If we are all just steam boilers then letting off steam is obviously the right thing to do. But we are not steam boilers. We are human beings.
Temperance, best translated from the Greek as Self Control, is one of the Cardinal Virtues, making the top four list. Good parents team their children to control their emotions through a process of love and discipline, taken together. Temper tantrums in the bedroom with the door locked are neither a sign of success nor likely to result in same. We are to control our emotions by controlling ourselves. Getting there may require instruction and discipline alloyed with love. When a society loses that skill it will produce wild animals who can control neither emotion nor the urge to act on them.
I've always been curious as to the human connection to steam boilers. I can see the roots of the phrase during the industrial revolution, but it is certainly interesting that the analogy has been taken so far...
I greatly enjoy Classical Wisdom...thank you for all your effort (Good on ya, Anya)! But I take (friendly) exception with your summary of Plato's take on emotions: "These ideas were in direct response to Plato... For his teacher, emotions should be avoided at all costs. In an ideal society, the good life required total domination of reason over the emotional parts of the soul."
The Republic is not about an ideal society, but about an ideal standard for us all to strive toward in developing a just and healthy Psyche:
"A pattern, then, was what we wanted when we were inquiring into the nature of ideal justice and asking what would be the character of the perfectly just man, supposing him to exist, and, likewise, in regard to injustice and the completely unjust man. We wished to fix our eyes upon them as types and models, so that whatever we discerned in them of happiness or the reverse would necessarily apply to ourselves [472d] in the sense that whosoever is likest them will have the allotment most like to theirs. Our purpose was not to demonstrate the possibility of the realization of these ideals.” (Republic 472c-d) ((all quotes herein are from the Republic, save one))
He did not advocate complete domination and avoidance of emotion, but integration of the parts (epithumos, thumos, and logistikon) of the Psyche with emotions (thumos) being moderated:
Moderating anger at 572a: "and when he has in like manner tamed his passionate part, and does not after a quarrel fall asleep with anger still awake within him, but if he has thus quieted the two elements in his soul and quickened the third, in which reason resides, and so goes to his rest, you are aware that in such case he is most likely to apprehend truth, and [572b] the visions of his dreams are least likely to be lawless.
Integration at 586c:
“So, again, must not the like hold of the high-spirited element, whenever a man succeeds in satisfying that part of his nature—his covetousness of honor by envy, his love of victory by violence, his ill-temper by indulgence in anger, [586d] pursuing these ends without regard to consideration and reason?” “The same sort of thing,” he said, “must necessarily happen in this case too.” “Then,” said I, “may we not confidently declare that in both the gain-loving and the contentious part of our nature all the desires that wait upon knowledge and reason, and, pursuing their pleasures in conjunction with them, take only those pleasures which reason approves, will, since they follow truth, enjoy the truest pleasures, so far as that is possible for them, and also the pleasures that are proper to them and their own, [586e] if for everything that which is best may be said to be most its ‘own’?” “But indeed,” he said, “it is most truly its very own.” “Then when the entire soul accepts the guidance of the wisdom-loving part and is not filled with inner dissension, the result for each part is that it in all other respects keeps to its own task and is just, and likewise that each enjoys its own proper pleasures and the best pleasures and, [587a] so far as such a thing is possible, the truest.”
Moderation at 603e:
When a good and reasonable man,” said I, “experiences such a stroke of fortune as the loss of a son or anything else that he holds most dear, we said, I believe, then too, that he will bear it more easily than the other sort.” “Assuredly.” “But now let us consider this: Will he feel no pain, or, since that is impossible, shall we say that he will in some sort be moderate in his grief?” (metriasei de pōs pros lupēn, metriazōto be moderate, keep measure) “That,” he said, “is rather the truth.”
This is very much like the biblical quote from Ephesians 4:26: "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath."
In other words, there is a difference between having an emotion (be ye angry) about something or someone that you truly love/care about (which is inevitable unless you are a sociopath), and acting (or not) on the impulsive part of it (and sin not). But to suppress (or worse, repress) it is to cause yourself a build-up of anxiety and irritability, also known as the fight or flight response, which can lead to all kinds of physical and social problems. Unfortunately, most people (including many mental health professionals) don't know the difference between the physiology of anxiety and the physiology of a true emotion, so they think anger is bad when it's irritability that is bad and interferes with our rational part (so we don't think or act reasonably), causes tension in our body and impulsiveness, resulting in a myriad of behavioral and health problems.
