I’m a big fan of science fiction.* But I’d be the first to admit that, if you consume enough, it can get a bit repetitive, with concepts and ideas that keep reoccurring. ‘Despite having zero shared evolutionary history, alien races look a lot like humans with weird foreheads or ears’ is one example of this. ‘There is nothing so ludicrously dangerous that a shadowy corporation won’t try to profit from it’ is another.
A third is, ‘Humans will always be threatened by, or otherwise inferior to, any intelligence that lacks or is immune to emotions’. The merciless artificial intelligences of theTerminator andMatrix franchises. The coldly efficient cyborgs like Robocop, orDoctor Who’s Cybermen. The intellectually superior Vulcans ofStar Trek, for whom the rejection of emotions is the basis of their entire culture.† By accident or design, science fiction is regularly implying that our emotions are a liability, a weakness.
Admittedly, real life isn’t much better. The Stoics and the Buddhists were insisting that emotions obstruct reason and enlightenment millennia ago. And referring to someone as ‘overly emotional’ is never a compliment.
So, the general consensus is that emotions are an obstacle to rational thought. It’s like our brains have evolved beyond emotions, but they’re still hanging around, clogging up the workings of our minds: the psychological equivalent of an inflamed appendix.
I’d never put much stock in this idea before, dismissing it as the reserve of dystopian fiction, or posturing online pseudo-intellectuals. But when my dad fell ill, my inability to articulate or embrace my emotional responses was taking up far more of my headspace than I liked.
The severity of his condition fluctuated wildly from day to day too, so the emotions I was struggling to comprehend, or process, kept changing from morning to night.
