“Affectus Per Solam” means “By Feelings Alone.”
Western secular culture today is moved by a hyper-focus on an individual’s feelings.
When it comes to examining ideas, it’s interesting how often you will hear someone ask another, “How do you feel about that?” instead of “What do you think about that?”
How often do you hear things like this in today’s culture: “do whatever feels best,” “be true to yourself,” “who am I to judge,” or “that’s hurtful”?
Sentimentalism Rules
It appears that we as a culture make decisions based more on “strongly-felt feelings,” than we do based on critical reasoning.
Just turn on your TV, or open your web browser to any local or national news channel and you will be flooded with emotivism.
Emotivism places a person’s feelings ahead of objective truth.
The individual – my truth! – becomes more important than objective reality – the truth!
The Algorithm Antidote
Imagine now that you are evaluating the performance of your local pro-life pregnancy help center.
What will be the basis of your evaluation – facts or feelings?
Did you say facts?
If your local PHC is typical, for every 100 women seeking an abortion, 99 of them will choose an abortion at Planned Parenthood and 1 of them will choose life at the PHC.
Planned Parenthood market share: 99%
PHC market share: 1%
Based solely on that fact, every pro-life benefactor who provides funds that enable the PHC’s operations should demand change.
But they don’t because pro-lifers, in general, subordinate facts to emotions.
Admittedly, it’s hard not to when the PHC shares powerful save stories of women and their babies
Could anything be more emotionally gratifying for a pro-life benefactor than seeing a unique, one-of-a-kind, baby human being saved from abortion?
But our feelings of emotional gratification belie the facts: Planned Parenthood 99 babies, PHC 1 baby.
The antidote?
Subordinate emotions to facts.
More tomorrow…
Regards,
Brett