By definition, emotion is: “an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness” (“Emotion” par. 1). Emotions most often conduce us to a conclusion, where we agree or disagree with a certain fact, and whether we believe it or not. Furthermore, we have to be very careful in trusting our own emotions because infrequent cases our emotions influence our way of thinking even though our belief is incorrect. Emotion, as we know, is one of the four ways of knowing, which also include reason, sense perception, and language. We experience emotional feelings when we see, hear, or listen to a fact that can be agreed or disagreed. Emotions play a vast role in the pursuit of knowledge, and as we know, emotions are integrated into human beings and most likely they are the fundamental area, which makes the knower conclude with a biased answer.
Emotions have had a strong impact on the actions of people throughout history. One of the examples, illustrating this fact is the War of Serbia in Kosovo. The reasons for this bloody and cruel war are multiple, but the most influential of them is national hatred. The people of Kosovo were in fear lest they could be killed because of their ethnicity. In addition, national prejudice was hand in hand with the desire of political leaders of Serbia, the strongest country of the post-Yugoslavian ones, to continue their enrichment using robbing the people of Kosovo (Webber 448). Thus, without any empathy or compassion, Serbian forces started annihilating the people of Kosovo. Kosovo military elements such as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) did not wait until their land would be invaded and demolished. The KLA leaders engaged in active military actions at the very beginning of the war, in 1998. Those days, the world community believed the KLA to be a terrorist organization under the effect of the emotions of Serbian leaders. However, later as diplomatic contact was established with the KLA, prominent politicians in the world came to a conclusion that it was a national power, striving to protect the Kosovo people and set them free from the burden of post-Yugoslavian countries and their leaders (Webber 449).
The war in Kosovo is the example of genocide that took place under the influence of emotions. People, who used to live together in peace, unity and prosperity in the Yugoslav Republic, started the genocide of their brothers for terrible reasons. Officially, those who were destroying their brothers, believed that they did so because of religious and ethnic contradictions, but behind this genocide was the desire of politicians such as Milosevic and Tudjman to continue their enrichment by means of robbing the people of Kosovo. In this war, it is evident that an observer can trust one’s emotions in the pursuit of knowledge because the upsetting facts of genocide show who the real aggressor is, and whose guilt at the beginning of the war is really seen. Thus, emotions became important in acquiring real knowledge by the world leaders, who later interfered in the conflict.
The other area that helps understand that real knowledge can be gained through emotions is art. In art, critiques often obtain their knowledge regarding particular objects by means of relying on their emotions. When specialists address particular pieces of art, reason and emotion also lead to a larger criticism. In a variety of art genres, to gain real knowledge about the piece of art, it is necessary to address them from the angle of emotion (House 48). Among such genres are painting, sculpture, music, literature, films, and even architecture at times. For example, most of the knowledge that observers acquire about a painted piece of art comes from their own emotions that appear during the process of examination. Also, in the film art, the same picture can be seen as specialists on film critique pay a lot of attention to emotions awakened by a movie when they work on characterizing a piece of film art. Thus, art is yet another area in which the answer to the question of whether knowledge can be gained through emotions appears to be positive. Below, a piece of music artists will be addressed in detail to see how exactly emotion can add to the body of knowledge.
In U2 song “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, lyrics and music are selected in such a way that they call for special emotions in the hearts of listeners. These emotions, in turn, impart particular information to the listeners. The lyrics of this song affect the emotions of the audience by such sayings as “broken bottles under children’s feet”, “bodies strewn across the dead-end streets”, and “mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart” (“Sunday Bloody Sunday Lyrics” para. 6, 7, 17, 18). These expressions reveal the pictures from the struggles of Irish people for their ideas and freedoms (Neal 118). The lyrics of this song are full of images that cause people to have strong emotions. Among them are also the following lines:
And it’s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die (“Sunday Bloody Sunday Lyrics” para. 37-40).
The idea in these lines is very strong. It stirs people’s emotions to really think about the events that take place in the world. By means of such a strong appeal, the songwriter encourages people to acquire knowledge about the events that take place in the world including such events as Bloody Sunday in Ireland, when lots of people including women and children suffered for no reason, and many of them even lost their lives (Neal 118). Among the strong emotions that the listeners of the song may have after addressing this piece of music are empathy and compassion to the victims of the conflict that took place on Bloody Sunday; anger regarding politicians who cause events similar to this one; sadness about what is happening in the world; disgust on the reason of terror that exists in the world; and shame that such terrible conflicts still take place, and are not stopped yet.
As it is evident from such pieces of art as the addressed above song by U2, emotion is provoked by large-scale tragedy and injustice. However, positive power of strong emotion is in the fact that it may lead to justice. This may happen in case people will meditate about the pain and harm that comes from the events causing bad emotions, and will decide to stop such things. It happened many times in history when under the influence of powerful emotions, people decided to fight against injustice, and managed to win the victory.
Still, there exist people, who oppose the significance of emotions in acquiring knowledge. On the contrary, such people think that emotions may only harm an individual when he or she wants to get real knowledge. Although we may assume that we cannot know when to trust our emotions, in some cases we can verify if what our emotions are telling us is right or wrong. It is believed that emotion is verified by reason and evidence. People can know, through reason and by analyzing what provokes the emotion, whether it is justified. In contrast, art is less about evidence, but is more about critique.
In conclusion, it is necessary to note that events from history and a critical approach to art prove that at times, knowledge can be obtained through emotion. However, there exists an opinion that emotion is far away from the real facts. In some situations, it is true, but evidence proves that it often happens that emotions can be trustworthy. Therefore, a detailed address of the subject of emotions’ reliability when it comes to knowledge shows that emotion is also a way of knowing among the three others including reason, sense of perception, and language. When people see, hear, or listen to information that can be agreed or disagreed, they experience emotional feelings. The pursuit of knowledge is closely connected with emotions because emotions are integrated into human beings and most likely they are the fundamental area, which makes the knower conclude with a biased answer.
Works Cited
Emotion n. d. Web. 2013.
House, Nancy. “Using Critiques in Art.” Art Education 61.3 (2008): 48-51. Print.
Neal, Chris. “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” Performing Songwriter 15.110 (2008): 118-124. Print.
Sunday Bloody Sunday Lyrics n. d. Web. 2013.
Webber, Mark. “The Kosovo War: A Recapitulation.” International Affairs 85.3 (2009): 447-459. Print.