Feelings shmeelings

[koganbot]

Tom asks over on Blue Lines "Why don't reviewers write about how they feel?" I don't necessarily buy that they don't, but here's my response:

Shortage of adjectives, with the available ones lacking precision; and the experience itself lacks precision, with "feeling" itself not being any more precise than other broad words - such as "influence," which you recently disparaged on another tumblr. "Feeling" may not be the correct word, anyway. E.g., hearing a melody as "sad" does not necessarily mean that it made you feel sad. "Feeling" is actually something of a buzzword. Also, feelings are - incorrectly - considered private and supposedly carry the supposed ineffability of the private; whereas what play socially in one's interaction with others are one's opinions. And expressions of "feeling" play as opinions in the social world, anyway.

I wrote about these concerns back in The Rules The Game #3. A moral of that piece is that we should, indeed, talk about "feelings" (or whatever) but, in doing so, should examine them critically, with a mind towards when to change one's "feelings," rather than taking one's feelings as inalterable bedrock.

[Martin and Don and I discussed that column a little bit here. The column is one of my favorites, by the way.]

Comments

[koganbot]

Thank you. This puts into words my whole impatience with this subject - well, not with the subject, whatever it is, but with how it tends to go nowhere.