How politics of emotions gave way to politics of reason
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“Since the 17th century Western societies have elevated reason above feeling as the basis for political action. Emphasising reason in this way presumed that it could be neatly separated from feelings altogether, that they were discrete categories. Politicians who acted on reason alone were virtuous, whereas those who exploited emotions and feelings were deemed to be unscrupulous.
But this dimension of the Enlightenment has “run aground”, argues William Davies, a political economist at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book, “Nervous States”, documents the struggle between “reason” and “feelings” in politics. It is very much a book for our times.
Mr Davies argues that in pursuit of reason, European countries founded an intellectual architecture that largely survives to this day; the numerous Royal Societies, academies of science, universities, learned journals and newspapers (such as The Economist, launched in 1843) that codified knowledge and developed what came to be known as logico-deductive modes of reasoning.
The high priests of these institutions were “experts”, and, as Mr Davies, writes, “their ability to keep feelings separate from their observations was one of their distinguishing traits.” In public life still, he writes, “an accusation of being emotional traditionally carries the implication that someone has lost objectivity and given way to irrational forces.”
But for a variety of reasons, some medical/scientific, some sociological and others political, neat distinctions between reason and feelings have broken down. As Mr Davies argues in his book, “Experts and facts no longer seem capable of settling arguments to the extent that they once did.”
Indeed, expertise itself is under assault in the age of Trump and Brexit. A lot of polling demonstrates how trust in the intellectual architecture of reason has steadily dwindled, including trust in most professions, and most particularly trust in government, politicians and the media. Instead, people are now allowed to trust and express their own feelings as “alternative facts”.
