The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7180 p36
5/12 January 2002

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Noël blurred [more]
The science of emotion [more]
Stand and stare [more]
Road to dignity [more]

Noël blurred

As we move into the new year and reflect on the passing of another Christmas, there must be no doubt in many people's minds that the Christmas season has become degraded to some extent by the commercialism surrounding it and its extension to many months in place of the ancient Twelve Days. Christmas catalogues start arriving at our homes in late spring, and Christmas cards appear in shops from midsummer. And, perhaps most sordid of all, the merchandise offered, especially that intended to tempt our children to make excited demands on hard-pressed parents, tends more and more to become trumpery and useless in the long run. Thus, shopping becomes a substitute for the essential spirit of peace and goodwill.

I am reminded of some comments made by Washington Irving nearly two centuries ago in his 'Sketch book' of 1820, after a visit he made to Britain to experience its cultural peculiarities. He felt that there was less of the goodwill and more of the junketing in the cities and the stately homes of the country, although he judged Britain better than America in that respect. Some of the traditional customs were looking seedy. "One of the least pleasing aspects of modern refinement is the havoc it has made among the hearty old holiday customs. The world has become more worldly. There is more of dissipation and less of enjoyment. Pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet channels where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of domestic life." But he adds: "I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing of an organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony."

It is true, fortunately, that many people and families still hold the more traditional attitude towards the Christmas season. In enjoying school nativity plays, carol concerts and scintillating illuminations, they discover the essential elements of peace and goodwill. Yet many more see the festive season as an excuse for eating, drinking and shopping for expensive but often useless trivia which induce no lasting enjoyment. To judge from Washington Irving, this tendency is far older than sometimes we imagine.

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The science of emotion

Matthew Arnold defined the true nature of religion as "morality touched by emotion", while William Wordsworth wrote that poetry takes it origin from "emotion recollected in tranquillity". And both philosophers and psychologists make a clear distinction between sentiments or feelings on the one hand and emotions on the other. William McDougall in his 'Introduction to social psychology' (24th edition, 1942) explained that a sentiment is "an enduring structure within the total structure of the mind", whereas emotion is a passing phase in the mental process.

In an assessment in Nature for 25 October, 2001, Antonio Damasio, a neurologist from the University of Iowa, has commented that a century ago an improper distinction was made between these concepts. The subjective trait of feelings had been projected on to emotions, making them hidden and elusive. However, an emotion, whether it be happiness, sadness, embarrassment or pride, can be defined as a pattern of chemical and neural responses produced by a brain detecting an external stimulus, and therefore subject to objective description, unlike feelings.

Emotions allow organisms to cope successfully with potentially dangerous or advantageous situations, writes Damasio. Most emotional responses are directly observable with the naked eye or by psychophysiological or neurophysiological measurements. Feelings are not amenable in the same way. They are a mental representation of physiological changes prompted by emotions, and essentially private to the person concerned. "Feelings amplify the impact of a given situation, enhance learning, and increase the probability that comparable situations can be anticipated." Emotions, on the other hand, are controlled by structures in the hypothalamus, in the basal forebrain and in the brainstem.

Recent studies reveal that areas such as the cortices in the insula, the second somatosensory region and the cingulate region undergo a pattern of activation or deactivation when normal individuals experience sadness, happiness, fear and anger. Patterns vary with different emotions and show correlation with feelings experienced by the individual, and by noting them we can gain insight into the relation between the two.

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Stand and stare

At the time of a dawning new year it has long been customary for people to make resolutions designed to promote better living. It is true that there has been much scepticism over this habit, since such resolutions, it is well recognised, are rarely carried out in practice for long. Perhaps a better plan is to take a little time to contemplate ways of correcting our present mad rush to get things done or undone ever faster and faster, regardless of any repercussions.

We have unhappily adopted a policy in both private and public life of trying to get more done in less time, regardless of effects on ourselves and our friends and neighbours. Few people nowadays sit down to breakfast, for instance, especially breakfast with the rest of the family. Snacks are gobbled on the hoof. Similarly, other meals tend to be packaged affairs, wolfed down relentlessly.

After a day's work performed at lightning speed, either from sheer greed or fear of criticism, the rest of the day is spent rushing about in search of diversion, falsely known as relaxation. The only alternative to this seems to be slumping in an armchair with a televisual background prompted by the need to shout and contend.

One effect of some modern so-called aids to living has been to make us despise simple work and simple pleasures. We use machines to do things for us that we might do for ourselves with less technical help. Domestic chores are, though we like to despise them, often soothing. There can be nothing more soothing than knitting or ironing by hand, but we condemn such petty pursuits as old-fashioned. As Anne Treneer observed in her book 'School house in the wind' (1944), "No form of labour is more immediately rewarding than ironing; the rough become smooth as though with pleasure, and it is delightful to put on clean freshly ironed clothes."

On a different plane, there is no relaxation like that experienced in painting a picture or playing a piece of music. If we cannot take some time out of our mad daily rush to practise such consolations we are in a sorry state. As the poet W. H. Davies puts it ('Leisure', 1911): "What is this life if, full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare."

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Road to dignity

To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were to be endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.

— Samuel Johnson (1773).

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