Feel Your Feelings

An embodied look at one of my debates on Substack

Part 1: You are not a bodiless mind.

In his book, ‘The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion’ Jonathan Haidt points out that as human beings, our gut reactions come first and strategic reasoning second. He compares our gut reactions to an elephant and our conscious reasoning to a rider on top of the elephant that rationalizes the elephant’s decisions. Our strategic reasoning is not an impartial judge making decisions for our gut but is driven by our gut.

Those of us who participate regularly in debate-land (including yours, truly) tend to believe the opposite. But this is not our personal fault. It is the result of centuries of conditioning.