G.E Wallpaper Grafitti

G’Day readers. First of all I want to thank you for your time in reading my writings. I still think my writings are not up to scratch, not up to the standards I have placed with my view in comparison with some fantastic reading I had done in the past. I’m delighted with some comments from you guys. I got one view particularly from a friend in Australia. She had written me an email to convey her views on my blog entry titled: “Weird Saturday” and we ended up exchanging ideas through emails. I had the fantastic opportunity to get to know her in Australia, and often we had meetings at the McDonald’s in Barker Street to read each others writings and poetries and also to discuss heavy issues and to be relaxed while discussing these things. Our discussion ranges from religion to philosophies to life in general and our experiences. I had plenty of fun in those moments. I shall publish the related exchanges here for you fine readers to ponder upon and maybe learn something from it. I have the permission from my friend to publish her comments. For obvious reasons I’ve withheld the names (change to other names to protect identity) and other personal exchanges I think is irrelevant to the said agenda. I would also like to point out that this essay is not an entirety my own ideas and writings but composed of her writings and ideas as well. I would like to give her credit for this. Enjoy reading!

Email dated 28th July 2006.

Hi Nazri,

Have been reading your blog…very interesting… Just a little food for
thought … your latest entry on sensitivity seemed a little odd to me. I
dunno, perhaps sensitivity is different from sentimentality and is not that
gendered. Although I’m female, I think crying (whether at the movies or in
times of distress) /explicit displays of emotion are a weakness for both
sexes - a failure of rationality/problem-solving skills and a lack of self-
control … perhaps that’s an odd p.o.v… not really sure…

Anyway, enjoy writing and good luck…

Eve*

* (I dunno why I chosed to change to this name, it sounds good actually, what the heck)

Email dated 30th July 2006.

Eve,

I have been getting better thank you. Back at work although still have some coughing and sore throat.

Thank you for pointing out the chauvinistic attitude in my writing. I agree that sentimentality is weakness for both sexes and not just for a male. Totally agree with that. But consider this, if a female cries, it is considered acceptable by the general public as the public has a perception that women are emotionally fragile compared to the male (I think I’m included in the general public perception/view). For a male, it is not acceptable due to the masculinity characteristic expectation of the general public of a man. Due to this general public perception of which we are required to adhere to, we have to act properly in order to avoid being considered a freak of nature. How sometimes I hate the general public in certain aspects. For the public, it won’t be considered a weakness to a female to display sentimentality especially in movie theatres…

Sensitivity is different from sentimentality but almost similar.

Sensitivity:

1) Responsive to external conditions or stimulation, or
2) susceptible to the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others, or
3) quick to take offense; touchy.

Whereas sentimentality is defined as:
"A thought, view, or attitude, especially one based mainly on emotion instead of reason".

Why I say almost similar is because sensitivity is "susceptible to external conditions or responsive in emotional terms" of which comes to being absent of rationality.

Although in crying in times of distress, it display a total lack of self control or failure of rationality as you pointed out, it actually a good way to relieve some of the excesses emotional baggage in order to regain our capability in having rationality thought back. Don’t you agree? Succumb to emotion first to relieve the tension, before reflecting and thinking of solution in a more rationale way after emotion bearing no influence in our judgment.

Thanks for pointing it out anyway. I have to improve my vocabulary powers to be able to portray my views better in writing.

I miss those days where we can discuss philosophy or anything….

Regards,
Nazri

Email dated 7th August 2006.

Dear Eve,

Your last comment on my writing evoke past memories in me…"Now, where have I been reading this rationale & emotion correlation thing?". My old acquaintance last time when I travelled alone to Melbourne, had written a philosophy essay on this. It is quite interesting actually. Do check it out.

http://thomasaurusrex.blogspot.com/2005/04/emotional-truth-presentation.html

And by the way, he did wrote about my visit to Melbourne last time.

Check this out:

http://thomasaurusrex.blogspot.com/2005_02_06_thomasaurusrex_archive.html

Ok Eve, catch up with you later.

Regards,
Nazri

Email dated 12th August 2006.

