DYNAMICS OF FEELINGS
The Emoglobe projects invites you to surf on 3 installations of which each represents another dynamic approach of feelings.
448 Adjectives who indicate how somebody feels, are introduced in a sole category and create a dynamic network of feelings.
In the dialectic system feelings are linked with their opposite feelings, on the globe the feelings are placed according their affinity, and in the dictionnary the feelings refer to causal feelings.
INTRODUCTION
As a friend asked my opinion about a story for a zombie movie he was writing: the apathetic, expressionless and unfeeling zombies!, I told him every possible human feeling should be treated. That was the immediate occasion to make an inventory of the category of feelings, to start this work.
Before I had noticed that always the same feelings were mentioned when one described similar (dramatic, social, political or personal) situations, and that in some way those feelings were linked to each other. Did we use a kind of stereotypes while naming emotional situations? Why did a certain situation always remind of the same set of feelings? Did we use a dominant view when judging changing situations? And if the same feelings appeared in certain contexts, obviously linked or indicating to each other, than, was there something like a dynamic system of feelings?
The zombies, of all creatures, pushed me to enter in the mysterious world of feelings, and to make its map.
Dimitry Masyn
1. WHY A PROJECT ABOUT FEELINGS ?
Feelings are personal, of course. They say something about our selves. We can keep them for ourselves. Most of times however one can read on our face how we feel, we walk as open books. If we express our feelings spontaneously, than it is to communicate important information to the community. Feelings are not that personal as we are used to think. An anecdote is personal, one's experience or life story. But feelings, on the contrary, are remarkable revelations or confessions about our personal position or motivation in a social situation. They are the little secrets we share, if we want to or not, in sake of the community.
Feelings are complex. Especially if we don't find or know the words or senses. First of all, it's important to recognize them, and to give them names. If we do that, it's clear that feelings answer different questions at the same time and that they are very functional. Feelings are estimations or appraisals about ourselves, about others, the relationship we keep with them, or the expectations we have.
Our feelings are partly inborn and partly acquired signals. With our feelings, we react in respect of rules, and if rules don't exist yet, feelings will form them at first, whether brutal or sensible. Our feelings do even change the rules as soon as somebody leaves or joins a group of persons.
Since some time psychology accepts that feelings are functional, that they serve to survive physically or socially. That is astonishing, because European classical and medieval literature always has treated feelings in ethics or speaking about the organization of societies. There is no doubt that this social and even spiritual approach stopped because of the influence of Descartes and Darwin. By the severe distinction between reason and passion, Descartes stripped the enlightening qualities of feelings. Darwin than reduced the vocabulary of feelings to 6 basic emotions, so-called emotions that can be recognized all over the world.
The reduced number of basic emotions, which the sciences still use as a standard, are too limited to design dynamic patterns between the feelings and don’t permit them to have plausible meanings. Imagine a novel written with the 6 basic emotions of Descartes (admiration, love, hate, desire, joy and sadness), or the 6 basic emotions of Darwin (fear, abomination, anger, compassion, joy and astonishment) and it’s clear that an infinite number of situations can’t be described. If a language distinguishes far more feelings than these, it’s better to use them all away.
Recognizing that feelings are functional, supposes that feelings are dynamic. The philosopher Spinoza and the economist Adam Smith described both feelings as points of reference. Spinoza created a dynamic dialectics between feelings defining them in pairs of opposite feelings. Adam Smith on the other hand described a feeling as an appraisal of some action in respect of the norm or the rule, and created so a normative dynamic of feelings.
Combining those philosophies, we could define an emotion as a signal that pushes us, as a result of a sudden change of situation, to reconsider the balance between two opposite feelings, and to take a new position in a changed situation.
Maybe feeling have an economic function, to appraise if an action is appropriate, if one has merits for the group, or otherwise, if a group has advantages for the individual. Social education and regulation shouldn’t be possible if there wouldn’t exist some signals that say whether somebody has to adapt in order to survive physically or socially. That is why we have feelings, that is why feelings are personal, and that is whysometimes feel the need to share them with others.
Step by step feeling come back out of banishment. Or, it could be that their emancipation is an illusion. Too much, a person that feels negative is been collated with the negative cause that he wants to signal. If we agree that feelings are functional and give shape to the society, there can’t be question of “bad” feelings. Knowing how to name the several feelings that we can feel is crucial for their emancipation.
