If one can be plucky but silent, then that is what I was at the age of eighteen. It would seem that I always had something to say — so much so that it was evident on my face — “Yes, Sarah?” The professor would ask, without ever receiving the slightest raise of a hand from my direction — and yet, despite this talking expression I had, I was terrified of speaking. I could purse my lips, I could cross my arms, and I could even roll my eyes, but I could not dare raise my hand to speak. My most pressing opinions would remain with me as I left the classroom, lips tightly sealed, if not for a quickly murmured “thank you” on my way out the door. The instructor probably sooner thought a fly had buzzed by their ear, with no one in sight as they turned around to see who or what had made that inaudible little noise.
Thankfully, I have progressed past the days when I would be called on for my expression. Truly: I once was asked, kindly, “Did you want to add something?” And with the brilliance of someone who was desperate not to piss herself, I responded coolly: “Not particularly, no.”
Now, I have begun with this anecdotal story to tell you a completely different anecdote. It was around this time when I was eighteen, and plucky, and silent, that I met my polar opposite: let's call him Dick. Dick was self-assured in a way that made plucky, silent girls like me feel small and insignificant. If the class was asked a question concerning a historical reference, Dick related the event with nonchalance, as though it was an insignificant memory from his own past. When we were asked to offer up an opinionated response, his was, staunchly, the correct one, and one overcome with boredom at such a tedious question. It was not that he gave answers that I wished I had given first, but that he spoke with an arrogance I wished I had been confident enough to challenge because, as my face had made quite plain, I had something to say.
The problem was as Dick once put it: you and I don’t see eye to eye. That was the only thing he and I would ever agree on; we were two diametrically opposed beings, in every way possible. If he was logos, then I was pathos. If I was two plus two, then he was five. I do not believe that either of us did this intentionally, but sometimes it felt as though we did. It felt necessary.
What I will always remember about Dick—aside from the black longline coat and sensible-looking red backpack he has always, always worn—and aside from how many times he insisted on playing, and in fact naming himself the devil’s advocate—is the time our class was tasked with a rant. What I mean by this is this: we were instructed to rant about something, anything, in an effort to exercise the majority of un-talkative voices in our group. Dick, who clearly felt he had been held responsible more than enough times with completing such a task, made an enlightening contribution to the group activity: “I do not like . . . emotion-based arguments”. If you read that quotation with an arrogant sigh, dear reader, then you read that quotation correctly.
It is possible you have met a Dick. It is even possible that you are a Dick. Whichever you are, you have been told or have done the telling that emotions are inappropriate, irrelevant bystanders to one’s argument. They need not get in the way of the point you are making.
Emotion strikes fear in the heart of rationality. What Dick stresses to us is what I shall call: the feeling fear. It is a fear of feeling, though, it is, too, a feeling of fear. Perhaps I write this because I have been afraid of my own emotions lately. I was worried they had gotten in the way of the point I thought I was trying to make; I see now that was foolish of me.
Maybe this is not our fault. We have known to fear our emotions for as long as we can remember. It is written into the instruction “do not use I in your essay” we are taught when making hotdogs or hamburgers in secondary school. “Do not use I in your essay” they told you, because “I” cannot be trusted to remain rationale. “Do not use I in your essay” you repeat to yourself forevermore, because ground-breaking work is born from a universal pronoun, like one. This one is the one who will do all of the arguing from now on.
As we grow, this feeling fear follows us like a shadow. It emerges again in our political worlds where left-leaning groups are often pathologized as being driven by this troublesome thing called emotion. How could we trust emotion to lead a nation? How could we trust emotion to settle our differences? How could we make arguments based in emotion? This is the critical question which the Dicks of the world must ask again and again, paralyzed at the thought of weaker emoting bastards.
The concern at the heart of this feeling fear we are feeling, it seems, is that emotion will get in the way of our numbers. It makes our tidy reality messy and distasteful. Emotions are little lego blocks that children leave liberally on the floor, only for their parents to innocently step on them with their bare feet. Right-leaning groups participate in this scary turn from reality, as well. They do so even as they warn us to beware of these dastardly feelings that creep into our political agendas. How sneaky these emotions must really be!
Emotions can be dangerous—enough to invalidate the presidential campaigns of women, whose emotions are not to be trusted. Enough to make women unreliable character witnesses to their own victimhood. So dangerous, in fact, that our sons and fathers have been taught to cast emotions off completely. So dangerous that they may only pick and choose from a limited range of emotions when the urge to emote is too great to bear any longer.
This family feud may never end, for emotion is the enemy of the golden child: reason. The question I have come to ask myself over the years after parting ways with people like Punkin: Why do we accuse one another of having emotion-based arguments? Why is that an accusation? We seem to be asking emotion to be more like her brother, without considering what she might have to offer to this conversation.
I return again to the logos/pathos analogy that I made use of with my dear friend Dick. Aristotle would tell you not to necessarily treat these as a dichotomy, as Dick insinuated, but to value them equally as the standard for persuasive rhetoric. Indeed, they are two of his three proofs: ethos, the ethics or authority of the orator; logos, the logic or reason; and pathos, the emotion or emotional appeal. Far be it from me to rely on a man to explain my argument for me, but this happens to be Aristotle's area of expertise. So, I reiterate: far be it from me to assert that our discourse can be successful when we leave behind an integral element of rhetorical persuasion.
As much as this is one woman's undying grudge toward her greatest rival, there is something that the feeling fear presents which is worth considering here: “emotion” and “reason” are not synonymous. “Fact” and “feeling” are not words we are at liberty to use interchangeably. This we must remember. And emotions can be dangerous--I am thinking of those red baseball caps, and other material statements bred from dangerous feelings. What I would like us to acknowledge, however, is how these binary words can work together harmoniously; I would like to recognize when they are not working together, too. I would like to consider when it is that our emotions are dangerous, and why it is that we might feel a feeling fear when we feel it.
Edit 07/07/2020: The writer decided to change the pseudonym for her anecdotal character from "rhymes with Punkin" to Dick. Let's just say she had a change of heart.
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