EMOTIONS
My local newspaper tells me that the six basic human emotions are happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise and fear. As a non-expert, I might have thought that emotions such as love, envy and others would be included but whether or not the list is comprehensive it's interesting to think about these six. I've written about happiness and anger but want, as time permits, to think about the others. This week I've chosen disgust.
Among other meanings, to disgust is to nauseate or cause loathing, to offend good taste or moral sense. Disgust is a valuable emotion because it reflects standards. Perhaps it's my age, but one of my greatest fears is that we will lose disgust as an emotion, that nothing will offend our moral sense, that we will lose or cease to apply our standards. If we are so seemingly generous that nothing disgusts us, doesn't it mean that we have given up our taste or moral sense.
Disgust is innate, something we automatically feel when the conditions demand it. It's personal to us, not something required by someone else's standards. In feeling disgust, we're not expressing the will of the majority, we're expressing our own standards, our own taste. The thing which disgusts us can be something others applaud, others find humorous or interesting, others see as worthwhile. Looked at in this way, disgust is one of the most personal of emotions and an emotion we should cultivate.
Disgust, if voiced, will encourage others to behave with regard to our standards. Disgust will create common standards. We don't want to impose our values on others, we want others to find their own standards, but there is nothing wrong with asking others to think about our standards, to consider our standards before acting. As my readers know well by know, I encourage tolerance, acceptance, good will to everyone but I don't find maintaining my own personal standards inconsistent, I don't think I'm being intolerant by having standards which I adhere to. No one else is forced to live by my standards, I ask only that others think about my standards. Maybe they will find them useful in their own lives.
Disgust is also a silent interior voice of our own standards. Sometimes, we forget our standards, abandon our standards, fail to articulate our standards, and endanger our standards. Without criticizing any other standards, we need our own standards and we need to attempt to live by them. In the same way that I don't seek to impose my standards on others, I appreciate others who understand that I have my own standards and try to live by them. In the face of changing and contradictory standards, I sometimes need a reminder of my own standards. Disgust is such a reminder.
Don't seek disgust but listen to it when you feel it.
(12-11-00)
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