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November 21, 2005

Confused Americans for Truth - Brain-Based Blogging

by Ferdinand T Cat

I'm getting into some informed debate about the Iraq war in the comments, which is nice, but I was struck by a particular pattern that is worth discussing in detail.

In the space of ten minutes, I read that the Iraqis feel the war is going badly, other countries feel it's going badly, and that the American public feels it's going badly.

And that's when it hit me: we're spending way too much time talking about feelings.

Emotions are important. A human's entire life is spent in the pursuit of positive emotions. Although it's the thinking part of your brain that defines your species, it's the feeling part that controls it. This is not a problem if you keep in mind that sometimes feelings can be completely wrong.

Being reality-based is no protection: after all, emotions are real. So, we need a new term to keep us out of the trap of discussing feelings instead of fact.

If you're tired of arguing all the time about how people feel, let your readers know that you're into thinking up solutions, not whining about problems.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat

Trackposted to Braining Out Loud, Don Surber's Brain, Is It Just My Brain?, News, Interesting, Brainy, Obrainatory Anecdotes, The Political Brain, Third Brain County, Brains of Correspondence, MacBrainbury, Right Brain Nation, Jo's Brain, Basil's Brain, and Bright and Brainy.

# At Mon 3:47 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (5) | More Confused Americans for Truth

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Comments

Good point. Feelings are fine if they lead to informed action. Also, thanks for linking to my Open Trackback Party at Bloggin' Outloud. I think I've finally got this OTB thingy figured out! lgp


Posted by: Lyn at November 21, 2005 4:43 PM

Your trackposted links are messed up.


Posted by: Hans Mast at November 21, 2005 6:03 PM

It's fixed now, Hans. Thanks. This was another case of Bruce mixing single quotes and double quotes in the anchor tags. Even as we speak, The Girl Who Feeds Me is slapping him around so he knows not to do it again.


Posted by: Ferdy [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 21, 2005 6:40 PM

The only problem with this post is that, in fact, the only reason we attacked Iraq was that it felt good. I mean, there weren't any logical reasons why we needed to be there: no connection to al Quaeda (Osama's in Pakistan, after all), no WMDs, no way to get the oil as long as the locals could blow up the pipelines, etc. It just felt good to attack a country in revenge for 9/11.

Now that it doesn't feel good anymore, why stay? We were only doing it for the "mission accomplished" thrill, anyway. We no longer have any idea what mission we were trying to accomplish, so why not just pack up & go home?


Posted by: Diana at November 22, 2005 12:23 PM

diana, please change all "we"s in your comment to "I". perhaps you weren't using your brain. just a refresher, we stay until Iraq is a stable democracy, which according to most involved shouldn't be too much longer. (i know, i know, you're probably thinking a couple years is too long, but i don't hear you carping about kosovo and they don't even have their own government yet, may never and we've been there how long?) sometimes there are things worth fighting for that aren't concrete, like freedom.


Posted by: maggie katzen at November 22, 2005 1:13 PM

HTML is not allowed in comments; however, if you put in a raw URL (http://www.somewhere.com/page.html) it will automatically be converted to a link.. Also, it is likely your comment will not appear unless you refresh the page manually after posting it.

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