The art of getting emotional

Serving feelings in the era of cool

Author: Lluís Soler Pages: 208

In this intelligent and thorough approach to the complex relationship between emotion and reason, the author pinpoints the paradox of the growing harmony between the two: emotions, genuine expressions of our emotional and impulsive life, have been turned into goods, to whose exchange we are all the victims and participants. Feelings, the intimate, the personal, are slipping into the sphere once reserved exclusively for reasoning; work, great romantic relationships and friendships are reserved for those who know best how to sell themselves in front of others; desires and impulses are subjected to being dictated by algorithms; people become entrepreneurs of themselves; spontaneity is transformed into strategies for gaining followers on social media. Going deeper into the logic of a discourse that turns our existence into a commodity, the author unveils the key elements of a reality which covers hugely diverse areas – psychology, neuroscience, education, economics, culture – and where impulses, beliefs, ideas, and values are sold as objects of consumption. And he doesn't do this to plunge us into hopeless pessimism, but rather this is done as an invitation to build a reality where we put reason and emotions at the service of a better world.

Key facts:

• The author questions the current imbalance between reason and emotions and postulates a new balance in favour of authentic emotion.

About Lluís Soler

Lluís Soler (Mataró, 1968) is a librarian and tutor at UNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia - National University of Distance Education). With an undergraduate degree in Humanities and Political Sciences and Sociology, in 2018 he got his master’s in Citizenship and Human Rights. He leads the analysis group “Ágora” and periodically holds conferences at the civil association the Ateneo de Barcelona (Barcelonian Athenaeum).

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