By richard badenhausen

This Sunday evening at around 8 p.m., an NBC sports reporter will run onto the field in Indianapolis at the close of the Super Bowl to interview a prominent player from the winning team.

After breathlessly recounting a few key features of the game, the reporter will no doubt conclude by asking the athlete, "How does that make you feel?"

Photos

• 

	Join the Discussion
	Post a Comment

I’m not sure when this journalistic tic first emerged, but it’s almost impossible these days to escape hearing about athletes’ feelings after the final whistle has blown.

Since when did feelings become such an integral part of understanding the minutiae of athletic contests, which often turn on a dizzying array of complex decisions? From a journalistic standpoint, such a question seems an incredible cop-out, a lazy way to get your subject talking.

Perhaps, though, this tendency tells us something important about American life, about the ascendancy of feelings, which I don’t necessarily see as a positive development. The ancient Greeks were wary of the emotional capacity of humans. In Phaedo, Socrates dismissed feelings as having little consequence in areas that mattered, believing a moral system based on emotion a "mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception."

They also held a more nuanced understanding of how humans feel. Instead of employing our own imprecise, sledgehammer-like word "love" to describe all intense feelings of attraction, the Greeks had different terms that distinguished among sensual desire, affection for friends and family, and a more transcendent kind of love that involved the divine.

It’s probably too easy to blame our culture’s endorsement of feelings on things like baby boomer egocentrism, our bizarre captivation with the lives of celebrities, or the curious phenomenon of reality television, where viewers get a thrill from watching others emote.

But I do know that my 75-year-old father certainly never shared his feelings with anyone and he wouldn’t be caught dead asking someone else what they felt.

Older readers will remember Morris Albert’s 1974 hit song "Feelings," which contains the famous chorus, "Feelings … whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings." The tune begins with the line, "Feelings, nothing more than feelings," an apt characterization of our current national mindset.

It’s an attitude that allows a politician like Newt Gingrich, in response to John King’s opening debate question about ex-wife No. 2’s claim he wanted an open marriage, to fulminate about his own feelings: "I am appalled that you would begin" that way, a tactic Gingrich termed "as close to despicable as anything he can imagine." (Not much of an imagination there, I guess.) Inexplicably, much of the audience gave him a standing ovation.

The ultimate expression of the primacy of emotions exists on Facebook, where "friends" are incessantly prompted to respond to the most mundane happenings of everyday life. Though in a curiously American twist, the only option consists of a cheery affirmation of the posting — "Like!" The site doesn’t accommodate other emotive choices, and the running tally of "Likes" next to the thumbs-up graphic encourages everyone to climb onto the happy bandwagon.

Emotions are important, of course. They help us love, empathize with others, and experience joy and sadness. Neuroscientists suggest emotions also help in crucial ways with the imprinting of memory.

I certainly have no objection to consumers selecting either Coke or Pepsi based on which ad campaign makes them feel better, but I start to worry upon learning that 40 percent of New Hampshire primary voters hadn’t made up their minds about which Republican candidate to endorse 48 hours before the election — many simply decided to "go with their gut feeling."

Jon Huntsman stood out from the Republican primary pack as perhaps too rational and emotionally passive at times, while his former boss President Obama stands similarly accused of not emoting enough, for seeming too much the button-down professor. Darn that pesky thinking — it does get in the way sometimes, though for Socrates it is wisdom that "makes possible courage and self-control and integrity or, in a word, true goodness."

The problem with feelings is that they are volatile, usually out of our control, and often generated in response to external factors. Right, Speaker Gingrich? They also tend to cloud rational decision-making. Is such impaired reasoning really what we seek in our fellow citizens and leaders?

Richard Badenhausen is a professor at Westminster College, where he also directs its honors program.