Speak Out with Tim Wise

Episode 59 - Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings, But Decent People Do: The Dangerous Emotional Detachment of the Right


Listen Later

In this episode, I examine the right's new favorite mantra -- "facts don't care about your feelings" -- and what it says about modern conservatism's deeply stunted emotional core.

Looking at the political, philosophical and psychological underpinnings of this notion, that "reason and logic" are a) conservative, and b) in opposition to feelings and emotion (which are "liberal") I note the absurdity of such arguments, and also their fundamentally dehumanizing and dangerous logic.

Fact is:

1) What the right considers facts often aren't;

2) Conservatives are some of the biggest snowflakes on the planet;

3) Reason and emotion are NOT opposed to one another; rather they are complimentary and both critical to making us fully human;

4) In fact, only by caring about feelings and emotions (our own and those of others) can we fully make logic and rationality function as it should, and persuade anyone of the facts we seek to share with them;

and, 5) Psychologically speaking, to embrace detached indifference to people's emotions and feelings is to embrace sociopathy. It is to suggest that the nurturing of an anti-social personality is a morally compelling life goal. It is not. It is a sickness.

And apparently, that sociopathy is a hallmark of the modern conservative mind: something to be resisted and defeated for the good of us all.
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Speak Out with Tim WiseBy Tim Wise

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

312 ratings


More shows like Speak Out with Tim Wise

View all
The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

112,904 Listeners

In Godfrey We Trust by GaS Digital Network

In Godfrey We Trust

1,357 Listeners

The Bulwark Podcast by The Bulwark

The Bulwark Podcast

12,375 Listeners

Stand Up! with Pete Dominick by pete dominick

Stand Up! with Pete Dominick

1,230 Listeners

The Joe Budden Podcast by The Joe Budden Network

The Joe Budden Podcast

10,367 Listeners

The Lincoln Project by The Lincoln Project

The Lincoln Project

9,248 Listeners

Sistas Who Kill: A True Crime Podcast by CAKE MEDIA

Sistas Who Kill: A True Crime Podcast

9,624 Listeners

I've Had It by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan

I've Had It

17,235 Listeners

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent by Greg Sargent

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

755 Listeners

The Tim & April Show by The New Evangelicals

The Tim & April Show

1,097 Listeners