Analyzing Emotional Campaigns

Abstract

How do the subjects who make up Western social groups control or exercise directive action upon their selves, other selves, and the world more generally? Do they more frequently do so through the feelings of shame/pride or through those of personal insecurity/self-esteem? Do they privilege confrontational, avoidant, or preventative strategic orientations to dangers and securities? Do the emotional modalities of panic/excitement, anxiety/interest, or distress/relief predominate? Are emotional differentiation and emotional blending common? To what objects of fear and desire, signs of danger and security, and means of power are emotional orientations attached? Is displacement common? Are subjects primarily directed by themselves or by others? And when they are being directed by others, are they or are they not prompted to act upon themselves? Is the scope of the moral forces that threaten subjects extending the reach of responsibilization? Which emotional experiences are typical of or unique to Western societies’ attempts to overcome danger and implement security? Which ones are most common? What are their varying intensities? How are these experiences aligned with the various forces (social, physical, spatial, climactic, and the like) with which they interact? How are they aligned with stratifications in the incapacities and capacities that structure social relations of power and of domination?