"Dumb" emotion

Perhaps I'm just nettled by "professorial" being used as an epithet regarding Obama, but I am sick and tired of "information saturated" media commentators being so dumb about emotion.

Emotional appeals are not limited to bombast and bluster. Emotion as a concept is complex and contextual. The performance of cool reason and of measured response speaks to character and judgment, but it also elicits an emotional response. The classic Greek triad of ethos (character), pathos (emotion) and logos (reason) are profoundly intertwined, not isolated and mutually exclusive. The question is not emotion yes or no, it's emotional how? Is it appropriate?

This mistake can be well illustrated by the events of the past two weeks. John McCain's anger in response to the financial crisis hasn't worked--not in the past two weeks, where the polls have done nearly a 180 and not in the debates where the supposedly cold Obama connected MORE with undecided voters.

I think this can be accounted for when we take context into consideration. The financial crisis has created an atmosphere of anxiety, and anxiety cannot be eased with threats and hyperventillation. It is calmed with calm.

Here's a simple example. When, as a child, you woke up from a nightmare, you ran to your parents for comfort. Imagine if they had responded with a vow to hunt down the monsters and kill them. This wouldn't make you feel better--it would only confirm your fears. Instead, your parents were steady, quiet, warm and reassuring. They responded to your fears and gave you hope and a feeling of control when you were a tiny person in a mysterious world.

This is why the professorial Obama has soared in the measure of whether or not he shares voters values. In a national security debate, perhaps saber-rattling is reassuring, but in times of economic crisis, where the enemy cannot be externalized or isolated, we look for someone with wisdom and a steady hand. This isn't just a love of reason for reason's sake. It is visceral, real emotion.

Nate Silver does a great job with projections, be it in baseball or politics, because he has an uncanny sense of how to put raw data into nuanced context. This is what our commentary class needs to do. Rather than apply the generic script that opposes professorialism with emotion (one created in the Bush-Gore contest in 2000) they need a sharper interpretive tool. They need to make sense with a scalpel and not an ax. They need to realize that there is nothing dumb about "dumb emotion."