I consider the education of our senses and our emotions rather more important than the education of our ideas.
–Lin Yutang (1895-1976), urbane and charming man of letters who spent a lifetime explaining China to the West.
I am rereading Lin Yutang’s 1938 classic The Importance of Living, and came across this passage, whose relevance to 1938 seems no less than its relevance to 2005.
From The Importance of Living, “On Having a Mind”:
One must never deprecate the capacity of the human mind when dealing with the natural universe or anything except human relationships. Optimistic about the conquests of science, I am less hopeful about the general development of a critical mind in dealing with human affairs, or about mankind reaching a calm and understanding far above the sway of passions. Mankind as individuals may have reached austere heights, but mankind as social groups are still subject to primitive passions, occasional back-slidings and outcroppings of the savage instincts, and occasional waves of fanaticism and mass hysteria.
Knowing then our human frailties, we have the more reason to hate the despicable wretch who in demagogue fashion makes use of our human foibles to hound us into another world war; who inculcates hatred, of which we already have too much; who glorifies self-aggrandizement and self-interest, of which there is no lack; who appeals to our animal bigotry and racial prejudice; who deletes the fifth commandment in the training of youth and encourages killing and war as noble, as if we were not already warlike enough creatures; and who whips up and stirs our mortal passions, as if we were not already very near the beast. This wretch’s mind, no matter how cunning, how sagacious, how worldly-wise, is itself a manifestation of the beast. The gracious spirit of wisdom is tied down to a beast or a demon in us, which by this time we have come to understand is nothing but our animal heritage, or rather it ties this demon down by an old and worn leash and holds it but in temporary submission. At any time the leash may snap, and the demon be unleashed, and amidst hosannas the car of Juggernaut will ride roughshod over us, just to remind us once more how terribly near the savage we have been all this time, and how superficial is our civilization. Civilization will then be turned into a magnificent stage, on which Moors will kill Christians and Christians kill Moors and Negroes fall upon whites and whites stab Negroes and field mice emerge from sewers to eat human corpses and hawks circle in the air over an abundant human feast–all just to remind ourselves of the brotherhood of animals. Nature is quite capable of such experiments . . . .
How can we remedy the situation? The critical mind is too thin and cold; thinking itself will help little and reason will be of small avail; only the spirit of reasonableness, a sort of warm, glowing, emotional and intuitive thinking, joined with compassion, will insure against a reversion to our ancestral type. Only the development of our life to bring it into harmony with our instincts can save us. I consider the education of our senses and our emotions rather more important than the education of our ideas.
If Lin Yutang is right–ask any married couple if you’re in doubt–then how can we cultivate a “spirit of reasonableness”? How can we educate our senses and our emotions?
These questions seem to me much more important than many others now occupying our “thin and cold” critical minds.
I think cultivating a spirit of reasonableness is a tough proposition in our present culture. Just about everything is geared to prevent it, so people who try are considered ‘hippy-dippy’ or ‘peaceniks’ or some other word, used as a pejorative. Or they are considered…
… feminine. And that, especially when displayed by men, is considered a total no-no. And for most anyone in general life, unless they are in the arts, or homemakers or whatever.
Changing the culture or views would require a lot… especially as at least in the US, the country was born in violence and has held that, and all that comes of it, in high esteem. If the violence isnt there, we create it in myth, like the Wild West. And we glorify “good” wars, like WWII, and so on.
Person to person is the only way I see forward. Working in the small spaces, and the big ones, and working to create spaces in our communities. And plan to spend the next few decades doing so 🙂
Interesting topic to think about. Thanks
Oops!
Sorry, Nanette, the post below was meant to be a reply to you.
Nanette, thanks for this very thoughtful response, and thanks to vida, dem in knoxville and madrone for the recommends.
It’s funny, I never thought of the phrase you quote as pointing toward a particularly feminine way of thinking, but of course I see it now that you point it out.
On the other hand, the “emotional thinking” that leads to conflict is decidedly male, according to the same stereotypes.
One of the challenges for me in Lin Yutang’s words is that, whereas the usual prescription is that we need reason to control our passions, he argues that reason is too weak, and that what is needed to control hateful, violent emotions are other emotions that are positive–“a sort of warm, glowing, emotional and intuitive thinking, joined with compassion”–exactly the phrase you quote.
The larger question remains, for me: is it possible for us to make progress emotionally . . . or will we always be scientific geniuses and emotional morons?
Thanks for replying.
Due to the events of the past week, I probably noticed that one part more, ;).
I went to sleep thinking of this question, but unfortunately there were no blinding flashes of wisdom during the night.
I believe it can be done, because if it couldn’t there wouldn’t be the constant pushing against something like this happening. From many religions, politicians and governments, public intellectuals, historians, media, popular culture movies, books, TV, music and so on, there is a constant drumbeat that seems aimed at preventing or retarding emotional progress, and instead directing those emotions into other less productive or reasonable areas.
I may be remembering wrong, but it seems to me that in the late 50’s and in the 60’s (I watched a lot of late night re-runs, also my reference is to shows in the US) there was a period of time when, with some of the male characters even in Westerns, the message they were trying to send was that there was strength in reason, power in avoiding conflict, but if one had to engage in a fight, do it reluctantly but thoroughly. And the rest of it. (It occurs to me, probably later than it has to everyone else, that it’s this type Bush is pretending to be).
I am not at all sure where I’m going with this, but it does seem to me that if people who abhored “positive emotions” and overall emotional/cultural progress along those lines didn’t feel a threat, there wouldn’t be such a concerted effort to make sure it never sees the light of day.
I just happened on this Jane Goodall quotation at http://www.greenstateblog.com/
Howboutdat?