Reason and Emotion, Redux

It's hard to believe this was shared only a little over two years ago.  It's still relevant.

And bears repeating.

When the United States entered World War II, Hollywood was not too far behind.  Through the creation of the Office of Wartime Information in 1942 and in particular, its Bureau of Motion Pictures, Hollywood was essentially drafted.  Hollywood had been enlisted to help create motion pictures that would further America's war aims, including propaganda and educational films.  By 1943, every studio, except Paramount, was letting the Office of Wartime Information examine their movie scripts.

Disney was no exception.

In fact, the government looked to Walt Disney more than any other studio chief as a builder of public morale providing instruction and training of soldiers, using animated graphics to mobilize servicemen and civilians for the cause of the war.

Between 1942 and 1945, Walt Disney productions was involved in the production of propaganda films for the United States government. These included animated shorts involving Mickey and friends either enlisting or supporting the war effort, the feature film Victory Through Air Power explaining how the United States should become the preeminent air power through more modern planes and long range bombing, educational films for the servicemen like Four Methods of Flush Riveting, and even animated sequences for Capra's Why We Fight series.  They also designed cartoon insignia and mascots for the different divisions of the armed services.  (There is a great collection of the various insignia here.)

One of the most striking animated short films of this era that the Walt Disney company produced is Reason and Emotion.

The cartoon starts like a typical cartoon of the era, explaining how we all have two drives: reason and emotion.  When we are born, we are all emotion, getting in trouble because of our impulses.  The cartoon zooms into a baby's head to show it run by a cave toddler named Emotion who lives there alone.  After the baby tumbles down the stairs following Emotion's suggestion, a stuffed shirt little baby arrives name Reason, who explains that this whole mess could have been avoided if he had gotten there sooner.

The cartoon then jumps forward in time to show Reason and Emotion fighting for control of the driver's seat of the now adult man. As Reason drives, everything is fine, but when Emotion is in control, the man rudely comes on to a woman and gets slapped.   We then follow the battle between Reason and Emotion in that young woman, in whom Reason is keeping her on a diet and Emotion begins to destroy all that progress.  Not the most enlightened situations to demonstrate for either sex.

At this point, the short reaches its point.  It scrolls through newspaper headlines of the day and focused on how they impact an everyman.  How a constant stream of bad news about the war turns this everyman into a nervous wreck.  And it's not really the media, as much it is every neighbor's or acquaintance's thoughts and opinions and fears about the true bits of news that they are hearing that weigh on our everyman.  As we zoom in, Reason tries to remain calm, but Emotion fully gives into fear lashing out and looking to incapacitate Reason with the controls.  At this point the narrator interacts directly with Reason and Emotion, adding "Go ahead! Put Reason out of the way! That's fine...for HITLER!"

The focus then shifts to show how Hitler preyed on Emotion through every tactic and technique.  Preying on fears - fear of the Gestapo, the Concentration Camps, the enemies, the others.  Seeking sympathy, arguing that he really wanted peace but everyone else dragged him into war.  That everyone was picking on him.  Rallying behind pride.  Pride in the Fatherland, pride in their heritage, pride in their race.  And finally, dragging out hate.  Hate for the other, the lesser, the lower.

As the short zooms into a German spectator's headspace, our narrator now cries, "Behold! the Nazi Superman."  Revealing a person fully ruled by Emotion (now with spiked helmet), stamping out Reason and any rational objection.  Emotion keeps growing larger and larger, as Reason keeps shrinking.

The short ends reminding us of the purposes of both Reason and Emotion.  Reason is to think, plan, and discriminate.  Emotion drives our passion for country, freedom, and life.  So long as Reason is in the driver's seat with Emotion at his side, we can accomplish whatever task is before us.

--------------------

Truth be told, I think Emotion is running a little amok today.  Emotion converts patriotism to nationalism.  Emotion lets our fears create policy.  Emotion is fed by and sustains clickbait and "fake news."  Emotion is easily digestible in 140 characters.

Emotion propagates conspiracy.  It takes pieces of information and puts it together in a way that we want to be true.  That we just absolutely believe to be true - no matter what the facts say.

We need Reason back in charge.  Absorbing and rationally sorting through the information we receive.  Verifying statements made and pictures shared on the internet before acting and sharing.  Trusting in the checks and balances of power that have held our form of government together for nearly two-hundred and fifty years, instead of calling for their removal.

