Hey Doyle! I wondered where you'd been.
>This is a call to reason by Kelley...
Well, that's really quite generous of you Doyle.
> In responding to Nathan, Kelley writes about
shame and >guilt as tools to work on class
>consciousness
Well, not really. It was a bit of heuristic device, but I think it does have some utility, now that you point it out. Though, I'm surely not going to waste my time writing a marxist tract proclaiming how that would be so. :-)
>In this case Kelley uses moral statements which
on their face hardly have any connection to
>reason in the sense of logic. This is so,
because if I acted for reasons of shame I clearly
would >not be just "reasoning", but relying upon
my precondition of how I feel about a situation.
Whereas >the reason is supposed to give choices,
and plans in sensory >details minus the "bias" of
shame >and guilt.
Emotions aren't merely physical responses located in the thalamus or wherever. Emotions are socially constructed responses to experiences, which is to say--we learn how to feel love, hate, guilt, shame, sadness, happiness, whatever in certain sorts of ways There may be a humanly shared physical basis to those emotions, but people have 'cutlure' -- frames of interpretation through which we come to understand what those physical sensations are, how and whether to respond and give meaning to them.
>When the feeling system arising out of the
thalamic circuitry at the base of the brain, is
cut away >from the frontal lobe, most logical
responses seem intact, except where the ability to
judge ones >self interest occur. An example would
be that a person no longer can play a card game
which >requires some foresight, and planning to
gain advantage and win by >obvious strategies
You could do same--'unpplugging' the ability to strategize ahead in it's 'self-interest' --to a computer. Are humans merely number crunching computers Doyle? Self interest is in scare quotes because it is a culturally prescribed way of interpreting how to play a game and what the goals are. But anyway....
>There is a significant problem with Kelley¹s
approach.
Yes, that would be because SnitgrrRl doesn't buy into the behavioral psychology lark, nor do I think that neurophysiology and neuropsychology are adequate bases upon which to construct an understanding of how society, and people in society, operates. It's all stimulus and response. Scary.
>We do not think with feelings....Rather I say
feelings are experienced as intensities without
>conscious thought, and conscious thought is
applied to feeling to "understand" what feeling
>means.
Give Arlie Hochschild's _The Managed Heart_ a read. Feelings aren't separate from conscious thought and they surely aren't separate from morality. In her study, she talked with people who'd undergone intense experiences--like the death of a loved one--and found that they didn't always feel sadness and, in fact, had to consciously think about and mobilize themselves to feel sadness because they had *learned* that they should feel sad. This had nothing to do with the closeness of the loved one or whether they *really* loved them, so nix that objection. The other day my son caught a catfish and we sliced it's "throat" and I felt sadness, though only a moment before I was happy as can be as I watched my son struggle to get that fish ought of the water as it wriggled mightly to escape its fate. Not that it actually knew what was coming mind you. I was happy we caught it and would soon kill it. Moments later, I was sad too. Got grossed out later as I watched it's catfish whiskers wriggle in post-death response. Had a couple beers. Couldn't bring myself to eat the dang thing either. Went shopping the next day and wondered if Frances was right that fish is cheaper and so looked at the whole fishies in the seafood case. Didn't feel much of anything, except disappointment that the fish wasn't all that cheap. But it did look like it might taste good, even the whole ones that I hadn't killed myself. Why can I bring myself to eat the Publix fish and not my son's? And I was hungrier--had a stronger physical sensation the evening we caught the fish, than the evening I went shopping. Weird, ey?
> So shame is a name applied to a feeling, but we
don¹t know if Kelley is right to make such a
>response to Nathan. To be clear, feelings are
>outside the neo-cortex system where reason
>occurs, and interacts with reason to supply the
means to evaluate plans. Feelings themselves are
>not reason. Any word like shame >is a thought,
not a feeling. And Kelley is relying upon reason
to >describe feelings as a >strategy to use either
in >buying wine, or dealing with working class
>students.
You've attributed something to me above that's just not the case: that I think it all 'feeling' and then have assumed that I buy into some neuro-pysch explanation of feelings that are somehow outside of society and in some physical place in the body dominated by brain functions outside of our control. Not the case. Worse, you think that neuropsych is the only way to explain feelings and the capacity for reason. Not the case, for me.
