Looking Inwards to Our Feelings
I've commented many times on how people
in the West respond to emotion. Sometimes at funerals you will often find two
types of people: those who loved the deceased and are feeling a profound loss,
and those who didn't really know (or maybe didn't really like) the deceased
and who put on an act. Few people will turn up to a funeral of someone they
know and act in a joking or indifferent way, so instead they say and do the
‘right’ things. Sometime those who have real feelings for the deceased find
this offensive.
These sham emotions have in many cases replaced the real thing. Like a country
that has so much forged currency that people don't recognise the real thing,
people think this sham emotion is real emotion. People don't believe you feel
emotion unless you show it, and think if you show it that therefore you must
be feeling it.
Because these people have lost the ability to look inwards at their real feelings,
they are wide open to being manipulated by governments, churches or other authorities
for their own purposes. I've given examples of how the Christian church uses
guilt to impose its authority and how political parties use feelings about the
environment or welfare in order to get voters to support them.
On an individual level, such people can be manipulated by emotional blackmail. If you are influenced by how you think others will perceive your behaviour then you have to be seen to be doing the right thing. People who are in touch with their inner conscience are interested in doing the right thing before their Lord; the attitudes of their fellow human beings are of secondary importance.
