectful always. Apart from seriously addressing the more serious issues, the US sorely needed someone who can whip Trump's vile fat orange ass every once in a while. And now there's someone with the balls to do that.

Biden is an honorable man. He stepped down --- something the greedy self-serving Trump can never even imagine doing. Here's hoping that the US, and by extension and in some measure the whole world, can yet be saved from descent into dystopia.

There's hope still. For all of us.