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   %IRONIC OBJECTIVITY SCIENTIST TECHNOCRAT EMOTION 930130

     There is often  an irony in the lives  of  scientists
and  technocrats.   They often lead  emotionally  deprived
lives  in retreats  from  various  forms of active/passive
emotional  abuse  in their  infancies,   childhoods,   and
educational programs.  Not having learned from integrative
role  models how to respond in  healthy  ways  to  healthy
emotion laden relationships---they  try  to avoid  emotion
laden relationships through  retreats to research contexts
where objectivity is highly valued.  In such contexts they
work to achieve technical goals which in a  dim  way  they
hope will bring  to  them  the satisfaction and meaning of
healthy  emotionally  laden relationships. Their work in a
dim way is hopefully a means to the emotional satisfaction
which they  have been denied by their families of  origin;
and  which  they  have  denied  to  themselves  in   their
retreats.

     Many  scientists  and  technocrats,   however,   find
themselves  in an emotional trap.  The only people who can
appreciate   the   meaning  and  significance   of   their
scientific  and  technical accomplishments are others like
themselves,   who are also emotionally starved and  empty;
and   are  unable  to  fulfill  the  hopes  for   personal
acceptance anticipated in response  to  achievements which
are  dimly  regarded  as  technical  means  to   emotional
fulfillment.  There is confusion regarding  when  personal
acceptance   and  emotional  fulfillment  is  appropriate;
because early life was emotionally confused. Thus personal
acceptance  and  emotional  fulfillment  are  desired---as
goals  to   be  achieved through personal efforts.  In the
confusion  the  goals are rarely achieved,   offered,   or
accepted.

     Emotional  fulfillment  in   healthy   inter-personal
intimacy  is  not  helpfully  regarded as  a  goal  to  be
achieved by any means.  Regarding emotional fulfillment as
a  technical problem to be solved; sets the stage for many
forms of addiction  in which fixes are envisioned, sought,
tried,   and  combined  without end---except in  death  or
recovery. The solutions which are often regarded as useful
fixes  which  often involve alcohol and water  with  other
ingredients dissolved in them.  Those solutions are  often
combined/mixed  with  the abuse of:  people,  work,   sex,
religion,  romance,  personal  relationships,   knowledge,
scholarship,   intimacy,   and other  potentially  healthy
aspects  of a balanced life.  Such striving does not yield
emotional  fulfillment  or satisfaction.  The  tantalizing
goal  always seems  to be rising just  out  of  reach---as
floods of new problems and crises rise higher and higher.

     In   the   absence  of   integrative   inter-personal
relationships   with   their   emotional    meaning    and
satisfaction   (combined  with  the  numbing   effect   of
compulsive objectivity) new problems and crises seem to be
the  only means for  emotional  stimulation.  Thus efforts
which on the surface may appear to be technical efforts to
solve  technical  problems---may  reasonably  be  seen  as
efforts  to  generate  the emotional  stimulation  of  new
problems and new crises.  Before we consult scientists and
technocrats on how to solve our technical problems we need
to  consider  whether we  are  confronted  with  dilemmas,
rather  than with technical problems.  Our dilemma may  be
that  the people whom we are most inclined to consult  are
motivated  to create new problems and crisis as  means  to
the emotional stimulation which they crave.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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