As the 2024 Presidential Election drags on, with seemingly no end in sight, emotions are high, critical thinking is low. This is the sad state of our Country nowadays, and it is literally making us sick.
Compromise is a dirty word, and nobody wants to give an inch on what they think is the right way to live. Take the recent negotiations to increase the nation’s debt limit - liberals are mad, conservatives are mad, but right there in the middle are right-thinking people who got the job of goverance done - Thank You, Jeff Duncan - by realizing that, as the Stones said, “you can’t always get (everything that) you want.”
I thought about this dilemma as one of thousands of news releases crossed my e-mail. This one is for a book, “Emotions Don’t Think: Emotional Contagion in a Time of Turmoil,” written by Dr. Bruce Hutchinson. I haven’t read it, these thoughts come from the publicity offering, but are sincere nonetheless.
Dr. Hutchinson explains, “We live in a time when America and the world are facing an invisible enemy. Social and political relations are fraught with turmoil … but turmoil does not come without emotions. Little has been written about the power of toxic negative emotions and emotional contagion in this time of global turmoil. Emotions are usually thought of by analysts as a ‘soft’ factor in politics, when, in reality, they are critical ‘hard’ factors because they cause the turmoil of our times. We need to learn how to handle it to help us adapt to today’s stress. In this book, I use my psychological knowledge to explain how to stem the flow of negative emotional contagion in our current social and political environment. It is important to know how to evaluate an emotion that comes at you in order to decide if it should be acted on as is, tempered, minimized or blocked.”
Of course, there is nothing wrong with getting emotional. The emotional reactions to pictures of the murdered Emmitt Till generations ago spurred the civil rights movement. At that time, critical thinking kicked in, people in positions of power realized this had to stop; and, for a while, it did.
You know, it might be emotionally satisfying to hear our favorite politicians call judges “marxists” and worse, and snap back at reporters, and go at it with television talk show hosts, but ask yourself, Why is this the toxic environment you want to bring into your home? How would your spouse feel under a constant barrage of name-calling; would you want your daughter subjected to rudeness. A neighbor shot a neighbor just the other day, right through the front door, in a Florida neighborhood - the woman who was shot dead’s kids had, again, strayed into the shooter’s yard - and, that was the last straw, the shooter stood her ground. Behind her front door.
Ah, yes, emotions.
Vic MacDonald is Editor of The Clinton Chronicle and a member of the Beckman Mental Health Center board. In June, 2025, he will observe his 50th year in community journalism. Reach him at 864-833-1900.