>We in fact have no idea if guilt and shame refer
to two different >states of feeling within the
brain
Shame and guilt don't reside within the brain. Physical responses may occur there --and how exactly do you *really* know what you're studying in neuropsych research anyway Doyle. But anyway, feeling/emotion doesn't reside in the brain or any other part of the physical body. They are culturally defined responses that are "learned" I drew on these terms as hueristic devices because I figured that Nathan could understand what I mean since they are culturally shared categories. Of course, within this particular group (LBO) and within the broader academic community, there is some contention as to the usefulness of these categories for marxist thought and, of course, in more mainstream science, there is contention as to their usefulness for understanding human behavior (e.g., the sociobiologists v. the more social constructionist theorists, but anyway).
A couple of reasons, aside from the marxist objections, why I think the neuropscyh/sociobiology argument is a problem:
Firstly, feelings/emotions don't reside w/in the brain exclusively. (Again the cultural frame of interpretation is required in order to give physical sensations meaning.) If feelings resided exclusively w/in the brain, then we'd see shame and guilt exhibited by three year olds in this society. We don't see that. We teach our children how to interpret themselves as feeling shame and guilt, because we interpret them as having those feelings. We teach them how, partly because we expect them too and hold out normative explanations that they should. (More, technically, the distinction is not one that an ordinary person might make. Rather, the distinction is made by neo-freudian psychologists interested specifically in moral development) As long as you want to see feelings/emotions as existing outside of the social, then you *will* indeed think I'm confused.
Secondly, perhaps a 'scientific' study will be helpful, since these seem to be the terms upon which you prefer to evaluate the worthiness of theoretical understandings of the social; I don't generally agree b/c so much marxist and feminist work has shown that 'science' --as the folks who do neuropsych understand it--is bound up w/ and works in tandem w/ capitalism. Rationalist science, in other words, is ideology.) In the study of drugs, we know--we have scientific experiments which "prove" if you will---that people's emotional responses to drugs are contingent on an interpretive framework which enables them to understand themselves as being high, tripping, having a spriitual experience, etc. There is, of course, a general physical response to a drug but that response has little meaning until a person knows what that drug is and what it *means* --which is to say, how the person understands what s/he is *supposed* to feel, experience, etc There are several experiments that have shown this. One group is given pot though they don't know it. They didn't get high, even after several doses. Instead, the described a generalized sensation which they described variously as dizzy, light headed, floating and the like. Another group was given pot and told it was pot and they did get high in the conventional sense, that is as we culturally understand what one is supposed to feel when getting high in this country. A third group was given a placebo but told it was pot--nearly all of them got high too.
Oh and I'll let Joe Noonan tell you about a third objection to sociobiological arguments which suggest that sexual orientation--desire (an emotion) -- is determined by brain functions.
>Instead the reference to shame and guilt are not
about feelings, >but about taking moral >stances
in >the world and using these stances >to advance
working class interests.
EXACTLY. But since I don't agree with the feelings-reside-in-the brain argument and since I would argue that feelings are socially constructed, then the argument is that because we must learn to be moral beings then morality is very likely bound up w/ emotions which we must also learn how to experience in meaningful ways. See above discussion of feeling sadness as a loved one's death. Take a look at the lit on feral children. They don't have emotions because they grew up in a nearly humanless environment.
> Moralism is rightly rejected >by Marxist. This
is so because we >do not want people to >as
>Kelley >writes:
Actually, morality/ethics is NOT rejected by ALL marxists. It really depends on what you *mean* by morality and ethics. If you think morality and ethics reside in the individual, then you ignore the politicized character of morality/ethical thought.
>Moral stances require intense feelings.
As do political stances
>Thou shalt not kill.
This is also a poltical stance is it not? It is an ethical-political declaration that really depends on the social context, now isn't it. Of course you should kill. It really should read, thou shalt not kill other right-thinking Christians. Because lawd knows that you SHOULD kill animals. Because lawd knows animals aren't right thinking Christians. Though they're created by the hand of god, they're made for people to eat--if you're a Christian that is. And lawd knows that you SHOULD kill fags and abortion supporters and maybe even a commie or two. Because lawd knows they is the work of the Devil himself and sho'nuf they surely aren't right thinking Christians, ey Doyle? I use those examples 'cause I know you HATE these folks, want to strangle them sometimes even.
