Comment by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
14 hours ago
> That said, I think your definition highlights the problem: By telling someone it's okay to feel the emotion, you've implicitly endorsed the response.
This tells me that you've not understood my meaning. One is not condoning or endorsing any behavioral response when they say the emotional response (which motivated the behavior) is valid and natural. They are distinct things and one does not necessarily follow or precede the other.
> their reaction is not actually appropriate or okay
I suspect we are talking past each other here. If "their reaction" refers to their emotions, that is not your concern; to think otherwise is wildly antisocial. If it instead refers to their actions and/or behaviors, you simply are not bemoaning emotional validation.
>> emotional response (which motivated the behavior) is valid and natural.
This is obviously nonsense. If an old woman falls over and breaks her knee, and one's emotional response is happiness - they have real problems - it's not natural or valid to feel that. If the idea of choking women to death makes one feel excited - no it's not natural or valid to feel that emotion, they have serious problems. One could go on.
Maybe you haven't met any really bad people in life - when you do you will often find they have very strange emotional responses to things.
I guess I should make explicit my general assumption that we are not talking about psychopaths given the overwhelming odds that a given individual is not a psychopath. That said...
> If the idea of choking women to death makes one feel excited - no it's not natural or valid to feel that emotion, they have serious problems.
I disagree. That is surely a natural and valid emotional response for whatever reason this hypotheticals individual feels it. Yes, they also surely have serious problems but I contend that said problems are obviously what lead to this "very strange" emotional response. Their problems are also valid, regardless of the personal damage (read: devoid of outward violence) they cause.
In this case, the response might affect their behavior such that they actually do it and that would obviously be tragic; that behavior is not valid regardless of the emotions (or lack thereof) which motivate it. Otherwise, speaking of their emotional response, I don't see a reason to condemn them for a reaction they have such little control over.
You keep talking in circles around a definition of valid.
You are just wrong on this. You want to seem sophisticated and understanding, and it's just lazy stupid thinking.
2 replies →
> they have serious problems
Or they are practicing buddhists. Or victims of trauma. The former doesn't need (but won't mind) validation, the latter does.