War and Mindfulness

The Case Against Emoting

March 15th, 2012

The other day someone on Twitter said this about me.

I feel shocked by Robert's dissociated quality of thought lately.

It's almost like he's autistic.

I asked for elaboration and got this in reply.

Dissociated, meaning disconnected from emotion. From your work on meditation and empathy,

I'd have expected a much more visceral sense from you of how Ukrainians feel right now.

I don't object to the indictment itself.

It's true that, in writing about the Russia-Ukraine war, I haven't dwelt on the suffering of

Ukrainians.

It's also true, more broadly, that I haven't adopted the wartime tone that prevails on

social media and in mainstream media.

Though I've condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a clear violation of Internet, tone that prevails on social media and in mainstream media.

Though I've condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a clear violation of international law,

and noted with obvious disapproval the increasing brutality of the attack,

I haven't done much emoting about these things.

So though disconnected from emotion is an exaggeration, I'm willing to plead guilty to the basic charge of often exhibiting atypically low war-related affect. But I do object to the framing of this indictment, specifically to two assumptions embedded in it.

One, that the way I'm processing the Ukraine war, almost as if disconnected from emotion, is a bad way to process a war,

somehow less healthy than the passionate processing UC on CNN and MSNBC and much of Twitter.

2.

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