I bought this tin of smoked mussels the other day. I'm no stranger to smoked food, to shellfish, or to the combination of the two. Heck, I eat smoked oysters fairly frequently. The thing I like most about them is that when you burp hours later you can still taste them. The downside of the mussels, though, is that they were so friggin' smoky, I couldn't stand it! GM Chrysler! I thought I was eating mushy charcoal! I think I'll stick to oysters and spiced octopus.
That got me thinking, though. It got me thinking of that elusive thing called emotion. The ability to "feel" seems to be almost sacred. People are always "getting in touch" with their feelings in outlets like the Jerry Springer Show. Star Trek was ALWAYS claiming that irrational emotions are superior to flat logic. Sure, emotions are part of us, but let's be real. For all of the sweet talk it gets, human emotion has killed more people than small pox and champagne corks put together.
By definition, emotions are those almost always irrational urges that make us do stupid things in spite of all common sense. Emotions can screw up our lives or worse because they stamp out our better judgment and turn us into lunatics, making us take actions that saner heads can clearly see are nuts. The ultimate example is your friend and mine, Mr. Adolf Hitler. Did that august German statesman woo a war-weary nation to undreamed of military conquest by rationally going down the list of pros and cons ("Pro: we'll kill a lot of French; con: we might be bombed back into the stone age").
Uh, no.
Emotions such as fear, hatred, and anger are just a few of the remarkably unifying emotions that have changed history repeatedly. All great leaders know how to drag people around by their fear and prejudices. Yessir, the sign of a good leader is one who can whip the masses into a frothing frenzy over the price of soybeans. True, our current crop of presidential candidates couldn't get a blip on the emoto-meter by walking through Harlem in a KKK uniform, but they try.
"But what about those soft fuzzy emotions, like love and crap like that?" asks the dumb broad with the D-cups and the Playboy T-shirt. Hot, yes, but suffering from Cranial Vacuum Syndrome.
Sure, I answer, love is nice, but it's only a short jump to jealousy which is an even shorter jump to rage. Yep, because of our friend "love", we suffer quite a bit of pain. Take the chick who sticks with an abusive dick (I rhyme!), or the parents who suffer because their kid is a druggy, or the cool, smart guy who's evil girlfriend gets knocked up by some high school drop out petty criminal drug abusing TOWNIE.
But I'm not bitter.
That's not to say that a world without emotion would be necessarily peaceful. People can still logically decide that the benefits of killing someone outweigh the risks. Nations can still decide they have gains to make through war. Sure, there would still be death and disease and famine and eggplant. On the bright side, though, there would be no more crimes of passion or hysterical acts of genocide. There would still be Stalins, but no more Hitlers. I guess that's a plus. On the other hand, you could argue that loyalty and friendship are emotionally based, the lack of which would lead to a society of backstabbers.
Of course, for all practical purposes, this is pure mental masturbation. Emotions are the window to the primal, instinctual reactions that are the result of billions of years of evolution. We'd stand as much chance mitigating them as we would getting Donald Trump to date someone his own age. Nevertheless, the world would definitely be a better place if people bothered to take a minute to put their emotions in check for five seconds and think critically for a change. Feeling is just easier than thinking, I guess.
If only we could set up a society like that most logical race, the Vulcans! As you know, they have sex once every seven years. For most of you, that would mean less sex than you're used to. For me, much more.
