How Does That Make You Feel

Quite possibly the worst question it is possible to ask someone.

A companion to this "question" is a statement which "evaluates for" the person being addressed, e.g. "you feel bad because ..." or "it's just your subconscious making you do that" or any other remark that "makes it clear" that you know more about what someone thinks or feels than he does himself.

Minor "evaluation" cases include common insults: "you piece of shit!" can almost always be interpreted as "I disagree with you and I'm angry with you," and most people, eventually learn to discard the content as hyperbole. Major "evaluation" is more along the lines of "you see, Jack, that's your problem; you feel ..." and is nasty stuff.

The "question," on the other hand, is far more insidious: 1) it implies that it's possible for your feelings (emotions) to be manipulated from outside and 2) that this is normal, or even 3) a good idea -- oh, yes, 4) the question, because of its predication, is simply invalid; attempting to process it at all leads to wrong conclusions. Not to mention that another implication is that one might possibly be feeling the "wrong" emotion, and thus one needs "fixing" (whatever that is).

Given sufficient exposure to the idea that the "control knobs" for one's own emotions are located somewhere other than in one's "own hands" it is possible to a person to decide that "my feelings are the consequence of my environment." Of course, one has to buy the idea in the first place to be victimized by it, but it is now so widely taught that when one looks around to see if anyone else feels the question is just plain nuts, one sees acceptance, so it must be right, so ... how does that make me feel?

This leads to highly reactive behavior. It is, when all is said and done, a really bad thing.

An appropriate response (well, within the domain of verbal responses) might well be "you don't have my permission to mess with my feelings -- piss off."

Okay, I'm done venting for now. So, how does that make the rest of you feel?

-- GarryHamilton

Alternative: "So, how do you feel about that?" Same question, but phrased to route around the above objection, though not the ones below:

I know when I'm asked that question, the last thing I want to do is take my legitimate emotion, censor it, then turn it into words just to satisfy somebody's need for attention. That is, the way it makes me feel is like punching the person asking. -- LayneThomas

Surely it depends on the context. When people are emotionally reactive, then they have a stimulus-response behavior, and it's fair to say that, in such circumstances, it is indeed some exterior force that "made" them feel that way. Reactivity means a lack of free will for the course of the reactivity.

Then there's the questioner: are they hostile, neutral, supportive? However they are perceived is going to be the driving force behind how their audience reacts. If they ask "how does that make you feel", and you perceive them to be highly supportive, you're unlikely to get too angry at them for asking that. If they seem hostile or sneaky or manipulative, though...

-- DougMerritt

I think that phrase is a cliche for "I'm trying to bond emotionally with you", which is not something I do with just anyone, so it can be a very unwanted question. Especially when you sense the person asking doesn't really care, they are just running their "eliza-like bond-with-human script"

-- LayneThomas

Yes, true. That's an instance of what I meant; it depends on how the speaker is perceived. Pulling an Eliza does not come across as being very supportive!

Approach this as an engineering problem. If you are designing a robot to navigate a maze, and you program it solve according to the "RightHandRule?" of mazes, you cannot "blame the maze" if, later, you discover that the maze has an island design.

If you're designing a program that handles a process, and the user bangs the [escape] key repeatedly (out of ignorance or whatever), then your program's handling of this event will be best served by the observation that "events happen, and it's my job to process them correctly" instead of the ever-popular "stupid users!" response.

This is not a clean analogy, as gadgets and programs don't actually think and are not actually aware, but the point is this: if the system works a certain way (people do, in fact, cause their own emotions) then troubleshooting the system can only be undertaken in terms that acknowledge the truths of the system.

I was teaching a class many years ago on the use of communications software that I'd written, when a self-important fellow at the back spoke up, asking "when the modem is connected, how much memory does the telephone have?" I spent several minutes trying not to embarrass him while trying to convey that "you can't ask the question that way." I needn't have bothered, he was beyond embarrassment.

If sticking an icepick in your ear is a bad idea, then it won't matter it the person doing it is "being supportive" -- it's the wrong thing to do, period.

-- GarryHamilton

You're not claiming that saying "how does that make you feel" is always the wrong thing to say, no matter who says it, no matter how they are perceived by their audience? That wouldn't make sense. If they intend to be supportive, and if they are perceived as being supportive, who are we to tell them "no, saying that can't work, so we will ignore the fact that it did work." ? :-)

As for the underlying point to all of this: some people are reactive some of the time. During that time they do not have free will. Nor do they have the free will to start exercising free will. Free will is not something that humans have to a complete extent 100% of the time. Some people have it some of the time.

I think we've all observed people who are so oblivious that they appear to be fairly simple stimulus-response mechanisms 100% of the time; such people appear to have no true free will at all.

Of course, even then it is reasonable to act as if they do, when the topic is morality or legality.

One way of looking at the eastern traditions of enlightenment is that they are about transcending such normal limitations to free will, and being conscious enough to exercise true free will 100% of the time. Most people are not very conscious most of the time when they're awake; driving while talking on a cell phone is a clear example, but it applies less obviously most of the rest of the time, too.

-- DougMerritt

So how much memory does the phone have when it's connected to a modem?

The question, as structured, does not work. It assumes conditions that are fundamentally erroneous.

Yes, people are reactive sometimes and, yes, this can result in a suspension of "free will" -- to the extent that a person is overwhelmed by constructs that originate with the person himself.

Asking how "that makes you feel" is a subscription to the idea that the person himself is not, ultimately, the cause of his own emotions.

Get a room full of people. Do something they can all observe. Poll the room. What did they see? What are their impressions? Do they have an emotional context for the event?

Okay, now, given that they all saw/heard the same event, why are their responses not identical? Because what drives their emotions is within their individual domains. The event is just an event.

We won't worry about intent on the part of the person asking the question until we have a question that actually works.

-- GarryHamilton

But we seem to agree that sometimes people are not the proximal cause of their own emotions. At most you are only pointing out that they may be the distal, ultimate causal agency, but remember that ultimate causality in general cannot be discerned due to too many combined factors. Only proximal causality can be (sometimes) discerned. -- dm

CategoryBehavioralPatterns