This is the third in a six-part series giving a brief overview of How to Become an Emotional Detective.
The International Herald Tribune published a great piece by commentator David Brooks yesterday. I have extracted extensive quotes from his article because they mirror so many of my own views while putting them in a broader cultural context. His recent book called The Social Animal describes his ideas in greater detail.
Brooks posits that people in our culture "emphasize things that are rational and conscious and are inarticulate about the processes down below. We are really good at talking about material things but bad at talking about emotion....
Yet while we are trapped within this amputated view of human nature, a richer and deeper view is coming back into view. It is being brought to us by researchers across an array of diverse fields: neuroscience, psychology, sociology, behavioral economics and so on....
This growing, dispersed body of research reminds us of a few key insights. First, the unconscious parts of the mind are most of the mind, where many of the most impressive feats of thinking take place. Second, emotion is not opposed to reason; our emotions assign value to things and are the basis of reason. Finally, we are not individuals who form relationships. We are social animals, deeply interpenetrated with one another, who emerge out of relationships....
We don’t only progress as reason dominates the passions. We also thrive as we educate our emotions.
When you synthesize this research, you get different perspectives on everything from business to family to politics. You pay less attention to how people analyze the world but more to how they perceive and organize it in their minds. You pay a bit less attention to individual traits and more to the quality of relationships between people."
Thanks to David Brooks for this wonderful commentary.
In this blog, I will share with you a model that reflects much of this research. Consider me a curator of contemporary ideas about human nature. Please join me as I share insights about life below the surface of awareness, to learn more about yourself and others - to create a more fulfilling life.
The other five posts in this series are: Becoming an Emotional Detective, The Right Attitude, Special Challenges for An Emotional Detective, Collecting Clues, What is a Private Eye?
How lucky I feel!
You're extremely generous by sharing your knowledge with us.
(What David Brooks says is so interesting!)
Looking forward to the coming posts!
:)
Posted by: Elsita :) | 03/11/2011 at 08:04 AM