This is http://www.essayz.com/a9006291.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %AFFECT REASON ABSENT PRESENT RATIONAL HONEST LOVE 900629 There are different kinds of reasoning. In one kind of reasoning emotional honesty is absent, and one of the functions of the reasoning is to rationalize the absence of emotional honesty. Such reasoning is dishonest and disintegrative. Integrative reasoning is emotionally honest; is conducted in the presence of personal and communal emotional honesty. People who conduct such reasoning are emotionally in touch with themselves and each other; both literally and figuratively. They are affectively open and honest about what they feel, as well as about what they think; what they experience, as well as what they think they want. Emotionally dishonest people do not know how to deal with their emotions, and consequently are ruled by emotions which they do not understand. Their families may not have provided them with emotional nurture and healthy emotional role models; or they may have gotten emotionally off track with people whose families did not provide them with emotional nurture and healthy emotional role models. The way in which cognitive reasoning functions and the directions in which it tends to flow, depends greatly upon the emotional health of those conducting the cognitive processes. Emotionally dishonest people tend to use their cognitive abilities differently than do emotionally honest people. Each way of reasoning may appear to have integrity to those conducting the cognitive process; yet they lead in totally different ways. Dishonest processes lead to disintegration. Honest processes lead to integration and so to personal and communal integrity. An integrative insight (with just a slight twist and a bit of dishonesty and coercion) can become a significant perversion which will appear reasonable and lead to disintegration. The same words may point in quite different ways after a slight twist of the originally integrative reasoning has occurred in the presence of emotional dishonesty; and so the words come to point the way to further emotional dishonesty and to disintegration through the growth of collusions, addictions and supportive codependent behaviors. The meaning of words and of combinations of words is often twisted in the presence of emotional dishonesty. Their meaning may be set by the emotional climate as well as by intentional logical definitions. Words which mean one thing to emotionally honest people may mean something quite different to emotionally dishonest people. The difference in such meanings will not be clarified by purely cognitive argumentation between the people for whom the words mean different things. Clarification may come only through a return to emotional honesty and to personal and communal integrity. Central to the emotional honesty and integrity of people and their communities is the emotional life of infants and young children. Patterns of emotional dishonesty which have developed very early in life in the absence of cognitive sophistication, are patterns which cannot be changed in adult life through cognitive sophistication in the absence of emotional honesty. In the absence of emotional honesty trustworthy rational processes do not occur; even though the rational processes may be sophisticated and associated with major technological accomplishments. In the absence of emotional honesty most technological accomplishments tend to serve the purposes of collusions, addictions and codependent support networks; and so contribute to personal and communal disintegration. Emotional honesty is served by people who are effective role models of affective honesty which is free of coercion and conditional manipulations. Emotionally honest people do not use their understanding of human emotions as means to the manipulation of people. For them technological tools are not manipulative tools to be used in addictive ways. They are motivated to get to know people as they really are, not as people are trying to appear to be. For them personal appearances are not the fundamental realities, for they know that personal appearances can be deceiving; especially within the context of collusive, addictive and codependent communities. Emotionally honest people recognize emotional dishonesty and seek ways to promote emotional honesty in non-manipulative and non-coercive ways. The ways of emotionally honest people often appear to be threatening to emotionally dishonest people; for emotionally honest behavior exposes the lack of integrity of emotionally dishonest people. Emotionally honest people can accept other people as they really are, for they can be emotionally honest. Emotionally dishonest people cannot accept other people as they really are, for they cannot be emotionally honest---and need to put on appearances. Emotionally dishonest people take it for granted that appearances will be put on like masks, and they believe it is impossible to survive without masks---because they have found through experience that they could not survive in some family or community of origin without putting on masks. Communities in which emotional honesty is lacking are in need of effective demonstrations of emotional honesty, and of the fact that it is safe to trust emotionally honest people. The freedom of people to be emotionally honest needs to be encouraged and protected by all who understand its importance; even if they are not fully able to be emotionally honest themselves. People who are seeking to become emotionally more honest need to seek each other out, and to seek out people who effectively demonstrate emotional honesty; and to create effective support groups in which emotional honesty can grow and liberate people from their prisons of emotional dishonesty. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================