Energy Release and the Emotions : Part 5

The Foundations of Personality
by Abraham Myerson, M.D.

(Page 14 of 25)

Fear and anger have this in common: whenever the controlling energy of the mind goes, as in illness, fatigue or early mental disease, they become more prominent and uncontrolled. This cannot be overemphasized. When a man (or woman) finds himself continually getting apprehensive and irritable, then it is the time to ask, "What's the matter with me," and to get expert opinion on the subject.

These two emotions are in more need of rationalizing and intelligent control than the other emotions, for they are more explosive. Certainly of anger it is truly said that "He who is master of himself is greater than he who taketh a city." The angry man is disliked, he arouses unpleasant feelings, he is unpopular and a nuisance and a danger in the view of his fellows. The underlying idea underneath courtesy and social regulations is to avoid anger and humiliation. Controversial subjects are avoided, and one must not brag or display concern because these things cause anger and disgust. Politeness and tact are essential to turn away wrath, to avoid that ego injury that brings anger.

We contrast with the brusque type, careless of whether he arouses anger, the tactful, which conciliates by avoiding prejudice, and which hates force and anger as unpleasant. Against the quick to anger there is the slow type, whose anger may be enduring. We may contrast egoistic anger with the altruistic and oppose the anger which is effective with the anger that disturbs reason and judgment; intellectual anger against brute anger. Rarely do men show anger to their superiors; extreme provocation and desperation are necessary. Men flare up easily against equals but more easily and with mingled contempt against the inferior. Anger, though behind the fighting spirit, need not bluster or storm; usually that is a "worked up" condition intended in a naive way to frighten and intimidate, or through disgust, to win a point. Anger is not necessarily courage, which replaces it the higher up one goes in culture.

8. Disgust, also a primary emotion, is one of the basic reactions of life and civilization. Literally "disagreeable taste," its facial expression, with mouth open and lower lip drawn down, is that preliminary to vomiting. We eject or retract when disgusted; we are not afraid nor are we angry. We say "he - or she, or it - makes me sick," and this is the stock phrase of disgust. Inelegant as it is, it exactly expresses the situation. Disgust easily mingles with fear and anger; it is often dispelled by curiosity and interest, as in the morbid, as in medical science, and it of ten displaces less intense curiosity and interest.

After anything has been accepted as standard in cleanliness, a deviation in a "lower" direction causes disgust. Those who are accustomed to clean tablecloths, clean linen are disgusted by dirty tablecloths, dirty linen. The excreta of the body have been so effectively tabooed, in the interest perhaps of sanitation, that their sight or smell is disgusting, and they are used as symbols of disgust in everyday language. Indeed, the so-called animal functions have to be decorated and ceremonialized to avoid disgust. We turn with ridicule and repugnance from him who eats without "manners" and one of the functions of manners is to avoid arousing disgust.

Disgust kills desire and passion, and from that fact we may trace a large part of moral progress. Satiety brings a slight disgust; thus after a heavy meal there may be contentment but the sight of food is not at all appealing and often enough rather repelling. In the sex field, a deep repulsion is often felt when lust alone has brought the man and woman together or when the situation is illegal or unhallowed. With satisfaction of desire, the inhibiting forces come to their own, and the violence of repentance and disgust may be extreme. Stanley Hall, Havelock Ellis and other writers lay stress on this; and, indeed, one of the bases of asceticism is this disgust. Further, when we have no desires or passion, the sight of others hugging and kissing, or acting "intimate" in any way, is usually disgusting, an offense against "good taste" based on the "bad taste" it arouses in the observer. In memory we are often disgusted at what we did in the heat of desire, but usually memory itself does not prevent us from repeating the act; desire itself must slacken. Thus the old are often intensely disgusted at the conduct of the young, and it is never wise for a young couple to live with older people. For in the early days of married life the intensity of the intimate feelings needs seclusion in order to avoid disgusting others. It is no accident that Dame Grundy is depicted as an elderly person with a "sour look"; her prudishness has an origin in disgust at that which she has outlived. Sometimes the old are wise - not often enough - and then their humor, love and sympathy keeps them from disgust.

Love counteracts disgust. The young girl who turns in loathing from uncleanliness finds it easy and a pleasure to care for her soiled baby. In fact, tender feeling of any kind overcomes - or tends to overcome - disgust; and pity, the tenderest of all feelings and without passion, impels us to march into the very jaws of disgust. The angry may have no pity, - but they are not less unkind in commission than the disgusted are unkind in omission. Thus a too refined breeding leads people away from effective pity and that sturdiness of conduct which is real philanthropy. Indeed, too much of refinement increases the number of disgusting things in the world; he who must have this or that luxury is not so much pleased with it as disgusted without it. Raising standards in things material cannot increase the happiness or contentment of the world, for it merely makes men impatient and disgusted at lesser standards. We cannot hope to increase happiness through the material improvements of civilization.

Self-disgust and shame are not identical but are so kindred that shame may well be studied here. Shame is lowered self-valuation, brought on by social or self-disapproval. Usually it is acute and, like fear, it tends to make the individual hide or fly. It is based on insight, and there are thus some who are never ashamed, simply because they do not understand disapproval. Shame is essentially a feeling of inferiority, and when we say to a man, "Shame on you," we say, "You have done wrong, humble yourself, be little!" When we say, "I am ashamed of you," we say, "I had pride in you; I enlarged myself through you, and now you make me little." When the community cries shame, it uses a force that redresses wrong by the need of the one addressed to vindicate himself. When a man feels shame he feels small, inferior in his own eyes and in the eyes of others. He feels impelled, if he is generous, to make amends or to do penance, and thus he recovers his self-esteem. Unfortunately, shame arises more frequently and often more violently from a violation of custom and manner than from a violation of ethics or morals. Thus we are more ashamed of the so-called "bad break" than of our failures to be kind. Sometimes our fellow feeling is so strong that we avoid seeing any one who is humiliated or embarrassed, because sympathy spreads his feeling to us. Gentle people are those who dislike to shame any one else, and often one of this type will endure being wronged rather than reprimand or cause humiliation and shame. Let something be said to shame any member of a company and a feeling of shame spreads through the group, except in the case of those who are very hostile.