We are living in an emotional pandemic and have been for a number of years. This means there is a pandemic of emotions. Anxiety and depression are on the rise. It is seen in the world around us, although very few see this connection between society’s trends and the consequential rise in anxiety and depression. Let me describe it.
One sign of the times is that it is no longer possible to simply disagree with someone in politics. Simply disagreeing with someone is a thrust that will quickly disappear because these days disagreeing has no oomph. Few people pay attention to logic or fact when discussing politics or social controversies, so people have to raise the emotional temperature to be heard. We have seen that in the last few years in the increased number of self-help books with an asterisk in the title. Books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, (which sold six million copies between its date of publication in 2016 and 2019, and was translated into 20 languages),[1] according to BuzzFeed News, have spawned followers, like Let That Sh*t Go and others. How many copies would the book have sold, the same book, with a different title, such as The Subtle Art of Not Caring? That title sounds boring. They are selling a lot with the asterisked swear words because this way they strike the emotions that are at the top of the buyers’ minds. The use of the swear words suggests a kind of cynical fatalism, like we’re stuck with this mess and it’s all sh*t but no one does anything about it. That raises a lot of emotion.
Emotions talk in the volatile times we live in. They talk through emotional contagion, a little-known concept where one person’s emotions and related behaviors directly trigger similar emotions and behaviors in nearby people, although this is not recognized at the time. Emotional contagion is responsible for how moods and emotions affect others.[2] Emotion spreads to people and it becomes one emotion experienced by many people almost simultaneously. This is how the leader who can stir up the strongest emotion, especially in an election campaign, will get the most attention. We are seeing elevated stress in the population and so anyone who simply disagrees with someone flies under the radar of the judgmental emotion and name-calling that flies high in times of stress. Simple disagreement may convey that the person who just disagrees is a wimp, and few people want to be called a wimp in the ultra-competitve, overly emotional times we are living in.
We are living in an emotional pandemic, the age of strong emotion. But it is hard for most people to identify this. Nothing else has been so strong and so invisible at the same time. People pay attention to the name-calling, the aggression, the competitiveness and the violence but not to the emotions that carry it forth. Emotion is so sneaky that few people recognize its existence and its power. It is an invisible storm. With hurricanes like Ian, we can see the tragedies, the damage, and the devastation. We can see the fallen trees and overturned cars, but we cannot actually see the wind, just the results of it. We see the trees swaying very strongly to one side, but that is not actually the wind, that is the result of the wind blowing the trees. Strong emotions are like that, invisible, with a very powerful thrust. We cannot actually see the emotion.
Since it is not easy to see the emotions, let’s look for them in some of today’s headlines (September 29, 2022) in the New York Times. They have subtle emotions associated with them that are not stated because they are invisible. “Britain’s Gamble on Tax Cuts Has Economists Warning of Past Mistakes.”[3] This shows hope, enjoyment, relief (because of tax cuts) followed by panic, dread, fear (because of the warning) followed by likely anger, rage, rebellion (if the tax cuts are rescinded). Then depression, sullen rebellion, apathy (if Britain falls further into the abyss economically), followed eventually by a new government (a different party being voted in) through emotional voting, which is voting a government out through anger without really knowing the specific policies of what government is replacing it other than optimism and rejuvenation. This produces more hope, enjoyment, and relief (until more problems show up from aspects of the new government people may not have recognized when they voted emotionally), or more fear, anxiety and doubt in the ruling party because of ths position, producing more depression, anger, and rebellion. None of these emotions are stated in the article. But poll figures reveal the electorate’s choices, and underlying these choices are the emotions.
Another heading about Hurricane Ian reflects our usual chaos of life. (“Before Hurricane Ian, Florida’s Southwest Coast Was a Place to Escape the Chaos.”[4] There was not much in that article about the chaos people are escaping other than the “high-rise multicultural pulsations of Miami”, but the headline writers knew that we would all understand the term “chaos” as referring to normal life these days. Another heading ”Wall Street’s Drop Resumes as Focus Shifts Back to Economic Risks”[5] reminds us that the usual focus these days, before Hurricane Ian, was to focus on economic risks. It comes right out to say we are living in risky times, which brings out emotions of fear, worry, and trepidation that are unstated but which appear omni-present.
All these emotions are natural, based on likely disruptions in our daily lives which are predicted to be stronger than usual. Those people who can easily sense contagious emotion flowing through society and absorb these contagious emotions will likely display the symptoms of anxiety, nervousness, and jitters that mark a possible anxiety disorder or an acute anxiety state. All these emotions take a toll.
