We Feel First
And Think About it Later.
Hello friends, greetings from Tuscaloosa, AL. I know some of you are likely going to respond “Roll Tide,” but, as an FSU fan, that will make my soul cry. So try to restrain yourself.
I am here in Alabama because I gave a talk yesterday at Discourse BHM (a wonderful organization in Birmingham that facilitates public lectures and conversations about a variety of topics of importance to our contemporary lives and broader society). If you live anywhere nearby make sure to check them out and attend some of their events! Well, this talk comes on the heels of a talk I gave last week to a company, “International Plastics.” My experiences at both of these events are causing me to think quite a bit today about something I think is impactful on how we navigate the world and our place in it.
Here is the thought: Affect is deeper than cognition (feeling comes before thought). Maya Angelou famously said that people will forget what you say and what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel. She is right.
At each of these talks I did a few activities where I had some of the attendees get up and move around and participate in order then to draw some philosophical lessons. Even the folks who remained seated and watched the others get animated, the volume in the room went up, smiles started brimming on faces, and laughter broke out among many. Despite all the high-sounding words of wisdom (ha!) that my talks contained, if not for these moments of embodied engagement, I am unsure if they would have been very effective (or at least not as effective).
Now, why does this matter? Because we are beings made for relationship. Indeed, we are relational beings. Part of the problem with so much of our thinking today is that it is done in isolation (even when we are surrounded by others). Real engagement wrecks our ability to believe in our own self-sufficiency. Part of what I love about the Discourse BHM model is that it is designed to foster conversation, not just increase public knowledge. But conversation is about being impacted, being moved, being touched. Thinking, as important as it is (and as a philosopher, I think it is VERY important), rarely “touches” us in the same way as relational interaction.
Perhaps the idea of “noli me tangere” (touch me not) serves as something of manifestation of the self-protective insularity that can threaten to happen in our own thinking when we are unwilling to be touched, be moved, be transformed by our interactions with others.
Sure, our relational interaction, our conversation, should involve thinking—and good thinking should prompt more substantive conversation, but what really strikes me as I reflect on these talks was how we often act like “thinking together” is just a matter of coldly offering reasons and objections in the process of truth-seeking. Look, anyone who has read much of my stuff knows how seriously I take the importance of reason-giving as a social virtue. However, we are far more receptive to hearing objections, and more comfortable to giving reasons when we feel welcome, supported, and valued.
At both of these talks (and countless others that I have given around the world over the past few years) lots of folks came up to me afterwards to say a few words before leaving. In nearly every single one of those interactions the people started opening up to me about some of their own story, their struggles, their lives, and their hopes. They do this for a very simple, and yet profound reason, we need to be seen and heard. Often the stuff they say is likely hidden from most others in their lives and yet having been invited to think deeply about what it means to be a vulnerable and relational being who has to decide who to become, they “feel” that they can share in these ways.
I admit that I tend to be pretty resistant to students using “I feel” statements in their papers. I want to know what they take to be supported by the best reasons and so how they feel about things is unimportant. Well, even if I think that is right within the context of a college classroom, my students also come to the office often to tell me about what they are wrestling with in their own lives and why philosophy is speaking to them. I want them to feel that their voices matter, that their ideas are worthwhile, and that their impact on the world is substantive.
One of the great values of existential philosophy is that it appreciates the idea that feelings come first. We are affective before we are reflective.
If we want to change minds, then we are likely going to have to do a better job of inviting people to be moved by what matters.
Amen.
Yes, affective comes first--we feel first--which may be a nice, polite way of saying we judge, evaluate, discern first because we are so conditioned in our culture to compete instinctively, automatically---for example, in one of my pastoral counseling books "Getting the Love You Want", the authors say "your old brain segregates all people into six categories. Is this someone to: 1-nurture, 2-be nurtured by, 3-have sex with, 4-run away from, 5-submit to, or 6-attack. Subtleties such as "this is my neighbor or cousin or mother or husband slide right on by." Maybe this is too negative but in the religion, sports, politics class it was clear folks feelings and opinions and loyalties came before real conversation and dialogue and helpful reflection.