Cultures of Sadness (first in an intermittent series)

[drwex]

I'm posting this here in part to remind myself to write it more fully later. However, commentary is open and welcome.

Adults repress joy. Children have the freedom to express it, but we try to repress it, in part to protect ourselves from being hurt. We fear the consequences of expressing anger, or sexual feelings. We are afraid that if we let ourselves love freely we'll be opening ourselves up for tremendous hurt. Joy and expressions of love are therefore repressed.

LJ creates/enables/encourages (I'm not sure which, maybe all) a culture of sadness. Observation: when a friend posts about her illness or depression or unhappiness, she receives many encouraging comments. The readers chime in, and participate in the expression, validating the feelings of sadness or depression. Observation: when a friend posts about his happiness, his readers complain and even stop reading his journal. Observation: when a friend posts about her sexual feelings, she is expected to label it "TMI" and put it behind a cut, lest someone be offended.

The social norm is that feelings of sadness or depression are supported; feelings of joy, sexuality, happiness are ignored, trivialized, or even draw negative feedback. I do not think this is unique to LJ; I think there are many Cultures of Sadness in modern life. I just happen to be participating in this one with roughly 120 of my closest friends.

Comments

[drwex]

Does limiting a display of emotion necessitate repressing it? Or are you talking about something else?

I do indeed mean "repress" but I understand the word has clinical meanings. I mean "repress" in the sense of "actively work not to express." I think that people who feel strong emotions need to work not to express them. I don't mean that they're ill or pathological - simply identifying a behavior pattern.

You seem to consider the viewing of emotions as "private" or "shameful" on a scale, where both are bad, with "shameful" being the worse of the two. Is that an accurate reading of this sentence?

Halfway. I would say that both are judgements people make about emotions. They might be related, but I'd have to work at constructing a scale for them - it's not what I intended. However, yes, I agree that feeling shame for one's emotions is worse than feeling private about them.

My concern in the example cited was that the child who was publicly reprimanded for an open display of honest emotion will internalize the message that the emotions are bad or wrong, and thus be led to feel shame for having them. This is particularly difficult when working with a child too young to understand nuances of when and how one might express emotions.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Okay, in that case, I would argue, speaking only for myself, that not showing emotions does not equate, for me, feeling them less strongly.

And to the private/shameful issue, while I agree that feeling shame for one's emotions (assuming we're talking about someone healthy and not criminally dangerous, where I think the application of social shame may have a place) is "bad", but I would not agree that feeling that one's emotions are "private" is a bad thing. This is why I picked up on the "shameful is worse" formulation, because the implication of "worse" is that "(a) is bad enough, but (b) is worse!" and I don't personally see holding strong emotions as private things as necessarily being bad (though I can see how forcing someone who doesn't feel that way to take up the banner for the introvert camp would not be "good".)

[drwex]

Right. I think we're in about 90% agreement, on this part at least.

I would argue, speaking only for myself, that not showing emotions does not equate, for me, feeling them less strongly.

I agree. One of my interests is in understanding what emotions get suppressed versus expressed, and by whom, for what reasons. I feel like in childhood we have strong emotions and express them freely. In adolescence we have strong emotions but have to/learn to suppress them for various reasons. As adults, I think we have strong emotions, but have learned some bad behaviors around them. Or rather, we perpetuate (some) adolescent behaviors rather than learning new adult ones.

Personally, I'm analyzing my own (mis)behaviors in the context of seeing my friends' emotional expressions and responses to them, and trying to teach my kids good things on this topic.

"(a) is bad enough, but (b) is worse!" and I don't personally see holding strong emotions as private things as necessarily being bad

I think I can say that (b) - in this case shame - is worse but still be vague on what would be better. Part of what I need is a good formulation for what would be better.