Theoretical boundaries

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 120392


Kneasy:
"Maybe I'm old fashioned. I consider my emotions to be intensely 
personal. I would find it distasteful and an imposition on others to
spread them all over a web-site. I'm of the generation that considered
public displays of such matters to be ill-mannered and  unnecessary.
Others apparently think differently. "

Alla:
Yes, apparently they do.

Lupinlore: 
Indeed we do.  I'll second you on that one, Alla.

Del replies:
I'm in the middle ground. I can appreciate the value of emotions in
some discussions, and the value of a non-emotional approach in other
discussions.

There are two major problems with the emotional approach. First it's
completely subjective. Everybody can and do react in a different way,
which makes any discussion almost impossible, because in the end it's
only a matter of "I think my emotions are more
justified/acceptable/whatever than yours", which of course doesn't get
us anywhere. We can't discuss each other's emotions. We can only
discuss the canon's facts. Which is why, when discussing some of the
canon's facts, it's not necessarily a good idea to bring in our emotions.

The second major problem is that our emotions can and do interfere
with our intellect. Harry is a good example of that : he's been wrong
several times because he submitted the facts to the distorting filter
of his emotions. He's entitled not to like Snape, for example, but
when he lets that dislike colour his analysis of a situation, he
wrongfully concludes that Snape is guilty (of whatever). His emotional
response to Snape is perfectly valid, but using this emotional
response to deal with the facts about Snape is dangerous.

So it is with us. Having emotions is of course fine, JKR *does* intend
us to react emotionally to her stories. But using those emotions to
discuss facts is dangerous in that it can easily lead us to false
conclusions.

Del