So we should not "let the sun go down" on our wrath (or grief), but process or experience it. To experience an emotion means to be cognitively aware of it, physically experience it (power and heat in anger, pain and urge to cry in grief), and be aware of the impulse to act in some way. We can be relaxed and experiencing all of this and be truly aware and in control of our self, then decide what, if anything, further we should do about it. The emotion will pass either way if experienced, whether there is any other action worth taking about it.
Now Plato wasn't aware of useful biblical quotes or effective modern psychotherapy techniques, but he laid the foundation quite well all those years ago.
At 604b he talks about integration, moderation, and true Psyche-therapy, which is potentially within our control, and (mis)Fortune (tukhas), the things outside of our control (clearly much of this used but muddied by the Stoics):
“The law, I suppose, declares that it is best to keep quiet as far as possible in calamity and not to chafe and repine, because we cannot know what is really good and evil in such things and it advantages us nothing to take them hard, and nothing in mortal life is worthy of great concern, and our grieving checks the very thing we need to come to our aid as quickly as possible in such case.” “What thing,” he said, “do you mean?” “To deliberate,” I said, “about what has happened to us, and, as it were in the fall of the dice, to determine the movements of our affairs with reference to the numbers that turn up, in the way that reason indicates would be the best, and, instead of stumbling like children, clapping one's hands to the stricken spot and wasting the time in wailing, ever to accustom the soul to devote itself at once to the curing of the hurt and the raising up of what has fallen, banishing threnody by therapy.” “That certainly,” he said, “would be the best way to face misfortune and deal with it.” “Then, we say, the best part of us is willing to conform to these precepts of reason.” “Obviously.”
Thanks for the stimulation and forum to respond in.
I think the best response to your question would be to first online what emotion is and what it is not. To be brief, as outlined by Socratese/Plato, there are three parts to the human psyche: reason (logistikon), emotions (thymoeides), and our animalistic nature (epithymetikon). If our emotions are suppressed or led by our animalistic nature, such that of desires, we fail in everything.
This part of our psyche that is associated with emotions, cab be seen as a necessary but potentially disruptive part of the human psyche. The challenge is often to balance and harmonize this aspect of the soul with the rational soul, (logistikon) guiding emotions with reason. By doing this we will succeed in everything.
This is extremely important for us to contemplate. Understanding our own emotion is key to guiding it with reason or desire. A choice we face daily!
Geeze, just seen all my misspellings. I need an to get an editor or wear my reading glasses. Anyways, to me catharsis woukd be like someone whose emotions were led by desires- then changed to the higher mind/ reason/ logic leading thier emotions. Easier said than done
I've been known to wear some emotions on my sleeve, as well as kept some bottled up, due to the impact of an emotional outburst. Take grief, a potent emotion of the most persistent and hardest to control, but never truly overcome. I personally internalize my grief, gathering the memories of the past to fill the void left by the loss. I grieve in private to gain emotional control knowing a time to share grief will come as a release and relief.
One must recognize emotions are born in the subconscious before breaking through to our conscious intellect and physiology, and must not be allowed to run amok least we breakdown under the weight of the emotion.
I beg your response, why does grief's impact become a life long struggle for some? Is it because one doesn't have coping skills, or is it as simple as denial?
I'm not sure to be honest. We've done a few events on the topic and it's always been very thought provoking. Cicero certainly had plenty to say on the topic...
Interesting question, and it certainly is a matter of opinion. Here is mine. I see emotions as neither good nor bad in themselves. They are the result of our human nature and the environment in which we find outselves. Uncontrolled emotions however can lead to uncontrolled actions which may create undesirable results. I think we should see if our emotions reflect our values, before we act on them. Emotions can be positive when they incite us to act to make a better world, but that raises the question what is a better world, which would be the subject of a new discussion. Personally, I have never been affected by catharsis from theatre or a film. However, the emotional impact of a crowd can be powerful, and I think we should be very careful here. As for showing our emotions or not, I think that is a matter of custom, termperament, or taste, and is not easy for an individual to change.
It's interesting what you say about the emotional impact of the crowd.. this is certainly a function I'm sure people have taken advantage of for nefarious means. It would be worth discussing the social need for controlled emotions, especially in dramatic times.
If we are all just steam boilers then letting off steam is obviously the right thing to do. But we are not steam boilers. We are human beings.
