Today, our way of life is dominated by powerful, fast-moving, extreme emotions — especially anger, resentment, and fear. It is less influenced by careful reasoning.
Unless we soon change our course FROM mobocracy TO rational thinking and behavior, our demise as a nation will be catastrophic.
Riots are dangerous misconduct by people devoid of rational judgment. “Peaceful Protests,” by its real name, is a large mob of angry people who lawlessly destroy property and are hatefully, regressively, and violently driven by excessive feelings.
Many of the so-called “protests” of our time are rooted in irrational judgment and misconduct that are ultimately linked to our enemies. Democratic nations have never been enemies of America. Communist nations led by dictators are America’s enemies.
Protests of any form are not acceptable in communist nations. Recent Iranian protests have led to up to 50,000 deaths of protestors, according to The Guardian, UK.
Everyone needs reassuring, comforting, calming, soothing, cheering, consoling, and encouraging feelings. They are necessary for our sense of well-being, but we do not get them from the daily news, most of our political leaders, or from religious leaders.
Our health and survival depend upon love. Awful feelings now override good feelings and sound judgment. This represents a profound change in how individuals interpret events, make decisions, and relate to one another.
Was President Obama’s spiritual leader, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, correctly prophesying, “God damn America”?
The rectal thermometer, the most accurate measure of core body temperature, of America, is definitely feverishly hot with hate among our enemies within.
A psychological analysis of America would confirm that today, more than any time in its history, hatred for authority, our history, capitalism, democracy, and hatred for America itself has never been more violently expressed by well-organized and well-funded anti-American activists.
The triumph of extreme feelings over sound judgment is visible in political polarization, online discourse, consumer behavior, and even personal relationships.
Understanding this phenomenon requires examining both: 1. why emotional reactions have become so dominant, and 2. the resources that continually inflame them.
The Ascendancy of Emotion Over Reason
The dominance of emotion is partly a consequence of how the human brain works. Emotions arise quickly and automatically, while rational analysis is slower and more effortful. In a calmer environment, people have the time to let reason catch up.
Today, the pace of information, the constant stimulation of digital life, and the preponderance of anger-provoking TV news and its absurd commercials keep individuals in a state of emotional reactivity.
Outrage, fear, and indignation spread faster than measured reflection ever could. As a result, feelings increasingly serve as the primary filter through which people interpret the world.
This emotional primacy shows up in several ways. People often judge the truth of a claim based on whether it “feels right” rather than whether it is supported by evidence. They form opinions based on immediate emotional impressions and then use reasoning only to defend those impressions.
In public debates, emotional intensity is frequently mistaken for moral clarity. The result is a culture where feelings are treated as self-validating — where the strength of one’s anger is taken as proof of one’s correctness.
Why Anger and Resentment Dominate
Although many emotions influence judgment, anger and resentment have become especially prominent. These emotions are powerful because they simplify complex problems into clear narratives of blame.
Anger tells people who the enemy is.
Resentment tells them why they feel powerless.
Both emotions offer a sense of moral certainty and personal significance, which can be deeply appealing in a world that often feels chaotic and impersonal.
Several forces amplify these emotions:
Social media platforms maximize engagement by amplifying angry posts, which attract attention and spread quickly. As a result, users often find that expressing anger leads to validation.
Political incentives favour emotional responses. Politicians and commentators use fear and resentment to motivate their audiences, leading public discourse to be filled with emotionally charged language that prompts reaction over reflection.
Economic and social uncertainty make people more open to narratives that turn anxiety into anger, with resentment explaining loss or instability.
Fragmented communities limit calm deliberation, making people depend more on emotions than on shared norms or group reasoning.
Sources of Feelings That Impair Judgment
The feelings that undermine sound judgment do not arise spontaneously; they are cultivated by identifiable sources that shape how people perceive the world.
1. Digital Media Ecosystems often use algorithms to highlight content that elicits strong emotions, leading users to encounter material designed to provoke outrage or fear. This cycle promotes quick judgments over nuance and creates echo chambers where emotionally charged views are reinforced and rarely questioned.
2. Political Polarization heightens emotions by framing issues as battles between opposing groups. When politics shapes personal identity, disagreement feels personal, and loyalty overrides truth. People react with anger toward the other side, letting group emotion guide judgment.
3. Economic and Social Dislocation can lead to instability and resentment. When people feel ignored or disadvantaged, they may gravitate toward emotional narratives that blame others. This isn’t irrationality, but rather a result of emotions influencing perceptions of fairness.
4. Decline of Shared Institutions such as religious groups, civic organizations, and workplaces that used to foster discussion and understanding. As these institutions decline, people lose shared norms and turn more to emotional intuition than collective reasoning.
5. The Personalization of Truth can undermine shared standards of evidence and make resolving disagreements difficult, as there is no common ground for evaluating different perspectives.
Consequences for Judgment and Public Life
The triumph of feelings over judgment has far-reaching consequences.
Emotional certainty hinders productive dialogue, distorts decision-making by prioritizing feelings over long-term results, fuels exhausting outrage, erodes trust, and ultimately weakens collective problem-solving when thoughtful collaboration is needed most.
Conclusion
Feelings always play a role in human judgment, and they are not inherently opposed to reason. The problem arises when emotions — especially anger and resentment — become the primary drivers of perception and decision-making.
Today’s social, technological, and political environment amplifies these emotions in ways that overwhelm the slower, more deliberate processes of sound judgment.
Identifying where these feelings come from helps restore balance. A healthier public culture allows for reflection, empathy, and understanding, enabling sound judgment.
Democracy is cleverly and constantly under attack by those who wish us harm. Their current weapon is the ongoing creation of disturbance and chaos.
We are being betrayed by many institutions of higher learning. Universities that were once held in high regard are acquiring wealth and teaching our young adults to hate us.
We are misled by churches, theologians, and prominent religious leaders who are patently more interested in our wealth than our souls.
The media’s influence over our emotions, cognition, and behavior has become limitless. Lying with pride and deception is awarded enormously high income, celebrity status, and misplaced respect due to our ignorance.
Family life is being gnawed to death by our economy: single parents and married couples abandon their children for full-time employment. This dreadful crisis of existence is impossible to imagine for the few who are spared its necessity.
In the pursuit of liberty and personal freedom, the three ships that established the Jamestown colony were the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery. They departed England on December 20, 1606, and arrived at the site of the settlement on the James River on May 13, 1607.
The North Atlantic can be treacherous, particularly in winter. Nonetheless, with courage, determination, and faith in the Judeo-Christian Almighty God, they took the risk. Small, wooden sailing vessels that most seamen today would hesitate to launch on a small, placid lake carried them to Virginia.
One hundred fifty-six years later, the same jewels of character led these pursuers’ offspring into the American Revolution (1763-1764) based on a legacy of ideas from the Enlightenment and the conviction that natural rights of man are God-given.
We have the duty, responsibility, privilege, and honor to draw from the rational judgment and virtuous examples of our founders to protect and defend our nation from all its enemies, including well-organized and well-funded clandestine individuals among us, and from those outside our borders. Regrettably, even elected officers at all levels of our government seek the destruction of our republic.
Despite extreme difficulty today, we must pursue love and identify hate as a doorway to obliteration. Be aware when awful feelings attempt to motivate our behavior that it is time to think, reflect, and pray, even for our enemies.
Robert S. Brown, MD, PHD a retired Psychiatrist, Col (Ret) U.S. Army Medical Corps devoted the last decade of his career to treating soldiers at Fort Lee redeploying from combat. He was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Education at UVA. His renowned Mental Health course taught the value of exercise for a sound mind.
