When contagious emotions flow, it is appearance, not the full realities, that count. The appearance, in images and sounds, presents the movement and the pictures from which emotions flow, and which emotional contagion stems from. When it comes to the news, it is the same. It is the images, the color and the sounds in the news from which emotions flow to others. Much of what makes the news depends on the effects of emotional contagion flowing from these appearances. Emotions, being invisible, intangible and unstructured, are fluid and flow freely, being “sprayed” diffusely outward, from their source, the emotional event that occurred. On the other hand, it takes a little bit of time to assess realities, and that involves the reasoning process, as it should. This takes a little more time than the quick, fluid process of emotional reacting and deciding. Decisions depend on reasoning, but in this case the emotions are flowing and that leaves little time for proper thinking and reasoning that is needed to come to a good decision, in the age of headline news. Emotions carry simple messages and simple solutions, but it is the reasoning process wherein lies the answer to the dilemma presented by these pictures. It is tempting to use the simple solutions, but they don’t work. Headline news, horrible pictures, bombs, deaths, blood, screaming, crying. The sounds of bombs, the agony of death, the quickness of movement. They produce very strong emotions that colors our thoughts and makes them ignore various other important perspectives. When the leaders see this, they say, “Let’s take action, let’s take immediate action.” They fail to see that immediate action usually means more bombs, more deaths, little strategy, little wisdom, little perspective. It is very tempting to see it as a case of “what you see is all there is”, common when emotions are high and produce contagious emotions of horror, suspicion and fear, which enables some people to miss the entire perspective and the history, and potential future in the light of this information, which are necessary to make a good decision. And hence little progress. Now, some 20 years later, we see the morass that is Afghanistan.
The appearance of the apparent debacle in the pulling of American troops from Afghanistan, leaving the population there under the mercy of the heartless, violent Taliban, provides a pictorial image of despair, fear, and desperation. We see the children crying, people running, the soldiers all around. We see people climbing onto airplanes, falling off a plane taking flight, falling to their death. From this picture, the images, the look in people’s faces, triggers the emotion of utmost numbness, shock and horror. These feelings, likely soon to become sadness, anger and guilt, will flow through the mood of the USA, UK and Canada and the rest of the world as a contagious emotion, with their simple messages, so easy to catch, so easy to absorb, but so hard to digest, so hard to decipher. The emotion colors the days we are in. It adds to the high level of emotion that has been flowing for the past few years, from the pandemic, the deaths from the virus, the vaccine hesitancy, the ongoing fears. And all that came before it. Emotion doesn’t allow us time to decipher, and deciphering takes some time and we are stuck with the emotion, clamoring for an answer. We need to make sense of this, we need an answer, but it is not coming. Not yet. That takes time. Instead, in this state of emotion, we may rely on the simple message, so easy to catch. That will be a mistake, because emotions don’t think.
We look for a simple message that meets the needs of emotional contagion, which provides that quick, fluid process of emotional reacting, releasing emotions of tension and anxiety quickly, strongly. We may settle on the first face we see, we may settle on that person in charge who decided to pull out the U.S. troops from Afghanistan. President Joe Biden. This may be the undoing of Biden’s presidency, as we look for someone to blame. If it is, it will be the casualty of emotional contagion. This was called the “Forever War” but we soon find out that forever, in this case, does have an ending, and we are there now. In about 3 weeks it will be 20 years since 9/11, when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York were toppled by Al Qaeda, who were supported by the Taliban. There were a litany of U.S. leaders, U.S. presidents, who didn’t make any final decision about what to do about how long the American troops would stay in Afghanistan. But we forget about the last 19 years, 11 months and 3 weeks as these emotions stem from these tragic events of the last week or so following the U.S. withdrawal, and we feel pressed by the present emotions to decide based on them. Emotions only stay around for a short while. It is impossible for an emotion to stay for 20 years. True, we may feel tense, or worried, but those are long-lasting emotions and are not so pressing and acute.
It is important though with systematic reasoning, problem-solving and strategic thinking to take some time to sort things out. We have to resist the temptation to rely decisions on emotions that are recent and pressing, because they don’t bring the whole truth. That is, the U.S. cannot afford to support Afghanistan for many more years. They have spent about 990 billion dollars over the last 19 or so years, money that could cover many health care costs for the citizens in the U.S.. Does Russia know this? Did they lead the U.S. into this dead-end trap? Did they support the Taliban? Does Joe Biden know what Russia is up to? Does Putin like Joe Biden? Is Putin happy that Biden is now president instead of Trump? These questions may help with systematic reasoning in this case.
Withdrawal was the correct thing to do. The failure of the Afghan military to withstand the onslaught of the Taliban revealed Afghanistan’s dependency on the U.S. The U.S. couldn’t afford for it to continue and the rest of the world wasn’t going to pay for it. But David Shribman in the Globe and Mail in Canada (Shribman, D. “Biden’s lack of apology latest in presidential tradition”, Globe and Mail, August 21, 2021) reports the Economist‘s Headline “Biden’s debacle” , followed by a sub-headline “The fiasco in Afghanistan is a grave blow to America’s standing” … and a lesser sub-heading “and much of the blame lies squarely with Joe Biden.” This putting much of the blame on the man who has been president for 7 months of the past 20 years raises the possibility that Emotional Contagion has again hit the journalists who appear to be basing this judgment on the emotional fallout of the last few days, knowing that such emotional headlines will attract readers and make money for the periodical. Emotional contagion defines a “hot topic” that this seems to have become. It is true that Joe Biden and the U.S. government didn’t anticipate the Afghan military to back off so easily, and they should have realized it, if it happened so readily. So they do share some of the blame. But only a very little. Only through emotional contagion can it be thought of as “much” of the blame. Probably the U.S. didn’t read the situation right. Either the Afghan military were poorly equipped, were not ready militarily to fight, or they didn’t really want to fight. But this was a problem stemming back to George W. Bush who attacked Iraq instead of attacking the Taliban, if they were going to do the right thing then. Many Presidents were involved in this and did not withdraw the troops from Afghanistan. Coloring a man with a small proportion of the time in power with “much of the blame” is a case of letting emotional contagion stemming from appearances rather than realities dictate the headlines, thereby falsifying them.