Thoughts about the stereotype of rational people being incompatible with feelings

Today I want to challenge one stereotype that is widely spread throughout the world, and consists on the believe that people who think rationally or objectively have fewer feelings and emotions.

I will not only disprove this stereotype, but I will also explain why the reality is possibly the complete opposite.

But first, it’s important to clear up some definitions

What is objectivity

means a lack of bias, judgment, or prejudice | Source

An idea that accounting decisions should be made independently of biases and subjective methods and based instead on measurable assessments that can be supported by additional evidence. | Source

Being sentimental is defined as:

A sentimental person is strongly influenced by emotional feelings, especially about happy memories of past events or relationships with other people, rather than by careful thought and judgment based on facts. | Source

What is rationality

Mental state of a rational person characterized by beliefs that are coherent (not contradictory) and compatible with the person's experience within a given context. | Source

Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action. Quote from Ayn Rand. | Source

Now, back with the stereotype, it says that the common scientist is as a person sitting behind a desk, or at a blackboard, writing formulas and numbers, and rarely smiling with or laughing. Likewise, society sees him/her as someone withdrawn towards him/herself, who almost never interacts with anybody, like sort of an autistic person, and who would not cry even at a baby’s funeral.

Obviously those who think like this have never been to a university and partied with these people. They are as crazy as any other person in the world.

On the other side of the stereotype we have the "sentimental" people, which usually are associated with bohemians and free spirits. These people are shown as having a high interest in others, in nature, in feelings, and tears are part of their day to day life.

However, I know many of these people who, if you didn’t hear them speak, you would think they belonged to the first group of scientist. People who are withdrawn and who do not socialize with anyone, and who would not shed a tear no matter what.

In the end, these are simple stereotypes, and I am sure that almost everyone who is reading this has friends of both types and can confirm everything I am saying.

What are stereotypes

Stereotypes are characteristics imposed upon groups of people because of their race, nationality, and sexual orientation, among others. But these characteristics tend to be oversimplifications of the groups involved. | Source

But what is it that really cause us feel, in the traditional "sentimental" way? In my opinion, the fact of one understanding and being able to relate to the feeling of the other person. The empathy. And that has many cultural factors. For example, things that can be funny in a culture might not be funny on a different culture. Likewise, things that are normal for some people may be repugnant to others.

What is empathy

Empathy is the experience of understanding another person's condition from their perspective. You place yourself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling. Empathy is known to increase prosocial (helping) behaviors. | Source

Empathy is, at its simplest, awareness of the feelings and emotions of other people. | Source

Another way of saying this is that the more you understand why another person suffers, or smiles, the more sentimental you get. For example, if a film of someone who was extremely poor and went through great difficulty, and in the end this person finds success, one might cry for that person, because we understand the meaning for that person to be able to finally achieve success. That is, in our minds we might unconsciously imagine what it would feel like to come from such a difficult position and with a lot of effort ending up reaching the top. We put ourselves in the shoes of that other person thanks to our understanding and knowledge of the circumstances.

Where I am going with this way of thinking is to the conclusion that the more you understand something, the more you appreciate it.

And no social group understands more things about us humans, than rational people.

Let’s choose for example a sad situation like a funeral. For a person who is not very rational, a death although it is somewhat painful, might be taken as something "to be happy", because "the deceased will go to a better place". Obviously if he/she is a close relative, this person will naturally suffer a lot (like almost all the rest of humanity), cry, and spend a few days in pain.

However, in my opinion someone like a scientist who studies life, and understands in depth how fragile it really is, and how difficult to find it is in our corner of the Universe, and that he/she feels extremely lucky to feel alive and to be here, experiencing all of this wonderful thing that is life, and knowing that perhaps after death there is nothing; will then value life much more than someone who believes that "there are no problems, when I die it is just the beginning of another life."

That is, it is a matter of perception. Highly rational people, although perhaps they can not deny the possibility of a life beyond death, do not take it as given, and therefore live their lives probably appreciating every moment of joy, they live a life embracing each second making each day worthwhile.

I'm not saying that you must be rational in order to appreciate life, what I'm saying is that regardless of the background, a rational person who really understands things, should by pure deduction appreciate life more intensely, and feel more emotional towards it, than another person who does not have that understanding of things. Because of this reason, it’s fair to say a rational person can put him/herself in the shoes of another more easily than one who is not rational.

There are many examples that support this. We can name both composers Mozart and Beethoven, 2 highly rational people in the world of music, and yet the feeling of their compositions goes far beyond anything written by thousands of other more "sentimental" composers, these 2 historic composers meticulously analyzed the human state, understood that makes a person happy or sad, and with that rational knowledge they wrote some of the most emotionally powerful works that humanity has ever heard.

With art we have the greatest example of Leonardo DaVinci, who in works such as The Last Supper or Mona Lisa used all his rational knowledge about different techniques to make proper paintings, and ended up creating two of the most memorable works of art in the history of humanity.

And whole books can be filled with famous people who with their works in several activities, make their rationality the source of many of our stronger emotions in life.

Having said this, we should therefore leave this stereotype behind, because as we can see, it is more possible that rational people might as well be the most sentimental humans on Earth.