By Jean Moroney
For an egoist, there is no inherent conflict between reason and emotion. However, emotions can disrupt and interfere with cognition. This course explains how to deal effectively with disruptive emotions, including how to use the information contained within them to advance a logical thinking process without overloading or paralyzing thought.
Topics include: the crucial importance of understanding emotional conflict; what emotions are, and why they lead to important information (or misinformation); why suppressing emotions leads to short-term and long-term problems; a basic, six-step process for understanding the meaning of one’s positive and negative feelings (including an in-class exercise); and how to act logically in the face of conflict without suppressing conflicting emotions.
Emotional conflict reflects a contradiction between the beliefs and values one has automatized and one’s conscious convictions. The methods in this course help one gradually integrate one’s subconscious values into a logically consistent value hierarchy, thereby reducing future emotional conflict.
This lecture was recorded at the Objectivist Summer Conference 2013 in Chicago, IL.
(MP3 download, 155 MB)