Temperance, best translated from the Greek as Self Control, is one of the Cardinal Virtues, making the top four list. Good parents team their children to control their emotions through a process of love and discipline, taken together. Temper tantrums in the bedroom with the door locked are neither a sign of success nor likely to result in same. We are to control our emotions by controlling ourselves. Getting there may require instruction and discipline alloyed with love. When a society loses that skill it will produce wild animals who can control neither emotion nor the urge to act on them.
I've always been curious as to the human connection to steam boilers. I can see the roots of the phrase during the industrial revolution, but it is certainly interesting that the analogy has been taken so far...
Some things are timeless🤣
Dear Anya,
I greatly enjoy Classical Wisdom...thank you for all your effort (Good on ya, Anya)! But I take (friendly) exception with your summary of Plato's take on emotions: "These ideas were in direct response to Plato... For his teacher, emotions should be avoided at all costs. In an ideal society, the good life required total domination of reason over the emotional parts of the soul."
The Republic is not about an ideal society, but about an ideal standard for us all to strive toward in developing a just and healthy Psyche:
"A pattern, then, was what we wanted when we were inquiring into the nature of ideal justice and asking what would be the character of the perfectly just man, supposing him to exist, and, likewise, in regard to injustice and the completely unjust man. We wished to fix our eyes upon them as types and models, so that whatever we discerned in them of happiness or the reverse would necessarily apply to ourselves [472d] in the sense that whosoever is likest them will have the allotment most like to theirs. Our purpose was not to demonstrate the possibility of the realization of these ideals.” (Republic 472c-d) ((all quotes herein are from the Republic, save one))
He did not advocate complete domination and avoidance of emotion, but integration of the parts (epithumos, thumos, and logistikon) of the Psyche with emotions (thumos) being moderated:
Moderating anger at 572a: "and when he has in like manner tamed his passionate part, and does not after a quarrel fall asleep with anger still awake within him, but if he has thus quieted the two elements in his soul and quickened the third, in which reason resides, and so goes to his rest, you are aware that in such case he is most likely to apprehend truth, and [572b] the visions of his dreams are least likely to be lawless.
Integration at 586c:
“So, again, must not the like hold of the high-spirited element, whenever a man succeeds in satisfying that part of his nature—his covetousness of honor by envy, his love of victory by violence, his ill-temper by indulgence in anger, [586d] pursuing these ends without regard to consideration and reason?” “The same sort of thing,” he said, “must necessarily happen in this case too.” “Then,” said I, “may we not confidently declare that in both the gain-loving and the contentious part of our nature all the desires that wait upon knowledge and reason, and, pursuing their pleasures in conjunction with them, take only those pleasures which reason approves, will, since they follow truth, enjoy the truest pleasures, so far as that is possible for them, and also the pleasures that are proper to them and their own, [586e] if for everything that which is best may be said to be most its ‘own’?” “But indeed,” he said, “it is most truly its very own.” “Then when the entire soul accepts the guidance of the wisdom-loving part and is not filled with inner dissension, the result for each part is that it in all other respects keeps to its own task and is just, and likewise that each enjoys its own proper pleasures and the best pleasures and, [587a] so far as such a thing is possible, the truest.”
Moderation at 603e:
When a good and reasonable man,” said I, “experiences such a stroke of fortune as the loss of a son or anything else that he holds most dear, we said, I believe, then too, that he will bear it more easily than the other sort.” “Assuredly.” “But now let us consider this: Will he feel no pain, or, since that is impossible, shall we say that he will in some sort be moderate in his grief?” (metriasei de pōs pros lupēn, metriazōto be moderate, keep measure) “That,” he said, “is rather the truth.”
This is very much like the biblical quote from Ephesians 4:26: "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath."
In other words, there is a difference between having an emotion (be ye angry) about something or someone that you truly love/care about (which is inevitable unless you are a sociopath), and acting (or not) on the impulsive part of it (and sin not). But to suppress (or worse, repress) it is to cause yourself a build-up of anxiety and irritability, also known as the fight or flight response, which can lead to all kinds of physical and social problems. Unfortunately, most people (including many mental health professionals) don't know the difference between the physiology of anxiety and the physiology of a true emotion, so they think anger is bad when it's irritability that is bad and interferes with our rational part (so we don't think or act reasonably), causes tension in our body and impulsiveness, resulting in a myriad of behavioral and health problems.
