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When one uses brains in a given situation, he is using common sense. But when one relies only on feelings, he is ignoring basic elements of reason. Following one's feelings may "feel good" but more often than not it produces the wrong answers to life's questions.
Babies and children are guided by"feelings." Feel hungry? Cry until someone feeds you. If your friend has a beautiful new bike and you want it, then your feelings might lead you to simply take your friend's bike. If you don't want to go to school, it might feel better to stay home. "Just Do It" was an advertising campaign slogan that is most definitely feelings based. The popular '60s expression, "If it feels good, do it" had the same appeal.
For some reason our country is almost equally divided between those who use common sense and those who do not. Those who do not are not necessarily stupid or dimwitted. Many are lazy or simply non-thinking while others just allow their feelings to guide their judgments, never mind the facts or logic.
Tuition free college is a wonderful idea until you ask yourself: "Who pays for it?" The same with free healthcare, free housing, free child care, paid maternity leave, and a guaranteed government monthly living allowance to everyone whether you work or not, no strings attached. It all sounds so wonderful, it all feels so good. But don't use your brain; don't bring logic and common sense into this thing or it falls apart.
To the question of who pays for it, the feelings based person might answer, "Well, the government pays for it, of course." But the person who uses his brains knows that "the government" doesn't create the money to pay for these things, they "take" the money from hard-working taxpayers. In other words, people who work for a living pay for all the freebies. There is no such thing as free anything. Someone pays. Maybe you didn't pay for the bike you took from your friend, but your friend's family did.
It's become popular with the younger crowd to be feelings oriented. It's so much easier than actually thinking things through. Progressivism, socialism, radical liberalism, whatever you want to call it, is definitely feelings based. Every political bumper sticker slogan coming from the left over the past 50 years appeals to those who value "feelings" over logic. "MAKE LOVE NOT WAR" sounds good, but actually means nothing. No rational human being would choose war over love. Bumper sticker logic dumbs down a problem; it oversimplifies complex issues and disregards context and circumstances. If we were to follow the make love not war slogan literally, then we never should have fought the Nazis in World War II. We should have stayed home and made love.
Today's leftist slogans and political phrases are designed to make people feel good. One might support the noble and freedom-loving concept of "A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE." But if you said it in another way, maybe it wouldn't have the same emotional righteousness. How many can feel good about "A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO ABORT HER BABY?" Then add "ANYTIME UP TO THE MINUTE OF BIRTH" and you've truthfully defined today's Democrat position on abortion. Not exactly a virtuous cause.
It feels good to think that America should be wide open to all poor people who want to live here, but logically a country without border control won't be a country for long. If America allowed anyone in who wanted to come, our culture would disappear, crime rates would skyrocket, city streets would be more disgusting than they are now, taxes would increase dramatically, and America as we know it would cease to exist. We would become just another third world country.
Paying reparations to black Americans for slavery might make liberals feel good and ease their guilty consciences, but the reality is, there are no black Americans alive today who were slaves, just as there are no white Americans alive today who enslaved anybody. And why stop with blacks? Why not pay reparations to the American Indians? And while we're at it, what about reparations to the Jewish people who were enslaved by so many for centuries? Throughout history there have been people cruelly put upon and used by other people. It still goes on.
Celebrating transgender diversity is another feel-good concept that is pure nonsense. Anyone over the age of four knows that there are only two biological sexes, male and female. Period. Anything else is not normal; it's an aberration. Celebrate transgender diversity? You might as well celebrate abnormality.
Society's big questions and social issues call for all the brainpower we can give them. It's nice to feel good, but it's far better to DO good. Using common sense, reason and logic along with virtue and compassion is the way to handle life's problems. Using only feelings is the way to avoid handling them.
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JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. He's been a JWR contributor since 1999.