[Xmca-l] Re: Perezhivanie in the U.S.A! Or, when feelings contradict facts

[Ed Wall]

Perhaps one could make the argument that STEM facts exist independent of feelings, but I am not aware of a convincing argument for the independence of the rest.
    A number of years ago on the Dewey list and during another presidential election a number of list members painted a gloomy future if a certain person was elected and how misled (probably dumb was general consensus) all his supporters were. The election happened - I can't remember who won- and one of the list members - who had been among the more vehement - reflected (he taught philosophy at a large university). He said roughly there is something wrong. I have intelligent articulate students and many presented 'facts' which were in opposition to those I presented. I haven't changed my mind on a number of issues, but I realize I need to carefully consider their 'facts' and reconsider my own. Perhaps there is room for mutual reconsideration (and I might say respect for another's feelings).

       Candidates aside where do we go from here. Regardless the outcome, it is unlikely that you are going to make the other half agree with your sentiments and it is very unlikely that either candidate will fare better and very likely that further polarization will result.

 Ed





Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 29, 2016, at 9:39 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Speaking of perezhivanie, I wonder if we might stop for a minute to
> consider the collective perezhivanie of the U.S. right about now (apologies
> for the U.S.-centric post but perhaps this is relevant across the globe?).
> 
> My guess is that this is where politics (esp. of the leftist variety) has
> failed us most in the last 20 years or so (perhaps long before that but
> I've only known well the past 20 years).
> 
> These ideas were prompted by Jon Oliver's 11 minute piece about the
> Republican National Convention last week:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNdkrtfZP8I
> 
> The gist of the message here is that the Republicans are taking "feelings"
> for "facts" (and hence are delusional and "false-to-facts"). I agree with
> Oliver's assessment (or the part before the parentheses).
> 
> But I also agree with Newt Gingrich's assessment that it is important to
> understand the feeling of the electorate (and if I might add, I think that
> this is the great failing of the Democratic party in recent years - the
> assumption that "the facts speak for themselves" and that "feelings don't
> matter". Is this contrary to a concern with perezhivanie).
> 
> In fact I would propose this as precisely the research question is in
> desperate need of study right now. Namely, how do feelings come to
> circulate so widely? How do they spread like contagion? And what is the
> lifeblood and marrow that supports and sustains these feelings as they
> circulate through the social body?
> 
> Or, more simply, how are feelings constituted?
> 
> I suspect that this happens at different scales. At the broader scales,
> mass media are important for cultivating the particular feelings (in all
> their diversity) of a given historical moment by giving us the "raw facts"
> (note scare quotes!). And big institutions are not insignificant in this
> regard.
> 
> But for feelings to be felt, they have to be lived in the capillaries of
> everyday experience where the exchange of energy happens that animates the
> muscle and sinew of the social body that enables movement of that body.
> 
> It is this capillary action that interests me the most - what are the
> everyday interactions that sustain feelings in spite of facts? What are the
> everyday events and experiences that support and sustain the narratives
> that are put out by various media? (and, to be sure, the media must
> necessarily be responsive to these capillary actions if they hope to
> maintain an audience!).
> 
> So I wonder is this a question of perezhivanie?
> 
> Or does perezhivanie necessarily involve the situation-as-such, what we
> would otherwise call "the facts"? (and in which case, this wouldn't be a
> case of perzhivanie at all but would rather be a case of something
> different).
> 
> (my language is catching me in a web of dualisms here:
> perceptions-of-the-event vs. the-event-as-such (/or "the-event-in-itself").
> Perhaps perezhivanie will be opaque as long as I am caught in this web of
> meaning? In other words, is perezhivanie non-dualistic?)
> 
> I feel this to be an important question for any democracy hoping to live up
> to that name. Without any attention to "feeling," then we run the risk of
> dismissing as delusional a massive proportion of people who live with us on
> this earth (latest polls show Trump trailing Clinton by just a few
> percentage points - is everyone on the political right deluded? Or is Newt
> and others on to something?). Where are feelings now?
> 
> Seems Volosinov is relevant here too - perhaps in helping to link the
> micro- and macro- scales (with apologies to Jay L's slightly different use
> of these terms).
> 
> What do you think, perezhivanie or not?
> 
> -greg
> 
> -- 
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson