«Half humbug and half true»: la valenza politica delle emozioni tra spontaneità individuale e regolazione sociale

Abstract

“Half humbug and half true”: the political significance of emotionsbetween individual spontaneity and social regulationThe paper starts out from a consideration of the paradoxical nature ofemotions, which are regarded as spontaneous and authentic while atthe same time being strictly socially regulated, in order to take a deeperlook at two opposite modes of social regulation, one according towhich emotions about an experience are the exclusive property of theindividual who owns the experience, and one according to which theycan be shared more and more broadly while preserving their originalintensity. By referring to a construct of ancient rhetoric, epideicticdiscourse, to Russell Hochschild’s concept of “emotion work”, and toIgnatius's spiritual exercises, a way is envisioned in which this sharingcould actually be achieved.