If we continue on the path of Emotion, I fear we are headed for that time Lincoln feared where "we ourselves are its author and finisher."  Emotion is pulling us in two.  In completely separate directions, both afraid of the other.

So again, can we put Reason back in charge?

Willing To Yield

"Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.  But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.  This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.  For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.  And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

James 3:13-18

This section in the book of James is labeled the Two Kinds of Wisdom for good reason.  It contrasts an earthly, selfish wisdom, one that inflates ego, one that is used to divide, with a higher wisdom.  One that makes peace.  

The illustration was given about the kind of person who is always right.  Always having to show and prove their intelligence.  And then the person who admits how much they don't know.

The Dunning-Kruger effect writ large.    A cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is.  Put simply, the less you know, the more likely you are to believe you have a higher ability, a higher intelligence than you actually do.  The more you know, the more likely you are to recognize your flaws and to often undersell your ability or your intelligence.  

We see the effect in a lot of different ways, particularly now on social media.  "Well, actually..."  Mansplaining.  Misinformation and disinfomation campaigns.  Truly fake news being shared on a mass scale.  Sharing single source news.  No matter the issue, there is always an expert ready to comment.  Ready to inform.  Ready to "set the record straight."

A wisdom ready to build up selfish ambition.  Ready to prove how right the person is.  How smart the person is.  Shared to collect likes and loves to stroke the ego.

Or a wisdom shared out of bitter jealousy.  To prove someone else wrong.  To pull support away from someone else.  To shame.  To shun.

What should break our heart, is that it's probably at its worst within the Church.

We share posts, we share information to show how right, how "righteous" we are.  We have the right theology.  We attend the right type of services.  We hang around the right kind of people.  And stay completely separate from everything else.

We share posts and think we are safe because they contain Biblical quotes and information.  We think we have wisdom from above because we are using the Bible.  But how often are we sharing that information for selfish ambition?  To get likes because of our right theology?  To display our bona fides?  How often are we sharing out of bitter jealousy?  To silence our critics?

James shows us that the wisdom from above has very specific characteristics.  It is pure.  It is peaceable - it leads to peace.  It is gentle.  It is full of mercy and good fruits - it is beneficial.  It is impartial, it carries no favor - not to us, not to our "church", not to the exclusion of anyone else.  It is sincere, without hypocrisy.  It is open to reason.

Open to reason.  I love that entry.  Other translations list it as "willing to yield."

That means it's willing to admit when it is wrong.
Willing to concede when someone makes a valid point.
Willing to admit we don't know.
Willing to admit when we question.
Willing to admit what we struggle with.

This seems so antithetical to how we present ourselves.  How we preach our gospel.

How often is our wisdom haughty, presumptive, proud, arrogant, determined to show how the world is wrong?

How often do we sho our wisdom to prove how we alone (or our team) has got it right?

How often do we share an article to prove our wisdom?  To prove our agreement with the "right" side?

How often are our statements meant to be emphatic periods or even exclamation points, designed to end discussion rather than continue the conversation?
"God says it so I believe it..."
"If you have a problem with that you have a problem with God..."
"Somethings you just have to take on faith..."
"The Lord works in mysterious ways..."

Those are all statements with truth in them.   But they are also all statements we use to end conversations.  To side step questions.  To avoid actually struggling with some of the implications of the Bible and our faith.  To avoid wrestling with faith.

How often are we really willing to continue the conversation?  To continue the dialogue with doubters, with strugglers, with the lost, with the hurting, with the un-churched, with the de-churched, with those hurt irrevocably by the church?

How often are we willing to be humble, to admit we don't know, and wrestle, and struggle with them?

That is a meek wisdom.  That is a wisdom from above.

My intent with this blog is always to foster and continue conversation.  It's why I'm more interested in questions than answers.  It's why there are a lot of question marks in this particular entry.  It's why I will play devil's advocate and will take positions unpopular in the modern church.  It's why I'm hardest on the church.

We as followers of Christ should be the most approachable people in this world.  The ones most easily able to have conversations with, especially the hard ones.

In the coming year, may we all make that our resolution.  Our commitment.  Our calling.  To have a meek wisdom that seeks and creates peace.  That fosters continued conversations.  That reaches out.

Lord willing...

