[MD] Emotions' place?

[Ham Priday]

Krimel --


[Previously]:
> While emotions can be mediated by social patterns they
> are still purely biological. One can not will to "feel" happy
> or sad or fearful. Nor can we wish these emotions away
> when they occur. We can attempt to create conditions that
> draw out or suppress emotions but they remain inherently
> biological. It is not clear to me what you are throwing
> sensation and reason in here for.

 [Ham]:
> When you say "mediated by social patterns", do you mean
> "experienced by the individual"?

 [Krimel]:
> No, I mean that the expression of individual emotion is
> controlled by social context. It is not proper to laugh at
> funerals or to feel rage in church. Different cultures have
> different attitudes with regard to the appropriate
> times and places to express emotions.

If this is what you believe to be the extent of human emotions, I suggest 
you drum up a copy of Emily Post's "Etiquette" (1922).  That should keep 
your emotions under proper "social control".  Of course, Emily won't tell 
you how emotions arise, how they are the individual's response to value, or 
even how we might nurture the emotions by developing an aesthetic 
sensibility to nature, music, literature, and the arts.

But, then, since emotions are purely biological, they are probably best 
ignored, except for how they affect your social reputation.

--Ham