Re: Sentimentality & Cruelty

Avstar of Texas (avstar@ONRAMP.NET)
Mon, 7 Apr 1997 19:58:26 -0500

RE: The following comment by Ted Atkinson:
>Oh, yes. Sentimentality is essentially manufactured emotion. The
>"tenderness that leads to the gas chamber" is also sentimental because the
>"tenderness" has been robbed of meaning. As O'Connor notes, sentimentality,
>like pornography, is a distortion: one circumvents reality to arrive at a
>false (and often theoretical) state of emotion. Sentimentality is
>necessarily cruel because it is a dangerous imposter in the realm of
>feeling.
>

I guess my real problem is how do we really define sentimentality in this
day and age? Cognitive therapy tells us that all emotions are manufactured.
Should I not cry at a sad movie just because it's not reality? Should we
not let anything affect our emotions unless it happens to us LIVE and in
REAL-TIME? And how do we know that someone like Al Gore is insincere?
Obviously many people thought he was. Looking at the "facts" we say he was
not, but I'm sure a hard-core Democratic would see it differently. How do
we really know that Jerry Springer is insincere? How do we know what the
facts are or what's in someone's heart? And how do we know if a distortion
of reality has occurred? A simple example: I run a school and have 3
students living in rooms upstairs at the school. If the kitchen is a mess,
I ask them who made the mess. Like 3-year=olds they all answer "not-me",
each one pointing fingers at the others. However it is obvious that one or
all of them are guilty. Without video-taped surveillance there is no way I
can prove anything. Now if I cannot even establish a simple fact in this
situation occurring right before my eyes in my own domain, how can we ever
know if our emotions are being jerked-with or not by the world-at-large? I
guess I better not ever have another emotion again, because I'll never be
sure about it. I'm sure I've missed the point here, so, gentle readers,
enlighten me.

Eldon Roehl