Reason and Emotion

When the United States entered World War II, Hollywood was not too far behind.  Through the creation of the Office of Wartime Information in 1942 and in particular, its Bureau of Motion Pictures, Hollywood was essentially drafted.  Hollywood had been enlisted to help create motion pictures that would further America's war aims, including propaganda and educational films.  By 1943, every studio, except Paramount, was letting the Office of Wartime Information examine their movie scripts.

Disney was no exception.

In fact, the government looked to Walt Disney more than any other studio chief as a builder of public morale providing instruction and training of soldiers, using animated graphics to mobilize servicemen and civilians for the cause of the war.

Between 1942 and 1945, Walt Disney productions was involved in the production of propaganda films for the United States government. These included animated shorts involving Mickey and friends either enlisting or supporting the war effort, the feature film Victory Through Air Power explaining how the United States should become the preeminent air power through more modern planes and long range bombing, educational films for the servicemen like Four Methods of Flush Riveting, and even animated sequences for Capra's Why We Fight series.  They also designed cartoon insignia and mascots for the different divisions of the armed services.  (There is a great collection of the various insignia here.)

One of the most striking animated short films of this era that the Walt Disney company produced is Reason and Emotion.

The cartoon starts like a typical cartoon of the era, explaining how we all have two drives: reason and emotion.  When we are born, we are all emotion, getting in trouble because of our impulses.  The cartoon zooms into a baby's head to show it run by a cave toddler named Emotion who lives there alone.  After the baby tumbles down the stairs following Emotion's suggestion, a stuffed shirt little baby arrives name Reason, who explains that this whole mess could have been avoided if he had gotten there sooner.

The cartoon then jumps forward in time to show Reason and Emotion fighting for control of the driver's seat of the now adult man. As Reason drives, everything is fine, but when Emotion is in control, the man rudely comes on to a woman and gets slapped.   We then follow the battle between Reason and Emotion in that young woman, in whom Reason is keeping her on a diet and Emotion begins to destroy all that progress.  Not the most enlightened situations to demonstrate for either sex.

At this point, the short reaches its point.  It scrolls through newspaper headlines of the day and focused on how they impact an everyman.  How a constant stream of bad news about the war turns this everyman into a nervous wreck.  And it's not really the media, as much it is every neighbor's or acquaintance's thoughts and opinions and fears about the true bits of news that they are hearing that weigh on our everyman.  As we zoom in, Reason tries to remain calm, but Emotion fully gives into fear lashing out and looking to incapacitate Reason with the controls.  At this point the narrator interacts directly with Reason and Emotion, adding "Go ahead! Put Reason out of the way! That's fine...for HITLER!"

The focus then shifts to show how Hitler preyed on Emotion through every tactic and technique.  Preying on fears - fear of the Gestapo, the Concentration Camps, the enemies, the others.  Seeking sympathy, arguing that he really wanted peace but everyone else dragged him into war.  That everyone was picking on him.  Rallying behind pride.  Pride in the Fatherland, pride in their heritage, pride in their race.  And finally, dragging out hate.  Hate for the other, the lesser, the lower.

As the short zooms into a German spectator's headspace, our narrator now cries, "Behold! the Nazi Superman."  Revealing a person fully ruled by Emotion (now with spiked helmet), stamping out Reason and any rational objection.  Emotion keeps growing larger and larger, as Reason keeps shrinking.

The short ends reminding us of the purposes of both Reason and Emotion.  Reason is to think, plan, and discriminate.  Emotion drives our passion for country, freedom, and life.  So long as Reason is in the driver's seat with Emotion at his side, we can accomplish whatever task is before us.

--------------------

Truth be told, I think Emotion is running a little amok today.  Emotion converts patriotism to nationalism.  Emotion lets our fears create policy.  Emotion is fed by and sustains clickbait and "fake news."  Emotion is easily digestible in 140 characters.

We need Reason back in charge.  Absorbing and rationally sorting through the information we receive.  Verifying statements made and pictures shared on the internet before acting and sharing.  Trusting in the checks and balances of power that have held our form of government together for nearly two-hundred and fifty years, instead of calling for their removal.

If we continue on the path of Emotion, I fear we are headed for that time Lincoln feared where "we ourselves are its author and finisher."  Emotion is pulling us in two.  In completely separate directions, both afraid of the other.

So again, can we put Reason back in charge?