Crying as Homework

When I was reading Norgaard’s Living in Denial, my mind was blown by what I saw as a very interesting (and ultimately accurate) view of emotion. She argues that emotion is a way of seeing the world and thus an emotional response may be the most rational way to act in some cases, though this may be at odds with our culture’s idea of rationalism typically being emotionless. With this in mind, my thoughts drifted towards climate change. Is it rational to speak of climate change in the way we normally do? Where does emotion fit into this? If emotional responses are supposed to be even slightly proportional to their referents then I realized that a “rational” response to climate change would have to include much more than a logical understanding. I decided that if I wanted to be rational about the issue of climate change, then maybe I needed to cry.

At that thought, the voices in my head started to scoff and shame me. Now that’s a bit dramatic, Matt. After all, what would crying really do about it? Well, probably nothing but it’s about experimenting with a different idea of rationality. And if you’re choosing to be emotional, why not choose an emotion that’s potentially more productive, like anger? Well, good point, but no protests are happening at the moment and it’s not like embracing the emotions of grief and anger has to be mutually exclusive, so italics-Matt you’re kindof a dipshit on this one. I stopped thinking; I have learned to embrace a “what the hell, why not” mentality with this stuff, and so with this I stuck with my original conviction of crying and I set aside 20 minutes of my day. This is climate change, after all — the largest problem of our generation — I figured there was plenty to cry about if I just dwelled in my emotions. I began to imagine the people around the world whose lives have been lost or changed irreversibly due to the lifestyles of the industrialized nations, and due to my own complicity. I imagined my children, my children’s children, and how in time their lives will be affected more and more. The tears began to flow. As they did, I wasn’t sure if they could be ascribed to grief, guilt, or any distinct emotion in particular.

Getting myself to cry over the anthropocene was certainly interesting as it embraced a new approach to an emotion-inclusive idea of rationality; however, it was only after the tears flowed that I realized a deeper, more purposeful part of this experiment — the part that you are reading right now. By blogging about my extremely weird idea to cry about climate change, I am publicly breaking the cultural and emotional norms of 1) what is appropriate to cry about 2) the level of emotion and vulnerability that a man should show to others. Emotional norms (e.g. “being tough”, “acting cool”), Norgaard argues, play a large role in our collective denial of climate change. Of course, these emotional norms are often extremely constraining to men in particular. In fact, I remember reading a feminist article once which claimed that the first destructive act of patriarchy lies in the moment when men stigmatize and remove from themselves everything which they arbitrarily label as “feminine” (emotions, mainly).
So I’ll try to avoid the ostentatious “this is how deep and emotional I am…” paragraph that might typically sum this all up. But I will say this: some of these emotional norms deserve to be broken and communicated — if not for the good of connecting with oneself and the world on a deeper level, then for the good of changing the interactionally-produced norms which cause climate change denial on a larger social level.