So, what's wrong with emotions?

I was genuinely surprised by the starting lines of Graham Stuart's initial response to Neil Taylor-Moore's open letter, where he said "it may contain more emotion than insight".


Watching him argue the EHE case in both the SC and the House of Commons, I've often thought how he stood out from many of his fellow MP's, and especially the likes of Ed Balls, Diana Johnson etcetera. I have my own private little conspiracy theory about the latter ones, as I am convinced they are not born from human parents, but produced in a secret robot factory, where they were fitted with a rather limited text programme and NLP-based software to direct their body language and facial expressions. Their manufacturers have made sure these replica human beings know how to manipulate human emotions - specifically fear - but lack any ability to feel or process them. Ears obviously had to be installed, but can only be made to listen with very specific plug-ins - not available to the general public.

But I digress.


Watching and listening to Graham, I felt he had actually listened to the people who were subjected to this whole terrible Badman and CSF-Bill exercise, and it seemed to have touched not only his common sense, but also his heart - yes, his emotions.


What is this issue with emotions, anyway? Why is it that whenever people respond against a political or strategic decision, it is dismissed as emotive, emotional - and immediately associated with hysterical, unreasonable and therefore invalid. Emotions are what make us human, aren't they? What is wrong with emotions being part of the equation when making choices or decisions? Or when responding to measures and legislations forced upon us?


It's not as if politicians and their strategists are not aware of the importance of emotions. After all, fear is a very powerful emotion and it is often appealed to in order to get certain policies implied. Need I explain how people are being persuaded to surrender their liberties and personal freedom out of fear for "terrorism" or "global warming", both apparently threatening to destroy our society and our planet?


Recently, I have been reading about what happens when people are being trained to overcome and/or ignore their emotions and their intuition. Their primal human nature. When I expressed my shock and horror about a documentary on French television someone pointed me towards the Stanford Prison Experiment. It is appalling to think what kind of a world we would live in if we did not carefully balance fact based rationalism with emotion and intuition.


I personally think Neil's letter is well balanced, and as a whole provides a healthy balance to the de-humanized and target-driven scenario played out by the government and, I'm sorry to say, the majority of parliament. The way I see it, politicians - for all their undoubtedly honourable initial intentions - are caught up in the Westminster Experiment and have lost, or are at risk of losing touch with reality and real living human beings, complete with feelings, emotions and intuitions.


Depending on what you want the eventual outcome to be, one has to make a choice of conscience, I think. To acknowledge emotions as an essential part of every individual human being and to engage with that would probably require a more intense and probably difficult investment of time and energy. But in my humble opinion it would be constructive and creative, and would - in the long run - lead to a more humane society, with room for individuality and personal freedom.


To ignore and deny emotions would necessitate a de-humanized system to control and suppress basic human nature, with no room for individuality, let alone personal freedom. It would - even in the short term - lead to an utterly regulated society. But by its very nature it would lack creativity, a main ingredient for constructive development, and therefore such a society would - in the long run - be self-destructive.


I am no scientist and I have no other foundation for the above than my personal views and observations, my own life experience and that of the many people I've met, shared and exchanged views with in my life, the many books and articles I've read. I am not very good at reproducing facts, but that doesn't mean they haven't influenced my thinking. I do know who I am, though. And I do know what I value in life, and what I would like to share with my children. True emotions are a large part of that, love the major and most sustaining one.


I will not be tempted into devaluing or excusing my emotions. They are as much part of me as the remainder of my functioning rational brain, and I trust both equally. I will continue to endeavour to keep the two healthily sustained and balanced.


I truly appreciate Graham Stuart's efforts to keep communications going with people within the EHE community. From what I've seen up to now he is willing and able to process feedback and integrate it in his work as an MP and a member of the SC and the APPG. Based on what he has said in public so far, I have no reason to doubt his sincerity.


How and if I would vote if I could (I can't, because even though I live and pay taxes in this country, and my life and family are directly subjected to and affected by its laws and regulations, I am still a Dutch citizen and as such not allowed to vote in the UK) I really don't know. I wouldn't vote Labour, that's for sure. I couldn't vote LibDem, because of their insistence on compulsory registration for home educators. I suppose if Graham Stuart was my MP, I might vote for him, but it would be a purely emotional vote. So Graham might reconsider the value of emotional arguments ;).


Rationally and tactically, I might be inclined to vote Conservative, because I do believe that they will ditch the CSF Bill and I also believe they would not want to spend budget on regulating EHE.


Emotionally and out of principle, I would spoil my vote, and if that would mean another Labour government and their dreaded totalitarian regime, I would welcome, support and participate in revolution and civil disobedience.


But adding it all up, and in all rational and emotional fairness, my trust and belief in British democracy as a whole is non-existent. By voting for any of the existing political parties I would condone and lend support to a system that has been utterly corrupted and has lost all resemblance to democracy.


In the Netherlands, I wasn't prepared to go for the "would you like one leg broken or two" option, and I fought my own small scale revolution by taking on the authorities in a court case. I won, and we moved to the UK, where the law already recognized home education as an expression of basic civil liberties, of which the freedom for parents to choose how to educate their children is a very important one.


The fact that my children are now at an age where they could not possibly be forced into any kind of education not of their choice, does not mean that I will quietly stand by and let our basic freedoms be squashed. I will not quietly stand by when I see humanity taken out of society. For myself, my children and theirs, I will speak up, stand up and - if needed - fight. Again and again.


Because we're worth it :).