So we should not "let the sun go down" on our wrath (or grief), but process or experience it. To experience an emotion means to be cognitively aware of it, physically experience it (power and heat in anger, pain and urge to cry in grief), and be aware of the impulse to act in some way. We can be relaxed and experiencing all of this and be truly aware and in control of our self, then decide what, if anything, further we should do about it. The emotion will pass either way if experienced, whether there is any other action worth taking about it.
Now Plato wasn't aware of useful biblical quotes or effective modern psychotherapy techniques, but he laid the foundation quite well all those years ago.
At 604b he talks about integration, moderation, and true Psyche-therapy, which is potentially within our control, and (mis)Fortune (tukhas), the things outside of our control (clearly much of this used but muddied by the Stoics):
“The law, I suppose, declares that it is best to keep quiet as far as possible in calamity and not to chafe and repine, because we cannot know what is really good and evil in such things and it advantages us nothing to take them hard, and nothing in mortal life is worthy of great concern, and our grieving checks the very thing we need to come to our aid as quickly as possible in such case.” “What thing,” he said, “do you mean?” “To deliberate,” I said, “about what has happened to us, and, as it were in the fall of the dice, to determine the movements of our affairs with reference to the numbers that turn up, in the way that reason indicates would be the best, and, instead of stumbling like children, clapping one's hands to the stricken spot and wasting the time in wailing, ever to accustom the soul to devote itself at once to the curing of the hurt and the raising up of what has fallen, banishing threnody by therapy.” “That certainly,” he said, “would be the best way to face misfortune and deal with it.” “Then, we say, the best part of us is willing to conform to these precepts of reason.” “Obviously.”
Thanks for the stimulation and forum to respond in.
Chet
---------------------------------------
Chet Sunde, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Some Lou Holtz wisdom, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.”
Well, as in most of “life”-it ‘depends’…
I think the best response to your question would be to first online what emotion is and what it is not. To be brief, as outlined by Socratese/Plato, there are three parts to the human psyche: reason (logistikon), emotions (thymoeides), and our animalistic nature (epithymetikon). If our emotions are suppressed or led by our animalistic nature, such that of desires, we fail in everything.
This part of our psyche that is associated with emotions, cab be seen as a necessary but potentially disruptive part of the human psyche. The challenge is often to balance and harmonize this aspect of the soul with the rational soul, (logistikon) guiding emotions with reason. By doing this we will succeed in everything.
This is extremely important for us to contemplate. Understanding our own emotion is key to guiding it with reason or desire. A choice we face daily!
Concur - always define your terms first ;-)
Geeze, just seen all my misspellings. I need an to get an editor or wear my reading glasses. Anyways, to me catharsis woukd be like someone whose emotions were led by desires- then changed to the higher mind/ reason/ logic leading thier emotions. Easier said than done
I've also been contemplating whether or not catharsis requires a more public setting... like group emotions rather than individual?
I think either way you would be correct
I've been known to wear some emotions on my sleeve, as well as kept some bottled up, due to the impact of an emotional outburst. Take grief, a potent emotion of the most persistent and hardest to control, but never truly overcome. I personally internalize my grief, gathering the memories of the past to fill the void left by the loss. I grieve in private to gain emotional control knowing a time to share grief will come as a release and relief.
One must recognize emotions are born in the subconscious before breaking through to our conscious intellect and physiology, and must not be allowed to run amok least we breakdown under the weight of the emotion.
Grief is really a very potent emotion and certainly one of the hardest to handle...I know some who never get there - it can be a lifelong struggle.
I beg your response, why does grief's impact become a life long struggle for some? Is it because one doesn't have coping skills, or is it as simple as denial?
I'm not sure to be honest. We've done a few events on the topic and it's always been very thought provoking. Cicero certainly had plenty to say on the topic...
Interesting question, and it certainly is a matter of opinion. Here is mine. I see emotions as neither good nor bad in themselves. They are the result of our human nature and the environment in which we find outselves. Uncontrolled emotions however can lead to uncontrolled actions which may create undesirable results. I think we should see if our emotions reflect our values, before we act on them. Emotions can be positive when they incite us to act to make a better world, but that raises the question what is a better world, which would be the subject of a new discussion. Personally, I have never been affected by catharsis from theatre or a film. However, the emotional impact of a crowd can be powerful, and I think we should be very careful here. As for showing our emotions or not, I think that is a matter of custom, termperament, or taste, and is not easy for an individual to change.
It's interesting what you say about the emotional impact of the crowd.. this is certainly a function I'm sure people have taken advantage of for nefarious means. It would be worth discussing the social need for controlled emotions, especially in dramatic times.