A Human History of Emotion

1. Emotions are cultural constructs, not universal experiences

Emotions are just a bunch of feelings that English-speaking Westerners put in a box around two hundred years ago.

Cultural diversity of emotions. What we consider "emotions" varies greatly across cultures and time periods. Different societies have unique vocabularies and concepts for describing inner experiences. For example:

• Ancient Greeks spoke of pathē (perturbations of the soul)
• Medieval Christians discussed passions and sentiments
• The Ifaluk people have fago, a complex feeling of love, compassion and sadness

Embodied experiences. How emotions are felt and expressed physically also differs:

• Some cultures associate emotions with specific organs (e.g. the heart, liver)
• Facial expressions for emotions are not universally recognized
• Bodily sensations linked to emotions vary across societies

2. Ancient civilizations shaped our understanding of feelings

To Plato, souls were more than just the bit of us that isn't flesh.

Greek philosophical foundations. Ancient Greek thinkers laid crucial groundwork for Western ideas about emotions:

• Plato proposed a three-part soul (reason, spirit, appetite)
• Aristotle categorized emotions and linked them to ethics
• The Stoics advocated controlling passions through reason

Eastern perspectives. Other ancient civilizations developed different frameworks:

• Indian traditions explored concepts like dharma and karma
• Chinese philosophy emphasized balance of qi (life force)
• Buddhist teachings focused on overcoming desire and attachment

These diverse ancient views continue to influence how different cultures conceptualize emotions today.

3. Religious beliefs profoundly influenced emotional regimes

Augustine thought that the search for God was an emotional one, driven by the right sort of love.

Christian transformation of emotions. Early Christian thinkers reshaped classical ideas about emotions:

• St. Paul merged Jewish and Greek concepts
• St. Augustine emphasized divine love (caritas) vs. earthly desire (cupiditas)
• Medieval scholars like Aquinas further systematized Christian emotional doctrines

Islamic perspectives. The Quran and Islamic scholars developed distinct views:

• Emphasized fear of Allah as a positive motivating force
• Linked emotions to spiritual states and moral behavior

These religious frameworks created powerful emotional regimes that governed how people were expected to feel and express themselves in different contexts.

4. Desire and disgust drove major historical events

Desire drove competition, built the European knockoff shops, and kick-started social mobility.

Desire as historical force. The emotion of desire shaped pivotal moments in history:

• Drove exploration and colonization (e.g. search for spices)
• Fueled scientific and technological advancement
• Underpinned the rise of consumer capitalism

Disgust as social tool. Revulsion has been weaponized throughout history:

• Used to justify oppression and discrimination
• Shaped moral and legal codes
• Influenced political movements and ideologies

The interplay of desire and disgust continues to shape societal values, economic systems, and power structures today.

5. The concept of "emotion" is a modern Western invention

Brown's definition of emotion seems to have caught on. All people seemed to need was the idea that when you feel a feeling, that feeling is called an emotion.

Birth of a category. The idea of "emotions" as a distinct psychological phenomenon emerged in the 19th century:

• Thomas Brown coined the modern usage in early 1800s
• William James and Carl Lange developed influential theories
• Concept gained traction through psychology and popular culture

Limitations of the construct. The Western notion of "emotion" is problematic:

• Doesn't map neatly onto concepts from other cultures
• Artificially separates thought, feeling, and bodily sensation
• Oversimplifies complex, context-dependent experiences

This relatively recent invention has come to dominate global discourse, often obscuring other ways of understanding inner experiences.

6. War and conflict reshaped emotional landscapes

Shell shock had to be cured so the men could be put back into the conflict. It changed wartime, and peacetime, forever.

Trauma and emotional disorders. Major conflicts forced reconsideration of emotional experiences:

• WWI "shell shock" challenged existing ideas about masculinity and mental health
• PTSD emerged as a diagnosis following the Vietnam War
• Modern warfare continues to reveal limitations in our understanding of emotional trauma

Nationalism and group emotions. Wars also reshaped collective emotional experiences:

• Fostered intense patriotic fervor and hatred of enemies
• Created shared traumatic memories that influence national identities
• Led to attempts to manipulate public emotions for political ends

These war-driven shifts in emotional landscapes have had lasting impacts on societies and individuals.

7. Scientific attempts to categorize emotions are flawed

Ekman and Friesen thought they had nailed it: all human beings, everywhere and everywhen, felt those six basic emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, disgust, surprise, and fear.

The Basic Emotions theory. Paul Ekman's influential work claimed universal emotional categories:

• Based on cross-cultural studies of facial expressions
• Proposed six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise
• Widely adopted in psychology and popular culture

Critiques and alternatives. The Basic Emotions approach has significant limitations:

• Doesn't account for cultural and individual variation
• Overlooks context and complexity of emotional experiences
• Ignores embodied and social aspects of emotion

More recent theories, like Lisa Feldman Barrett's Constructed Emotion theory, offer more nuanced views that better align with cross-cultural evidence.

8. Technology is homogenizing global emotional expression

By 2084, there is a good chance that the whole world will be expressing its basic emotions as 😀, 😢, 😠, 😨, and 🤢.

Digital emotion. Modern technology is reshaping how we express and understand emotions:

• Emojis creating a new universal emotional language
• AI emotion recognition systems based on limited Western models
• Social media platforms encouraging standardized emotional displays

Risks of homogenization. This trend threatens emotional diversity:

• May erode unique cultural emotional concepts and expressions
• Could lead to misunderstanding and misdiagnosis across cultures
• Risks imposing Western emotional norms globally

As technology continues to advance, preserving and valuing diverse emotional vocabularies and experiences becomes increasingly important.

Last updated: November 20, 2024