If you have not had this experience through doing meditation, what does it being reported by another person require from you?

Are we essentially just brainwashed by society and nothing more than puppets in our lives or is there more than that? — Darkneos

What are feelings? Wouldn't you have to be quite clear on their definition and origin before you could begin to assess their genuineness?

Don't you have to wonder about the sequence of events in the above scenario? Why does "society" need puppets, and why influence "you"? What is society and what are you in relation to society? How did society come about? How did it get to care enough about "feelings" to figure out how to brainwash its individual members to have one feeling rather than another in a given situation?

But if you are being affected or influenced by something else then it's not genuine, you're being controlled. — Darkneos

Affected and influenced does not equate to controlled. We're living in an environment that affects and influences us all the time, but doesn't control us. We're affected an influenced by our family, friends, community, teachers and fellow students, work associates, romantic interests, political leaders, spiritual leaders, sport heroes, our intellectual interests, editorials, books and television entertainments. Unless all of those entities are in collusion, I don't see how they can control anybody.
Way too many associations and assumptions with very little plausibility-checking.

You spend enough time in meditation, you will realize that you never genuinely feel feelings in the first place it is all just cause and effect response

I understand this is not your position, only the one you are questioning. I think it was @Possibility here on the forum who recommended a book - "How Emotions are Made," by Lisa Feldman Barrett. If I understand the book correctly, Barrett believes that the physiological phenomena associated with emotion are not learned, but how those feelings are interpreted is. Children are taught what they mean, how to put them into words.

Looking at it a different way, I've seen animals behaving in a way that it would be ridiculous to call anything other than emotional. They show fear, happiness, anger, affection without the societal expectations your Buddhism expert describes.

Speaking more personally, my emotions are a big part of who I am and how I behave. A Buddhist might say that is a reflection of my illusionary self, but I'm not a Buddhist.

If emotions are socially constructed then all that means is that they're like language. They help us communicate and regulate our energies appropriately. Of course we can be manipulated by others emotionally and with all forms of communication.

Meditation may offer a "spaciousness" where there's more room to not react mindlessly.

Are we essentially just brainwashed by society and nothing more than puppets in our lives or is there more than that? — Darkneos

We are not brainwashed by society. Our brain is trained (programmed, if you like the computer analogy) by its environment, physical and social. Without that training, there is no person. Hence, we are created by society.

The fact that we can object to, rebel against or withdraw from, our society shows that social control is imperfect, partial. That's a good thing, for the same reason that variations in DNA are a good thing.

Are we essentially just brainwashed by society and nothing more than puppets in our lives or is there more than that? When I ask other people no one seems to think that just because emotions are cause and effect that it means they aren't genuine. But if you are being affected or influenced by something else then it's not genuine, you're being controlled. — Darkneos

Both. If you had no feelings, then it would be hard to brainwash you into having them. But given that you have fears and anxieties, needs and desires, you can find them being manipulated. Panic not though, the manipulator, 'society' is just some other people like you, pretending to be the illuminati.

Try unenlightened's advertisement meditation: whenever you see an advert, analyse it carefully and you will find in every case that it will first seek to provoke in you a negative feeling, and then offer you a solution to make you feel better.

Because we can feel hunger, and feel sated, we can have hunger provoked in us; so it is worth a little consideration to discover whether the hunger you feel arises because you need sustenance or because McKellog needs to sell some more carbohydrates. But it is also worth discovering whether your feeling of being manipulated is also being provoked in order to manipulate you into supporting a party that promises to "take back control".

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. — political advertising

Meditation may offer a "spaciousness" where there's more room to not react mindlessly. — praxis

It's what Vulcans do to control their otherwise volatile emotions. Social conditioning is aimed at the same thing: to keep a rein on feelings that could prompt destructive actions. Language gives us a way to communicate emotion without the threatening or provocative behaviours that could disrupt the social order. Alcohol and other substances relax these social inhibitions - and you see on the news what results. Maybe Friday-night brawlers should be sentenced to a course of meditation instead of a weekend in jail.

It's what Vulcans do to control their otherwise volatile emotions. Social conditioning is aimed at the same thing: to keep a rein on feelings that could prompt destructive actions. Language gives us a way to communicate emotion without the threatening or provocative behaviours that could disrupt the social order. — Vera Mont

Actually you tend to feel things more deeply because you’re more attuned to bodily sensations than wrapped up in what Buddhists call ‘monkey mind’. I think that may be what @Darkneos alludes to in the OP.