Hi Nazri,

Hadn’t realised how similar the definitions of sensitivity and sentimentality were…interesting.  Sensitivity had a positive ring to me (being aware of the emotions of others, warmth) whereas sentimentality sort of reminded me of the days where young maidens would sigh and yearn for their true love, (preferably a knight in shining armour) to come riding past and sweep them off their feet.  If taken in this way, I guess we could picture a sensitive man but not a sentimental one.  I guess the ‘general public’ differs between countries, such that the male/female dichotomy is more pronounced in Malaysia/other Asian countries e.g. Hong Kong than in Australia, say.  Yeah, probably time for viewpoints to change.  Not quite sure what you meant by ‘emotions’ being a ‘stronghold’ for women, though… 

Have recently joined the women’s collective at uni.  Thought I’d share their ‘feminist manifesto’ with you, as a counterpart to the ‘masculine stereotype’….the rigidity of society’s viewpoints, sigh…(Not to worry, I’m not trying to attack you because you’re a man :)…I’m still pondering over how much truth the quote contains…)   

‘Because a woman’s work is never done and is underpaid or boring or repetitious and we’re the first to get the sack and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it’s our fault and if we get bashed we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we’re nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we’re nymphos and if we don’t we’re frigid and if we love women it’s because we can’t get a “real” man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we’re neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect community care for children we’re selfish and if we stand up for our rights we’re aggressive and “unfeminine” and if we don’t we’re typical weak females and if we want to get married we’re out to trap a man and if we don’t we’re unnatural because we still can’t get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can’t cope or don’t want a pregnancy we’re made to feel guilty about abortion and…’ 

I guess I meant showing destructive emotions (e.g. crying, aggression, provoking others) vs positive emotions (e.g. passion, love etc.) in public.  Perhaps succumbing to the destructive emotions in private is ok, as you said, it paves the way for the rejuvenation of rational thought, although it is something I find hard to do. 

I agree with a lot of what your acquaintance, Thomas, writes.  ‘That rational arguments are always intertwined with emotion, belief and intuition.’  That ‘rational choices’ display ‘emotional biases’.  That Art perhaps is a ‘non-factual, emotional truth’.  And the mood/emotion…sadness (possibly inclusive of the destructive tendencies I mentioned earlier?) /love distinction.  The linearity of rationalism and the infinite array of potential truths found in emotion.  Actually, it’s quite a timely piece to read because I’ve just read Nietzsche’s ‘The Birth of Tragedy’ and his ‘Truth and Lies in the non-moral sense’ ( I think that’s the name) so have just come across the quote ‘truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions’.  I think Nietzsche also says something about truths as being artistic creations themselves because they’re expressed by arbitrary linguistic designations/metaphors…  Also something about Socrates’ dissenting/intuitive voice being the source of his wisdom, rather than his rational tendencies. 

So, should we place equal importance on rationality and emotions…or only positive/enabling emotions or both positive and destructive emotions?  Any thoughts?

Btw, have you read Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’?  (In one of your blog entries, you wrote on the topic of death… I think Heidegger writes some interesting stuff on ‘death’ in section 6 of ‘Being and Time’.)

Anyway, thanks for your emails…

Regards,
Eve

Email dated 15th August 2006.

Hi Eve,

Your last email had taken me a few days to reflect and think back my philosophical arguments backed of rationality. To start it with let me give my own definition of Philosophy:  “a branch of knowledge which acts as a tool in finding truths which consist of rational and logical arguments based on one’s own assertions”.

Tom’s assertion is that emotion being intertwined with rationality/logic conclusion in his quote, “It seems to me as if what we take to be our purely rational arguments are always intertwined with emotion, belief, and intuition.” He put out his basis of logic on his arguments to support his assertion on the emotion & rational correlation, and which he put forth as truth in his conclusion. He also put forth an experiment by Antonio Damasio of which further proves how one’s with diminished emotion can’t make an intelligent life’s decision even though possessing high IQ scores. He has presented his truth on his arguments based on logic and rational. But does his arguments/conclusion smeared with “emotion” all over the place. I believe so. It’s quite challenging to find counter arguments to his views and I do agree with him. My view is that a true philosopher mustn’t immediately agree with another philosopher’s views but must in his turn try to find arguments to counter the logic before agreeing.

