Intersubjective Emotions

(Apologies in advance for type-o's/spelling mistakes. This was done on my phone on a rickety train)

Tonight, I attended a fascinating lecture by Professor Steven Connor. To cut a long but very interesting talk short, Professor Connor does not believe such a thing as 'collective emotions' exist, nor does he believe that subjective emotions exist, instead suggesting that emotions are a type of intersubjective communicative device. An emotion that is free from communication is not one that festers, but rather one that is either renegotiated internally before eventual communication into the intersubjective sphere, or it disipates over time. Those emotions we see as collective, such as shame or indignation, are the result of external attribution; they are 'meta-emotions' that exist as examples of what culture believes the group ought to feel, as opposed to what members of the group are feeling. Often, in defiance of Hume, the ought becomes an is and the group begins to feel, or rather individuals within the group begin to collectively feel, what is expected of them.

This doesn't mean that such emotions are entirely constructed; they manifest on the body as facial expressions, skin colour changes, heart-rate alterations, galvanic skin responses etc., but interpretations of these somatic responses are defined by cultures and language.

l have sympathy with much of this, and remain a strong advocate of the idea that emotions are an intersubjective judgement of internal sensations, or feelings, and language plays a major role. Where I depart from the good Professor is in his suggestion that collectives cannot have shared emotions due to a group being without a body.

Setting to one side metaphorical bodies such as 'the body politique', I would suggest that the argument has the flavour of strawman about it: I don't think that anyone has ever suggested that a group, such as a 17th century millenarian group, in of itself, feels an emotion. 'Millenarian' is a label uniting people within a particular set. One of the shared conditions of that set is that the members of it feel a particular type of emotion: fear brought about by a belief that they are living in the last days. To use philosophical terminology, (due to lack of characters I'm using E for 'belongs to').

×E{millenarian} iff ×E{people with propositional attitudes including a belief that the end times are happening & :. fear}

To not be be a member of the later set would exclude them from the former. This is loosely true when discussing emotional regimes and communities. To be outside the set as defined by your regime/community makes you just that: an outsider.

So yes, such collective emotions are created by intersubjective judgements of somatic responses to stimulus, but that does not mean that these shared judgements don't define the group. 

And with that, I am at my train station. Thoughts are welcome, and see you tomorrow(ish).