Then let’s look at the columnists in the Times and the titles of their columns today. Six of the ten headlines of the various columns were worded to strongly appeal to the reader’s emotions: “The Most Important Question About Addiction”, “I Escaped Poverty, but Hunger Still Haunts Me”, “One of the Hottest Trends in the World of Investing Is a Sham”, “Dating Is Broken. Going Retro Could Fix It”, “I Can See How New York Ends”, and “Is Liberal Democracy Dying?”[6] Words like and phrases “Haunts Me”, “Sham”, “Dating is Broken”, “New York Ends”, and “Dying” all appeal to and are likely to raise emotions to a higher level. While it is true that headlines have usually attracted attention with drama over the years and decades, this seems worse. Also, of course, we would have to do a more thorough examination of headlines from a number of newspapers over a period of time to check for accuracy and confirmation of our hypothesis since this is all anecdotal evidence. However, it is from a very major newspaper with a high circulation, showing that emotions are spiked. This is not a criticism of the newspapers, the headline writers, the authors of the articles, or anyone else. Neither is it a comment on whether the articles are accurate or exaggerated. But it is a comment on how the words used here appear to reflect the emotional state of the population and the rise of emotional contagion in triggering and spiking this state. And it is also a comment indicating that the newspapers would be wise to remark on the heightened emotions and how they contribute to the rise of anxiety, the costs to society of an increase in anxiety, the rise in anti-anxiety medication use, the pharmacological risks in this, and the worsening of the world’s mental health. Not to mention that you can’t treat an emotional pandemic with medication. You have to block it at its source with behavioral change.
Certainly, this will not be a surprise to many, especially the emotions fueled by cynicism, suspicion, and anger. When we read about threats made to people almost daily, often actions taken with tragic, deadly results, we can easily forget that these actions are propelled by heightened innermost emotions. We only see what’s there and that includes videos of injuries, sometimes dead bodies and people grieving. We forget that these actions were often driven by emotions, whether acute, sharp emotions that spike at the momnent, or lingering, dull but strong, chronic emotions that motivate people to do these horrible actions. And then people get riled up by the actions of others and driven by the emotions they catch from others.
We need to attend to the emotional pandemic and ramp up the methods of regulating and managing emotions. Emotions talk in the volatile times we live in, and the leader who can stir up the strongest emotion in an election will get the most attention. That strong emotion usually consists of distrust, skepticism, suspicion, cynicism, despair, hate and/or anger. Readers look for this because they feel it themselves and they want to be validated by a politician or author who sees it in them, and who has a good chance to exercise a lot of power, on behalf of the average powerless citizen. This is the era of emotion in politics, especially for those who harbor these grudges that bring these angry, cynical emotions. Emotions run politics but are unrecognized as doing so. But there is a problem. The problem is that emotions don’t think. Its effectiveness lies in the nature of emotion, in its ability to overpower what is otherwise present, which is logic and reason. The elevated level of emotion fueled by distrust, skepticism, and cynicism and related emotions has ruled in the past few years. It has morphed into belief in conspiracy theories and delusional thinking. Those politicians who are experts in arousing citing anger in their followers, tapping into cynicism and distrust, which often morph into something much more dramatic, such as conspiracy theories and delusions, and sometimes violence, are likely going to be more successful at the polls.
These emotions stemmed from feelings of being hurt, ignored, and overlooked by politicians, feelings that morphed into dramatic states. The politicians who sensed these emotions that come from being overlooked, forgotten, and ignored in the working class appeared to hit the right formula to win an election. They realize that it is poetry, the short, crisp angry comments that stir up these emotions in their working-class followers, particularly when said in a loud, sharp voice, not policy, that often wins elections in the working class. Poetry, not policy.
But there is a risk. Their followers have seemed to many to be blind to the realities of what has been going on, largely because they use emotions to judge their candidates’ positions, forgetting that emotions don’t think. And neither do conspiracy theories because they don’t trust evidence from reality. And delusions accept odd beliefs that are firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality, rational argument, or critical thinking. That is the effect of emotion in thinking since it rejects logic, memory, and knowledge and tells us to go with our feelings, without checking on their source and beliefs. Although we go with our feelings, this seems to be automatic instead of checking their reasonableness and safety. Feelings and emotions can kill, through homicide and suicide. We ignore our emotions to our peril, and this has been evident in the past few years. It is way past time to realize that we are living in an emotional pandemic.
In my book, Emotions Don’t Think: Emotional Contagion in a Time of Turmoil, I talk about ways to overcome and prevent the effects of emotional contagion. It is available on Amazon.
[1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zanromanoff/the-subtle-art-of-not-giving-a-fuck-mark-manson-everything
[2]. Morris, C. Emotional Contagion: Everything You Need to Know. In Cognifit: Health, Brain and Neuroscience. July 14, 2017. https://blog.cognifit.com/emotional-contagion/
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/us/politics/tax-cuts-uk.html
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/hurricane-ian-southwest-florida-cape-coral.html
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/business/stock-market-today.html
[6] https://www.nytimes.com/. September 29, 2022.