Reconsider Emotion in the Post-Modern Age

The post-modern effect on emotion is vaguely paradoxical. Emotions are often defined by their inability to be controlled. In a certain sense, an emotion derives its value by how uncontrollable the emotion is. This can express itself in extreme and toxic ways such as valuing our inability to control love and yet not valuing this lack of control when it becomes manipulative, abusive, or even deadly.

This may appear simple to those of the modern mindset, but what about the post-modern mindset which rejects the notion that anything inside of ourselves is outside our control, which includes our emotions. By taming our emotions and placing them under our control we de-value if not completely negate them. Imagine I look at someone dead in the face and say, “I’m angry,” but I say it softly, like a whisper. What’s the point of saying you’re angry, if you’re not going to say how you angry you are? The same goes for any other emotion and why it’s so important to understand how emotions have changed between the modern people and the post-modern people.

When the post-modern mind attempts to enact modern emotions whose value is defined by their inability to be controlled, the post-modern mind will always express this emotion in the most forceful way possible to demonstrate that it has value, because the emotion’s value is directly correlated to how forcefully the individual must express it.

Very few people in the world today who might recognize this phenomenon in outrage culture and toxic positivity, would consider it a positive development in society. Because of this, we should consider the more effective approach of re-imagining the value of emotions to fit the post-modern mindset.

Firstly, this involves recognizing that all emotions are fully within our control. There are schools of thought which already exist that practice this such as Stoicism, yet since none of them are as popular as Islam of Christianity it’s fair to say, there is something about Stoicism which does not connect. I would argue this is because Stoicism can be thought of as rejecting emotional input entirely. This detour has yielded an incredibly valuable term to continue with.

Instead of merely rejecting the non-control system of emotional value and let’s substitute it and suggest the value of emotion is informational. Emotional information is the ability for an individual to discern their emotions from their state of mind and physical reactions. If emotions aren’t meant to affect our actions as some kind of overwhelming call to action then our emotions might instead be meant to provide a sense of chemical well-being. Furthermore it can be theorized that our emotions are meant to affect in an overwhelming call to action our manner of communication.

What is clear in modern society is that we do not have a healthy relationship with our emotions and this has led to a macro-breakdown of our communication systems. The mental health crisis, the political crisis, and the social media culture are three heads of a single deeper issue. We aren’t thinking about our emotions correctly.

This is no small task. It calls for nothing less then a new universal language in which words or tones signify chemical states. This will require to have a sense, perhaps even an objective sense, of our daily chemical well-being. It will require having a language to convey, but thirdly and perhaps most importantly, it requires people giving a shit. In other words, a key driver in communication is that the message is received. This is obvious. Yet, when the message is about chemical well-being, most people don’t want to hear the message. Because of this some people may consider it rude on the communicator to make the choice to communicate it.

Yet, this is how we can finally adapt the notions that animated emotion in the modern sense, the mindset based on emotional causing uncontrollable actions, we can say instead that emotion is the driver of “necessary” communication.

In a simpler, incredibly small sense, emotion is the driver of honesty and that honesty could be measured by a person’s ability to convey their chemical state accurately.

From there, the theory goes that when people can communicate their emotions successfully, there comes an overall positive emotional response. When people become depressed and anxious, it’s likely that they’ve accumulated a series of overall negative emotional outcomes, and according to my theory it probably happens due to their own dishonesty, although of course there are plenty of other factors worth considering. At this point, the theory’s principles are being extended beyond their worth. Speaking of depression and clinical medical terms as a philosopher is bad medicine, and a little speculative.

Yet, if only to bring this full circle, depression, anxiety, and trauma and these extreme emotional conditions are predicted by this theory. It’s part of the concept that we must feel extreme versions of emotion in order to make them real. There’s a line from Rick and Morty where Summer says, “Bitch, my generation gets traumatized for breakfast.” I recognize the truth and the humor because I live here, but there’s no reason I should be traumatized if I compare my life to the majority of human lives lived. I’ve probably outlived 99% of humanity and I’m only 30. I’ve never fought in a war. I have Netflix and 100 years ago they had cholera.

According to my theory, we’ve reached this critical point where the post-modern people have to be the first to say, “We have trauma,” even though we have so much less trauma then every previous generation. We have to talk about it, because we have to be the ones to heal it. We are carrying the trauma of 300 generations of humanity. Every generation before us could bury it away. They didn’t have to talk about it. But we have to talk about it.

But that’s the hardest step. Talking about it is actually great. It’s cathartic and this is the new emotional handbook. The key to happiness is being honest. If you get rejected by a date or something, there’s nothing to regret if you’re honest. If she doesn’t like your honesty, then you should be glad she was honest with you. Thinking anything else would either be deceitful of her or deceitful of yourself. If you recognize some place you came up short and can do better, then by watching the tape and learning from your mistake and being honest with yourself. There doesn’t have to be an endless cycle to be better if you are honest. You can be honest about your limitations. You can accept that people have different standards for themselves. I can have low standards and others can have high standards and we can be aware of our choices enough so that they never become toxic.

I think a great benefit to society can be found in reconsidering emotion for the post-modern age.