[Buddha-l] Republicans are Happier?

[jkirk]

 > Richard Hayes wrote:
>    
>   “It is utterly impossible to be mistaken about how one feels.”
>    
>   I disagree.  It is completely possible, and it happens more than we 
> care to admit, that we are mistaken about how we feel.  I don’t know 
> about the East, but we in the West are for the most part so out of 
> touch with our bodies and our feelings, that we often think we feel A 
> when we’re really feeling B.  For example, guys tend to think they’re 
> mad when they’re really sad; gals tend to think they’re sad when 
> they’re really mad.

This raises an interesting epistemological issue. How can anyone know what a
person is really feeling (and therefore know that what the person claims to
be feeling is somehow delusional)? 
-------------

Freud made a creative point when he wrote his essay on ambivalence, pointing
out that feelings are rarely just one thing or another thing. Most human
feelings are usually mixed. Thus what a person is "really feeling" is
elusive. Self reports cover part of it--observation of behavior by others
trained in observation, whether a shrink or an experienced monk (as some of
them are said to be) covers parts of the question as well. But this topic is
sure straying from the subject matter of the list, as you now raise issues
of epistemology, psychology, cognitive psychology, etc etc--so I'm going to
read a book on Pala art and get rid of my cognitive dissonance.
Joanna
  

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