العنصر الاجتماعي ، طبيعة الهيجان .. كتاب علم النَّفس جميل صَليبا

The social element, the nature of the frenzy

3- The social element
We have already mentioned the mental element and the physiological element, and we are now mentioning a new element that is not included in the previous elements, because they are individual, and this new element is social.

We saw in the study of pleasures and pains that man has inclinations that socialization has given him. Its explanation based on the social method is more accessible (p. 221). And what we said about the beginnings of emotional states. It can also be characterized by agitation and passion. Because the social body is the natural environment in which emotions emerge. Let the agitation be transmitted from one person to another through infection, and it does not intensify unless it spreads and a group of people participate in it.

Accordingly, the social structure affects agitations and emotions. It either forces us to restrain ourselves and hide or justify our detachment - because people rarely admit to the fear, anger, hatred, and envy that they feel - or it forces us to show what we feel according to the social situations that we experience. The social structure may also affect the phenomena of agitation and emotions, and how they are expressed. Although excitement is related to the body, the social structure organizes its phenomena in a common way that leads to their grouping into general patterns and universal types.

Delacroix said: “Some civilizations have a true language for expressing emotions, which is the sum of the movements and actions that a person must perform, and some situations also have drawings and symbols that organizers set and correct. A person must show his emotions to others according to certain restricted images. He must... He shows it to himself by expressing it to others and for the sake of others. Manifestations of sadness and signs of pain are not only physiological or psychological actions, but at the same time they are organized social drawings, and composed words or language rules (1).

The social structure then affects how agitation is expressed. Since this expression complements agitation (according to physiological theory), the social body has an influence on emotions. Whatever the case, our emotions, even if they are subjective, must have a social nature.

An example of this is shyness, as it is the best example of the influence of the social body on excitement. In general, it is a hypocritical feeling accompanied by fear, weakness of will, decline, and decadence. It is social in itself because man is only ashamed of man. It has many forms that differ according to character, level of culture, and social environment, because a person is not shy in every situation, but rather he is shy in some situations and not others. Like someone who is ashamed of women at an evening party but is not ashamed of them in a scientific symposium. Like someone who is unable to speak between two men, but delivers a bold speech to a crowd of people with truth, the stem of the pulpit turns green beneath him. The act of shame is therefore social; It is a feeling of inferiority.

4- The result
It follows from the above that agitations and emotions are psychological phenomena composed of many elements, some of which cannot be neglected without making a mistake.

1 - The mental element cannot be neglected: because agitations and emotions often talk about perceptions and the association of ideas (Dumas. Sadness and Pleasure, p. 411). Therefore, the owners of the physiological theory were wrong in saying that pathological agitations generated from physical causes are identical to agitations generated from a mental cause. (Free) anger is not similar to the anger of Don Deh J when he was slapped in the face. However, it is difficult for agitations and emotions to be resolved into relationships between perceptions and nothing else. Because the active forces of the soul are inclinations, not perceptions, and perceptions do not affect the occurrence of agitation, unless they are awakened. The hidden tendencies behind them are that perceptions are the flowers, while the tendencies are the hidden copies that nourish the leaves and refresh the flowers.

2 - We also cannot completely deny the physiological theory. Because agitations and emotions are based only on a physical basis. The disagreement that existed between the mental doctrine and the physiological doctrine has disappeared, and has turned into a disagreement between the theory that attributes agitation to changes in the surrounding superficial aspects, and the cerebral theory (1) that attributes agitation to central changes. We have shown that the first theory highlights the effect of superficial factors in generating agitation, but it is unable to explain agitation through these factors alone. Therefore, some scholars claimed that agitation has a connection to the brain, and that this connection has to do with distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate complex emotional states. Perhaps sensory excitement also has a connection to the brain, because superficial factors and external phenomena are unable to explain it.

3 - Finally, some of the personal images that characterize agitations and emotions cannot be clarified except by social factors. Because the perceptions that cause some agitation are common perceptions, such as the idea of ​​duty, honor, love, and so on.

In short, all of these three elements participate in causing agitation, but the ratio of each to the other varies depending on the circumstances. In some agitations, the mental element may be more influential than the serious element. Vice versa . This is true of the division of excitement into collision and sensory. The physiological element prevails in confrontational agitation, and the mental and social element prevails in sensory agitation. Therefore, the physiological theory was generally valid for explaining shock agitation, not for explaining sensory agitation, which cannot be adequately explained except by the mental and social element.