Ethos, the first step, is about establishing the speaker’s authority and status; logos, the next step, is presenting one’s logical argument. And pathos, the final step, is to sway the listener by appealing to their emotions.
Almost 2,500 years later, we use this structure not just in oral arguments, but speeches, debates and everyday conversations. However, the Chinese Whispers of history have warped Aristotle’s structure to an unrecognisable form, defeating its purpose, and indeed achieving the opposite.
Ethos, today, is built superficially – through alternative facts, exaggeration, backroom deals.
Logos, today, manifests as logical fallacies, starting with straw man arguments.
Worst of all, Pathos, today, retains its form, but is twisted around: Rather than appealing to the listener’s emotions, the speaker’s objective is to deluge the other with a barrage of the speaker’s emotions, which are generally negative –rage, desperation, disapproval — and often not real, or greatly exaggerated.
A Human Being without Emotion is not a Human Being?
Human culture is like a pendulum – norms and fads in one generation are countered by a later one – swinging the norm to the other side, and the cycle continues. This is no different for how humans think of, express, and use emotions.
Aristotle was perhaps the first advocate of the idea of ‘balance in all things’, which he described as ‘The Golden Mean’. It’s never favourable for society to be near any extreme.
Over decades, and even centuries, our social constructs, particularly Western, have been rooted in the thought that women are ‘emotional creatures’, whereas men must be stoic and emotionless.
Over the last 30 years, this construct has been challenged, especially with men being encouraged to express their emotions. And, ‘It’s okay for a man to cry’ has been the war cry of woke culture.
And over the last 10 years, the social pendulum has shifted to the other extreme, where the “right” to express one’s emotions has been weaponised. Especially in the West, outcomes like “cancel culture” and “call-out culture” are manifestations of this shift.
Being emotional, which, today, means base emotions like anger, fear, despair, has become so fashionable today that we’ve begun expressing, and not necessarily feeling, emotions on behalf of other people, as in ‘I’m angry for you’.
Palliatives like ‘A human being without emotion is not a human being’ are casually thrown around, and the end result, is that the ideal human being in today’s society is a ball of rage and hysteria.
Reversion to the Golden Mean
While macro societies may take years to shift the pendulum back to the mean, micro pockets of intellectuals, which in today’s context are well-educated people in corporate society, would be the change masters of the next era. Individuals with resolve can surely beat the curve, work towards inner and outer balance, and not propagate “hysteria culture”.
Some ways to revert to the golden mean of emotions are: firstly, be conscious of our modern-day ‘need’ to be emotional. Only once we’re conscious, can we seek inner balance, and also help others achieve emotional regulation. Secondly, replace base, primary, negative emotions like anger, hurt, embarrassment with higher-order, positive, complex emotions like affection, confidence, thankfulness, relief, contentment, comfort and excitement.
The limbic brain, to save bandwidth, prefers base emotions like anger, which are simple to execute. Complex emotions take a bit more effort, but also provide better outcomes.
While this may take time and effort to replace the emotions one genuinely feels, it’s certainly a good first step to do this for emotions one expresses.
Thirdly, moderate the intensity of emotions expressed, which would naturally moderate the effect of emotions felt, by oneself and by others, leading to productive discussions.
By focussing on what we express, which is in our control, rather than on what we feel, which is a harder obstacle to cross, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy, where we begin feeling what we express.
Especially in today’s context, less is more. An emotionally intelligent person would apply the right balance of emotional type and intensity, and distinguish between emotions felt, input, and emotions expressed, output.
-Atman