Maybe Friday-night brawlers should be sentenced to a course of meditation instead of a weekend in jail. — Vera Mont

:up:

Yup.


Another way to look at emotions and manipulation is that this is how we are connected to an environment. Yes, we are deeply influenced by those around us -- they are a part of our environment. While the emotions can be manipulated for a purpose, in the non-malignant form, it's a good thing that our emotions respond to the world -- it's how we act and feel and know.

"brainwashed" isn't the right word, because that would be a programmatic approach -- and on a large scale we're just not that in control of even ourselves to get up to the point of controlling others. Propaganda is much more crude than that. It's flashy -- often times it can be reduced to a command: "AVOID" "FEAR" "BUY" "VOTE". And it's crude because it doesn't need to be sophisticated: it works on emotions that are already there. It's not brainwashing as much as calling attention.

Actually you tend to feel things more deeply because you’re more attuned to bodily sensations than wrapped up in what Buddhists call ‘monkey mind’. — praxis

That's interesting. What 'things' do you feel when meditating that are different from the things you feel when connected to the outside world? And how does feeling deeply affect behaviour differently from the presumably shallow feeling we normally experience.
I can't always follow what other people mean by feelings (which i think of as response to sensation and other stimuli) and emotions (which i think of as either primal or sentimental.) We have more precise language available, of which most of us rarely make use.

Are we essentially just brainwashed by society and nothing more than puppets in our lives or is there more than that? — Darkneos

The typical mind will generally by a reflection of its experiences filtered through the lenses of deep-seated beliefs it identifies as Truths (upbringing, indoctrination perhaps), yes. This is why people pursue higher education, to learn things that they did not know before and have them become second nature or indistinguishable from first knowledge even.

You reminded me of a user here whose screen name caught my eye. @Cartesian trigger-puppets. I asked him what the meaning or origin of that was and apparently he read and presumably was convinced that we are all, in a way, Cartesian trigger puppets, relating to Descartes and his philosophies, of which I am not familiar. Similar as your premise suggests. Perhaps you may wish to look into that.

When I ask other people no one seems to think that just because emotions are cause and effect that it means they aren't genuine. But if you are being affected or influenced by something else then it's not genuine, you're being controlled. Though no one agrees, not even Buddhists who I ask. — Darkneos

Well, hey. You can by and I'll give you a flick on the arm and you can see how that does or does not affect you. Or I can step it up a notch and tell a "yo mamma" joke so volatile you'll want to call her just to make sure she's alright. :wink:

Generally speaking yes, your mind should not randomly have unnecessary fluctuations of emotion for no reason whatsoever. That's bipolarity I believe. We live in a physical world with physical people and unless you live in a walled off kingdom with no knowledge (or care for that matter) of others, you will be inevitably be affected by other people just as you will inevitably affect them. There's nothing complicated or "tricky" about that really.

Propaganda is much more crude than that. It's flashy -- often times it can be reduced to a command: "AVOID" "FEAR" "BUY" "VOTE". And it's crude because it doesn't need to be sophisticated: it works on emotions that are already there. It's not brainwashing as much as calling attention. — Moliere

I'm reminded of a scene from They Live.


It may suggest that ideologies are deeply embedded and inescapable.

That's interesting. What 'things' do you feel when meditating that are different from the things you feel when connected to the outside world? And how does feeling deeply affect behaviour differently from the presumably shallow feeling we normally experience.
I can't always follow what other people mean by feelings (which i think of as response to sensation and other stimuli) and emotions (which i think of as either primal or sentimental.) We have more precise language available, of which most of us rarely make use. — Vera Mont

When in regular meditation practice I notice being generally more sentimental. Hearing a touching story, for instance, makes eyes water when ordinarily they would not. That sort of thing.

And I would characterize the feeling of being in meditation as more connected to the world.

When in regular meditation practice I notice being generally more sentimental. Hearing a touching story, for instance, makes eyes water when ordinarily they would not. That sort of thing. — praxis

So, it makes you more sensitive to others, more empathic? Those are frontal lobe functions, abstract thought, symbol-making functions, far from the primal drives. Seems to me that's more connected to the thinking world, rather than the physical one.
I've only ever tried meditation at the most elementary level, to reduce anxiety during a rough patch in my youth. It worked, up to a point, and i didn't pursue it beyond that point.