> Arithmetic rules and mathematical expression
have no comparable moral meaning >(though it is
>clear that mathematicians can feel deeply about
math),
But Doyle they do. If someone were to run around completely violating mathematical rules on a daily basis, I would eventually be sent to an asylym. Say, if I were to buy groceries tomorrow and I didn't follow mathematical rules and followed those of another system altogether and tried to say that my thirty dollar basket of groceries was worth a buck, the cashier would get pissed, angry, upset, sad, annoyed, happy, digusted --who knows?? She might feel sad that I'm probably crazy and she's learned to feel sad toward crazy people rather than anger. Now, if I tried to give her $100 bucks for those same groceries, she'd feel shock, concern, pleasure, or maybe anger that I didn't understand the mathematical rules that she utterly takes for granted as the 'way things are'
Arithmetic rules aren't natural. They are socially constructed and depend on socially shared norms and ideas about how to count and measure and they are by no means universal to all societies. Some societies, for example, have no notion of time in the way we count seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, etc. They don't know how old someone is or when something happened in their past, though the story of that past is extremely important to them, the rest of it doesn't matter to them. So this math stuff has to go. Mathematical rules about counting and measuring are contingent on a certain kind of socio-historical formation that encourages (prescribes) people to follow them and punishes (proscribes) people when they don't.
Even Western Europeans only a few centuries ago had no set, reliable system of measures. Seems pretty damn illogical on our view. But this is why Weber and his followers have shown how a system of rational accounting that measured things in very precise ways --prescribed and proscribed and increasingly accepted by the wider society--was crucial to the development of capitalism
>they are neutral feeling, because moral stances
cannot arise from rules which do not cause
>intense feelings in humans.
Furthermore, I reject the idea that thought or reason or whatever you're calling it is akin to or derives from or is reducible to mathematical logic. There is no "proof" of this assertion on your part either.
> Moral stances work to the extent they do because
we cannot >separate >feelings from >reason. >But
what Kelley misses is >summarizable this >way;
>Morality requires adherence to rules married to
intensities, but >rules arise not from >intensity,
but >the expansion of the frontal >lobe activity,
which in turn requires the lowering >of intensity
of >feeling, .just try thinking in a major
depression for instance.
<Shudder> You know, if taken to it's logical extreme this would probably mean that if we could discover some drug that expands frontal lobe activity then we could--voila--magically turn everyone into supporters of boycotts, marxist revolution and the like. But honestly, Doyle, so what that the frontal lobe expands in order to learn. The point is: learn what? Learn that the yummy seed is always behind a blue lego know matter where it is in the puzzle, like I saw a bird learn on the teevee the other day. They even had a squirrel that learned to water ski. I said: oh how stupe, they taped the poor squirrels to the boat and the skis. They probably don't want to do it, poor things. And my friend said: No, they like it. The squirrels get excited when they see the boat and skis. Well, both of us, silly people that we are , attributed human emotions to squirrels (because in our society--and perhaps particular subcultural group *learned* to anthropomophize animals) whose frontal lobes probably expanded at some point in order to learn how to water ski or, at least, learned that they would get some yummy treat once they were done. But squirrels--at least we don't know for sure--don't have human emotions in the way that I understand them and they sure as shit don't attribute the same kind of feelings to the experience of being taped to a boat and water skis as a human might. Frontal lobe expansions, indeed.
Anyhoo, people *learn* what's right and wrong in the societies within which they live. So, people learn to be fag bashers and anti-abortionists and anti-communists. They also learn to become g/l/b/t rights suporters, abortion supporters and communists.
When you can show me that "depression" is something that is experienced by people in all societies throughout history, then I *might* believe you. And, yes, I've been severely depressed in my life after a divorce combined w/ a death in the family. I could think--thank you very much--sometimes in such rational ways that it actually scared me. (Maybe I should have responded with pleasure that I was being so rational. I don't know) I can also remember thinking that I *liked* being depressed and didn't want to stop. Your interpretation of depression which I've encountered on BAD is biased by a highly non-marxist behaviorist medical psychiatry. (I don't normally like to play the I'm marxist/you're not game, but you seem to, so I'll play. )
SnitgrrRl