We have two systems: the head and the heart. What we think and what we feel. When both are saying the same thing to us, then our evaluations are generally right. Unfortunately, most people pay too much attention to one and not enough to another.
Let’s take Paul Krugman, the “economist” who’s been on TV way too much today. Krugman doesn’t know what he is talking about. Intellectually, I know he is a fool. Emotionally, I can “see” that he is arrogant and blind. Both what I think and feel about him work together. Therefore I can confidentially say that Krugman is a danger because he has political influence, and if I had my way I’d ban him from economics for the rest of his life.
Some people will ignore the red flags they are getting. That means what they think and feel are going in the wrong direction. I once knew a guy who thought he had met the woman he wanted to marry. An older man asked him if he wanted to wake up next to her every morning for the rest of his life. He suddenly realized he had been ignoring some red flags he was getting on her.
I knew a man who was very successful at opening small businesses. When I asked him how he did it, he told me when he met someone he was thinking about going into business with, if what he thought and what he felt worked together, then he knew it would be a success.
And I remember that George Soros said he knew how his portfolio was doing by how his back felt. That would be more of how his body felt, but then, how do you separate how your body feels from your emotions? Either way, it’s the same thing: what you think and what you feel must work together. Then you can make the best evaluations of things.
In total, it's not just what you think and feel working together, it's their effect in the real world. You have to pay attention to that and not ignore it.
The two main reasons I dismiss liberals is because one, they are fuzzy-minded, and two, they are about four-years-old emotionally. In their case, neither the heart nor the heart is working the right ways. And they ignore the effects their beliefs have in reality.
In fact, I dismiss anyone who believes politics can fix anything. People who truly believe in the political process see everything as black or white, all-good or all-bad, with no shades of grey. That’s what little kids do.
Anyone who believes in politics as some kind of panacea has to ignore the effects of their beliefs in reality.
These political animals on some level must know something is wrong with them. But they ignore it. That’s self-deception, which is related to their belief in all good and all bad, which means they have to project the all-bad on someone else. Projection and self-deception are probably the biggest problems in the world.
Together, projection and self-deception will certainly prevent the head and the heart working together.
Emotions can be considered instant evaluations. Reason is a lot slower. This is just the way we are; in fact perception goes through the emotional brain first before it reaches the rational part. It’s one of the reason there exists that old saying, when you get mad, count to ten. It's also the reason there really is no dichotomy between intellect and emotion.
Unfortunately, for a lot of people, they think what they feel is what is right. A lot of them are impulsive, and impulsivity gets people into big trouble. Coupled with a low IQ, it usually ends them in prison (“I didn’t think about what would happen to me”). There is a huge disconnect between the head and the heart.
It’s very unfortunate that so many parents don’t have the knowledge to raise their kids knowing that emotions are instant evaluations and reason is a much slower one. If people knew themselves better there would be a lot less trouble in the world.
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