Eric over at Grumbles Before The Grave has some interesting observations about the use of emotion in political arguments, specifically in regard to opposition to the Iraq war.
There are some reasons to oppose the war that are not based on emotion, but the anti-war crowd knows that those are weak and won’t sway the public to their side, so their only hope is to attack the war proponents using emotion.
Even more to the point, this sort of argument betrays the ultimate weakness of your position, when you have to resort to an emotional argument and try to cast your opponents in a negative, or even evil, light.
Agreed, but I would go further. The resort to emotion, rather than reason, in advancing a weak argument is as much a characteristic of the authoritarian right as it is of the statist left. Pat Buchanan’s frequent appeals to nationalism are one example. The debate surrounding the placement of the Ten Commandments in public buildings is another. For that matter, using biblical arguments to support your argument that the United States should support Israel isn’t very rational either, no matter how fervently you may believe them.
The reason emotions should not be the primary consideration in how one decides political issues cannot be stated any better than this:
When a question is put before you, don’t let yourself be swayed by appeals to emotion. Emotions are important, but set them aside and consider, with reason, the best choice for that question. The ultimate weakness of the emotional position, whether it be in your personal life, or in the political life of a nation, is that it does not get to the root of the issue and answer the question of whether it will deal with the problem. Instead, it attempts to present the answer you should choose by appealing to sympathy, anger, love, grief, etc. There is nothing wrong with emotions, but they won’t answer for you whether the choice before you is a good one, or a bad one.
One doesn’t need to be a Vulcan and repress all emotion, of course, but letting emotion guide the actions of nations is demonstrably disastrous. Look throughout history at the men who have used emotion to sway politics and the history of the world. Among the most practiced at this craft have been Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, the mullahs in Iran, and Osama bin Laden. The consequences of basing your political beliefs on emotion rather than reason could not be more apparent.
