{"id":68863,"date":"2016-05-10T10:31:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T15:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=68863"},"modified":"2016-05-11T17:48:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T22:48:48","slug":"i-feel-like-and-the-new-individualizing-of-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2016\/05\/10\/i-feel-like-and-the-new-individualizing-of-morality\/","title":{"rendered":"“I Feel Like” and the New Individualizing of Morality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Historian Molly Worthen is fighting tyranny<\/a>, specifically the \u201ctyranny of feelings\u201d and the muddle it creates. We don\u2019t realize that our thinking has been enslaved by this tyranny, but alas, we now speak its language. Case in point:<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I feel like Bernie Sanders is too idealistic,\u201d a Yale student explained to a reporter in Florida.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why the \u201clinguistic hedging\u201d as Worthen calls it? Why couldn\u2019t the kid just say, \u201cSanders is too idealistic\u201d? You might think the difference is minor, or perhaps the speaker is reluctant to assert an opinion as though it were fact. Worthen disagrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like\u201d is not a harmless tic. . . . The phrase says a great deal about our muddled ideas about reason, emotion and argument \u2014 a muddle that has political consequences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The phrase \u201cI feel like\u201d is part of a more general evolution in American culture. We think less in terms of morality \u2013 society\u2019s standards of right and wrong \u2013 and more in terms individual psychological well-being. The shift from \u201cI think\u201d to \u201cI feel like\u201d echoes an earlier linguistic trend when we gave up terms like \u201cshould\u201d or \u201cought to\u201d in favor of \u201cneeds to.\u201d To say, \u201cKayden, you should<\/i> be quiet and settle down,\u201d invokes external social rules of morality. But, \u201cKayden, you need to<\/i> settle down,\u201d refers to his internal, psychological needs. Be quiet not because it\u2019s good for others but because it\u2019s good for you.<\/p>\n

\"4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Both \u201cneeds to\u201d and “I feel like” began their\u00a0rise<\/a> in the late 1970s, but Worthen finds the latter\u00a0more insidious. \u201cI feel like\u201d defeats rational discussion. You can argue with what someone says about the facts. You can\u2019t argue with what they say about how they feel.\u00a0Worthen is asserting a clear cause and effect. She quotes Orwell: \u201cIf thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.\u201d She has no evidence of this causal relationship, but she cites some linguists who agree. She also quotes Mark Liberman, who is calmer about the whole thing. People know what you mean despite the hedging, just as they know that when you say, \u201cI feel,\u201d it means \u201cI think,\u201d and that your are not speaking about your actual emotions.<\/p>\n

The more common \u201cI feel like\u201d becomes, the less importance we may attach to its literal meaning. \u201cI feel like the emotions have long since been mostly bleached out of \u2018feel that,\u2019 \u201d …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Worthen disagrees.\u00a0 \u201cWhen new verbal vices become old habits, their power to shape our thought does not diminish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVices\u201d indeed. Her entire op-ed piece is a good example of the style of moral discourse that she says we have lost. Her stylistic preferences may have something to do with her scholarly ones \u2013 she studies conservative Christianity. No \u201cneeds to\u201d for her. She closes her sermon with shoulds<\/i>:<\/p>\n

We should not \u201cfeel like.\u201d We should argue rationally, feel deeply and take full responsibility for our interaction with the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

——————————-<\/p>\n

Originally posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>. Graph updated 5\/11\/16.<\/em><\/p>\n Jay Livingston is the chair of the Sociology Department at Montclair State University<\/a>. You can follow him at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a> or on Twitter<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historian Molly Worthen is fighting tyranny, specifically the \u201ctyranny of feelings\u201d and the muddle it creates. We don\u2019t realize that our thinking has been enslaved by this tyranny, but alas, we now speak its language. Case in point: \u201cPersonally, I feel like Bernie Sanders is too idealistic,\u201d a Yale student explained to a reporter in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":68881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,23384,329,37],"class_list":["post-68863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-emotion","tag-social-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2016\/05\/4-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68863"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68882,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68863\/revisions\/68882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}