2. EMOLOGY : LANGUAGE AND FEELINGS
That feelings communicate important changes, is reason enough to put them central as a category. The approach of feelings in this project is linguistic. The project is handling with official vocabulary, and more specific, it handles with words we use to indicate how somebody feels: affective adjectives.
448 Adjectives have been put together in 3 different systems, which will be introduced and illustrated beneath. The advantage of such an approach is that adjectives are known by every body, whatever one’s cultural and personal experiences. One can discuss the meaning and the definition of word, why and when they are use, but dictionaries generally put a clear and definitive answer to that question. During the centuries, the role of feelings in man’s lives and societies have changed, been explained and interpreted in different ways, but most of the words haven’t changed. Most of those words exist since the beginning of our era. Those words kept the same meaning, and a margin that is always enriches.
Another fence off is that only West-European languages are used. It’s interesting to see how vocabulary can be translated in strange languages. It’s sure that other cultures cultivate feelings which we don’t know, but if the cultural production as books and films, are translated all over the world, there is no doubt that feelings are far more universal than are used to accept.
3. DESCRIPTION OF THE 3 DYNAMIC SYSTEMS
The unique theme of this project is thus the dynamics of feelings and the relationships between the feelings. The numerous words we use to indicate how somebody feels are put in a navigable network.
When we want to communicate our story in a effective way, we always try to appeal the most important feelings. By touching someone’s feelings we can identify and socialize. Turning around the dramatic principle of identification, we can exchange our personal stories using the category of universal feelings.
A. THE EMOGLOBE
On the Emoglobe 448 adjectives are placed according their affinity. On a globe (3D) every point, or every word, has a central position. In that way we can see how feelings are related to each other.
The position or order of the word is such, that every word is surrounded by close but differentiated words. The adjectives form groups of feelings which cross over in each other in all directions throughout the globe.
One can read the position of an adjective in respect to the 3 axes:
* Vertical, from top to bottom, the feelings follow the hierarchy from superior feelings, to equivalent and inferior feelings.
* Horizontal, from East to West, the feelings of attraction oppose the feelings of aversion (0°-180°), and the worthy feelings oppose with the false feelings (90°-270°).
* The diagonal axe, which has been called « the ring of debt », links all the feelings concerning the suspicion, the confession, the regret, the penance, the complaining, the accusation, the reproach and the revenge of debt.
The ring of debt is an important discovery of the Emoglobe. Not only in Christian tradition, but all societies know the feeling of debt. The ring splits the joyful from the sad feelings, as Spinoza did. If one holds the Emoglobe that way, that the ring of debt becomes a horizontal, one will see that the joyful feelings are above the ring, and the sad feelings are beneath the ring. Feeling joyful or sad is more dependant of being discredited by others than having the persuasion that one controls one’s life.
The role of norms in a society and the attitude of an individual in respect to those norms has an influence on almost all the feelings, and that will be stressed and illustrated even more in the dialectic system.
B. THE DYNAMIC DICTIONARY WITH HYPERLINKS
As the feelings refer to each other, to synonyms, to opposite, composed or causal feelings, it is useful to be able to navigate on this links, and to create a dynamic network of feelings.
The definitions of the adjectives are been copied out of official dictionaries, and completed by the definitions made by Spinoza, and some proverbs.
C. THE DIALECTIC SYSTEM
An emotion is a passionate debate between two opposite feelings.Spinoza (Ethics, 1677) has been the first to describe a list of (16) pairs of opposite feelings and to relate them with respective emotional causes.
The dialectic system is composed by 72 pairs of opposite feelings, subdivided in 18 categories of emotional causes. A first group (of 9 categories) has certain relationship between persons as a subject, a second group (of 6 categories) has the definitive or provisory realisation of one’s expectation as a subject, and a third group (of 3 categories) related certain feelings with purely cognitive functions, as imagination, interpretation and the power to decide.
In each category 8 feelings (or 4 pairs of opposite feelings, a negative and a positive) are settled in a schedule that represents the normative theory of Adam Smith, who said that every feeling is a judgement of an action. In every category, the action is indicated as being more (>) or less (<) appropriated in respect to the norm, or, if the action is merited (M) or undeserved (I).
For all those differentiations, a language has particular words. All of the 144 affective entrees taken up in the dialectic system, can be chosen answering 3 to 5 multiple choice questions.