Master Passions could be
considered a pledge for a relatively new direction in social sciences trying to
take emotions for explanatory factors of the human behavior. Thus, the authors
of this book argue that emotions, feelings and passions shape the development
of social systems and culture, any human society being driven by emotions
rather than by rationality. The main idea behind such a discourse is that human
means rationality as well as emotions, intuitions and sensations, and all these
have to play an important role in the cultural products, just because the
culture is a human construct. This is why the book aims at giving a
picture of how passions shape culture and civilization: ”We have aimed to write
not a psychological treatise on the passions but rather a reconstruction of the
passions at work” (p.33).

The book is structured in thirteen
chapters, not particularly interconnected. The first chapters discuss the
influence of particular psychological states on moldering culture and society
(anxiety – chapter 3, envy and jealousy – chapter 5, deception and
self-deception – chapter 8). The next chapters present the relationship between
passions and other human characteristics (morality and emotions – chapter 9,
rationality and passions – chapter 10). In the last chapter is explained how
theories work in social sciences.

There
are several interesting ideas in this book, not necessarily new or original,
but well presented. Three of these ideas seemed to me particularly appealing,
and I will discuss them in the following: how emotions and ambition shape human
culture; what is the relationship between choice and anxiety; and why envy is
so important for socialism.

Emotions seem to be stronger than
rationality, because they create “their own realities” and make it impossible
to use rationality in order to distinguish what is real (what means, in such a
case, real?) from what is induced by emotions. Envy and ambition light up our
experience and “once on one of their path, we do not see that it could have
been otherwise, for seeing it entails that our narrative may be invalid”(p.
56). Ambition is defined as desire, desire for a “greater causal power” (p.57).
Theories, for example, “may or may not represent the world, but they certainly
do act on the world, causing other minds to fall into the net of assertions and
procedures for legitimizing these assertions that is cast by the
scientist…[This] increases the scientist’s causal powers over the object of his
subject and also over the people «in the field»”(p.59)

The
various decisional situations one encounters during one’s lifetime are seen as
choices between various “possible selves”. Once one has decided to follow a
certain path, one “looses” the possibilities presupposed by the others paths,
by all the other “possible selves”. As it were, each particular decision
implies a certain loss; this is why people always want to know which is “the
right way”, the “right move” (p.51), in order to minimize their loss.

Another
interesting idea one comes across in this book is the notion that socialist
societies are massively based on (the use of) envy. For example, the
implementation of a huge bureaucratic machinery, with a discretionary power on
the private life of citizens, within the Soviet society in the 1920’s, was
possible by manipulating ordinary man’s envy of liberty and wealth of his
fellows. The socialist economy, on the other hand, worked for so many years
because it was being based on envy. Within such a context, some people are
motivated to work by the “envy of [those] people whose assets are being
privatize. The envious is being paid to do something that he already wants to
do and provided with a story that he can tell himself. This story makes his
work appear ‘moral’ or ‘rational’ in a grander scheme than that of his own
private world.” (p.108)

The
authors tried to write this book in such a way that to be coherent with its
content. Above all, they wanted to persuade the reader of the importance
of passions and emotions precisely by awaking, using and intensifying her/his
feelings. On the other hand, a book like this, through its explicit program,
aims, and structure, has to be a form of scientific discourse, a rational,
strictly developed argument. Which results in a certain degree of uncertainty
as to the exact amount of accomplishment this book brings forth.

©
2002 Cristina Bradatan

Cristina Bradatan is a
Ph.D. candidate within the Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State
University. Her interests include family development patterns, Marxist theory
and mathematical demography.

Categories: Philosophical, General