Back to your remark: “Not quite sure what you meant by ‘emotions’ being a ‘stronghold’ for women, though… “. I didn’t mean in my writing that emotion is a stronghold for women and I’m sorry if this has made you confused to think that my writing is that of a chauvinist. Look back at my passage :
“That’s why I view myself as a bit artistic instead of using the wimp word of "sensitive". I’m not a wimp. Yea, this is a weakness for a man. We don’t need to feel sensitive. It shows weakness instead of stronghold shelter for women.”
What I meant was that a man should be a stronghold shelter for a woman and if he starts crying (i.e sensitive), it shows he is weak because he is succumbing easily to emotions. Man crying is an impediment for women to find her support since she’s also influenced by her own emotion. You could interpret it that I am a chauvinist who that thinks a woman will most surely cry/succumb to emotions, and that if both of them (man and woman) cry in times of distress, how can the woman find her support? Sorry for that. I guess the man/woman dichotomy is strong in Asia as you’ve pointed out that I myself should get away from this thinking. I meant that a man should become stronghold for a woman in times of distress. So I said “It is a weakness instead of stronghold shelter for women.” The sentence is clearly misleading I must admit. Am I clear enough or still confusing you?

In the manifesto of the feminist organization you wrote, I’m intrigued with this whole subject of feminism. The manifesto displays a total sense of extreme displeasure at what the feminist deemed as what the society perceived of women. It also displays a certain degree of extreme paranoia of what they claim as the truth of the society’s view. I totally disagree with certain parts of their view of the truths on devious acts and thoughts against them and this manifesto could prove my point that women are “sensitive”. Too much influence and traces of emotions on the manifesto I would say. They could turn my last quote on their manifesto against me by adding “…and if we are aggressive in our manifesto they’d say we’re the avid follower of emotion and if we…”
It never ends. So, I’ll stop here.

You had asked: “So, should we place equal importance on rationality and emotions…or only positive/enabling emotions or both positive and destructive emotions? Any thoughts?”
This is a very difficult question to answer. My extensive university training in mechanical engineering and not in the area of philosophy makes me difficult to solve this one. I would go mad trying to figure this one out. All right, I’ll try and practice my philosophical craft with you.

I would say we should place equal importance in rationality and emotions. By emotions, it should be both the positive and what you called “destructive” emotions. Why? I would say because “destructive emotion” is not necessarily destructive or negative. It is part of human nature which must be intertwined with rationality. Destructive emotion, say for example in anger. Just an example, by being angry at the Israelis because of their atrocities, I make a rational/emotional decision of boycotting American/Israelis products and also as a whole to improve the economical/knowledge/weaponry strength in my Muslim society so that we won’t be bullied in the future. If I rely upon emotion alone, I would make the irrational decision to blow myself up in public places in my own country with the intention to hurt “tourists with Caucasian physical features” (which in turn kills my own kind instead of Caucasians and propagate more hate throughout the western & Muslim world). Another example is the emotion of jealously. We can be influenced by this emotion to make a rational decision of improving ourselves and competing fairly. Without any rationale thinking, and to just follow the emotion of jealousy, we could act irrationally by sabotaging the works of the person we’re jealous about instead. Now, that is damaging to both of us instead of using the so-called “destructive” emotion positively to our advantage.

In the interpretation of religion and one’s own decision to convert/believe in a particular religion is also stained with rational/emotional decision. Another example is that I mean, how can the Christians truly persuade me through series of factual evidence that Jesus Christ is God in human form? They don’t have any concrete factual evidence beyond doubt but often rely upon their bible which is of doubtful source/origin and susceptible to rational errors and flaws with intense scrutiny. By reading their bible I could be touched emotionally by Jesus’ self sacrifice for humans to remove humans’ sins, and also be influenced by the rationality of their moral ethics and dogma on “love”. By combination of emotion and rationale thus made me convert to Christian. This is just an example. I’m a true believer of Islam not Christians due to emotional truth, the combination of both rationality and emotion. Christian religion is more towards how one feels emotionally but their basis of trinity is way out of the boundary of rational/logic. By this, I don’t accept Christianity. Maybe my decision write on this dichotomy of Islam and Christians is because of my emotional tendencies and not a rational one? One could go crazy trying to expand this topic.

I think my arguments won’t be able to convince you but at least it’s a try. I’m an amateur. I like reading your email. It is something refreshing.

Thanks.

Regards,
Nazri

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