Few people, especially few young men, escape this crisis of faith. Perhaps we should not regret it, were it not that so many become depressed and irremediably disturbed spiritually. Those who by God's assistance and by the means about which I now speak pass safely through this dangerous time, possess from then on a courageous spirit and really understand what faith is.

Wow! I definitely had that experience but was partially in the milieu that you describe, Maclin. I agree with you there.

There was a pertinent post on FB today quoting Chesterton on the modern person who feels, rather than thinks.

And that mightn't matter so much if the thinking they did was reasonable in the first place. For example, whenever I read my pro-life update things in FB, I often feel angry and sad about the bad stories I read. Now that is quite right and I probably feel before I think reflectively, because I'm a woman. But if I had erroneous views about the sanctity of life, my feelings would be different.

A lot of times our feelings are not really right or wrong as such - they just are, but we can't make them, rather than reason, the guide for how we behave and what we believe.

This is what's so frustrating about the modern mind.

Paradoxically, when I'm not really aware of my feelings, they have more of an opportunity to run my life. If I'm aware of my feelings I can calmly express them, rather than simply exploding. The interaction between reason and emotion is pretty important, imo. At least, it is in my life. But the way I view life ultimately comes down to a set of principles which should hold, no matter what emotions are going on.

Nor, sadly, is every one of the Thinking People actually a person who thinks.

I don't think you're allowed to think that. Much less say it.

I didn't think it. I felt it. And then typed it. :)

Actually, a while back, Janet sent me this marvellous essay about St Edith Stein's understanding of women, written by a nun. It was really marvellous. She says - among other things - that women feel things like "vibes" a bit more than men do and such like.

I do think that it's proper for women to feel, in the first instance, and then certainly to think rationally (which we can do - it just doesn't always look that way!) about those things which stir up the emotions.

For people who seem to believe they really do "question everything" modern people sure don't seem to question much.

What I mean about people thinking they're thinking is that they adopt some viewpoint which is considered the one held by Thinking People.

Well I agree with that.

That thought has crossed my mind, Robert. Obviously there's no way to know, since the strength of the emotion is by definition a subjective experience. But I wonder. Certainly women are more expressive of emotion. Does that mean the emotions are actually stronger, or that the controls are weaker? It also seems certainly the case that men are more likely to do some violence in the grip of strong negative emotion. Does that mean the emotions are stronger, or just that there's some difference in the wiring that makes violent expression more likely? I don't think anybody knows.

I was very interested in that essay, because at the time I was reading a secular psychologist who has done a lot of work with married couples etc. What was interesting was the way she described masculine energy (which I prefer to call "essence") and feminine energy/essence. Her theory is that both men and women have both types of energy in them (I think that's true) but that men and women connect with each other best, especially in marriage, when each one is in touch with their relevant energy/essence. What she said about each was basically as follows: masculine energy is thinking acting, planning - essentially active. Whereas feminine energy is being, feeling, radiating, warmth etc. I believe this to be true and have experimented IRL a lot in how I relate to men in general. It seems to work.

So, I was once in a situation where I disagreed about some content in a programme our Catholic community was planning to use in outreach. I didn't tell the two men on the team what I thought (but I knew that my thoughts were sound) - I simply said how I felt about it and gave a personal account for why I felt that way. There was no argument at all and I had no set agenda for the outcome, I just left it to them to work out - but I had made my point and I'm pretty sure they took it on board and had come up with some kind of plan to work around the problem. It works.

Anyhow, what this secular psychologist teaches about this lined up really well with St Theresa Benedicta's (Edith Stein's) thoughts.

Now the psychologist is pretty worldly, so I cannot possibly agree with all she says, especially regarding sexual morals, but although she subscribed to the idea that feminism has been good for women, she does insist that it's been really bad in our romantic relationships.

So, for me, it's pretty fascinating.

Men certainly have feelings and both sexes succeed or fail at controlling them, it seems to me, but in general I would say that women feel more than we think and for men it's the opposite. In fact, men are very sensitive, but there is normally something secondary about feelings for a man unless perhaps he is pushed beyond endurance with anger. At least, this is how it seems to me after reading and observing and running experiments in the field!

Incidentally, after reading the psychologist on the masculine and feminine essence, I was suddenly amazed by how beautiful women are. I mean just ordinary women. It was quite astonishing. and I was equally amazed to discover how marvellous men can be. Not that I had a bad opinion before but just to give an example, I was talking with a friend after Mass one day when Nick was away and he asked me how I was doing. Without really being very conscious of my wording, I said that I was tired of feeling cold because the wood supply was down to the big logs and Xavier and I were not well enough to chop them. So I drive home from Mass a short while later, and there is our friend, with his seminarian fiend in my driveway, chopping the wood! And that kind of thing happens all the time.

I could correct it for you, but it's way too funny. :-)

More about the masculine/feminine stuff later--at work now.

That's pretty funny. It does seem to me that women are more likely to just let fly with words that would have been better left unsaid. I'm sometimes amazed at the harsh things women say to each other. I've also often thought that one reason men aren't generally quite as quick to do that, at least to other men, is that there is more potential for violence.

I think Robert's point is fascinating - men are more emotional and therefore suppress and control their emotions more, thus appearing superficially less emotional. That fits my observations.

It reminded me of something I realized when I was working on those things (and which superficially has nothing to do with men and women:). After years of reading both of them, I came to the conclusion that Maritain writes in a poetic, affective way but the source is his reason, and it's pretty cold underneath. Gilson writes in a rational way, but it's coming from depths in his heart.

"men are more emotional and therefore suppress and control their emotions more"

Isn't that why we hate to see a man cry -- because we know that if he's let that control slip, it must be that something very deep has been touched in him?

I didn't mean to derail this thread, btw.

Grumpy, your comment - as is usually the case - was very interesting.

True, Marianne. I remember a farmhand seeing my uncle cry at the news that his (my uncle's) mother had died, and saying how painful it was to see. The uncle was a veteran of house-to-house fighting in Germany in WWII.

Have to watch the vid later, still at work.

I think Gilson is simply the better philosopher, hands down.

Very funny video, Louise.

Very plausible. But it remains impossible to determine the strength of emotion to strength of restraint ratio for each sex.

I think about that banging on fairly often, actually, every time there's something in the news which involves people completely at the mercy of their emotions. It's more often scary than otherwise.

I've read it, and liked it, but it was so long ago that I can't say anything more specific.

I agree with most of that, Robert. Ae big difference between Gilson and Maritain was Gilson's sympathy for de Lubac.

You should read Splendour of the Church or Catholicism by de Lubac. Esp. Spendour. Reading de Lubac is like attending a feast at a 5-Star restaurant.

You read Splendour of the Ch, then.

It was a joke. You only read part of it. Gotcher humor. You should spend some time at our dinner table some time. No sentence goes unanalyzedandpunned.