Oh, definitely. What a great flick!

Though I don't think that I'd say that ideology is inescapable -- he does put on the glasses after all, and is able to perceive the subtext as text, and see the aliens that live among them.

***
I think, upon first being able to see subtext, we get this sense that it's inescapable because it's also everywhere. Or, at least, upon first being able to perceive propaganda as propaganda, it is surprising how ubiquitous it is since the very function of ideology is to make the crudeness of propaganda acceptable, a part of the day to day.

So I feel empathy for @Darkneos's thoughts. There's a sense in which it can feel like you're being controlled, that there is no escape, and that the people around you don't even acknowledge the propaganda around them.

But that's actually because the best propaganda doesn't look like propaganda to its target audience -- the crudity of propaganda is only apparent upon being perceived as propaganda, upon being able to reduce it to a command. And if you're just putting the glasses on for the first time, it can seem like nobody else has "figured it out" -- but the truth is, just enough people have "figured it out" that it's still effective. (And, as the movie more or less preaches to us, those alien persons who see the field of desire as a machine to be manipulated for their own ends -- They Live! :D)

So, it makes you more sensitive to others, more empathic? Those are frontal lobe functions, abstract thought, symbol-making functions, far from the primal drives. Seems to me that's more connected to the thinking world, rather than the physical one. — Vera Mont

The basic neurology of it is suppression of the default mode network. Modern folk tends to have a hyperactive DMN. I certainly do.

What 'things' do you feel when meditating that are different from the things you feel when connected to the outside world? — Vera Mont

I'm not a formal meditator and I think my understanding is different from @praxis. I went looking for an Alan Watts quote I think is relevant, but I can't find it. To paraphrase though - Quiet contemplation can help us experience our negative emotions without resistance. If we allow ourselves to feel our grief, sadness, anger, shame, or guilt fully and without trying to avoid them, they lose their power over us. Trying to avoid suffering just makes it last longer and causes additional suffering.

This is a quote from the Tao Te Ching that has always meant a lot to me:

If you want to shrink something,
you must first allow it to expand.
If you want to get rid of something,
you must first allow it to flourish.
If you want to take something,
you must first allow it to be given.
This is called the subtle perception
of the way things are. — Tao Te Ching, Verse 36 - Stephen Mitchell Translation

I'm thinking inescapable in the sense that we require some kind of framework. You can remove the water in a fish bowl but it will have to be replaced with different water for the fish to live in. I think we require ideology, in other words.

I'm reminded of a scene from They Live. — praxis

What a great flick! — Moliere

I believe Rowdy Roddy Piper won the Oscar for best performance by a professional wrestler that year.

I believe Rowdy Roddy Piper won the Oscar for best performance by a professional wrestler that year. — T Clark

I trust no one made a joke about his wife. That could have landed very badly.

Interesting!

I think I'd prefer to reserve the term "ideology" for something which can be "unseen": basically in the manner I was using it before, where ideology is that which makes propaganda acceptable, uncrude, and functional, and the removal of ideology is the reduction of propaganda to a command (seeing propaganda as propagada)

But if ideology is that which we must have in order to conceive at all -- like a fish out of water, as you say -- then it would be inescapable. You could switch out the water, because it's gone bad, but there'd always be an environment which we're needing...

Something like a social environment? Or a set of beliefs? Or what?

Try unenlightened's advertisement meditation: whenever you see an advert, analyse it carefully and you will find in every case that it will first seek to provoke in you a negative feeling, and then offer you a solution to make you feel better. — unenlightened

Advertisement doesn't work on me so...

Alleged Buddhism expert since I have asked other Buddhism people and they say she's wrong. But that quote from the Tao Te is more about just letting things happen rather than fight them, which is supported by psychological research. Resisting a negative thought or idea, etc, ends up building a stronger association to it, rather than just letting it come and go. So actively trying to force something out of your mind does the opposite

So I feel empathy for Darkneos's thoughts. There's a sense in which it can feel like you're being controlled, that there is no escape, and that the people around you don't even acknowledge the propaganda around them.

But that's actually because the best propaganda doesn't look like propaganda to its target audience -- the crudity of propaganda is only apparent upon being perceived as propaganda, upon being able to reduce it to a command. And if you're just putting the glasses on for the first time, it can seem like nobody else has "figured it out" -- but the truth is, just enough people have "figured it out" that it's still effective. (And, as the movie more or less preaches to us, those alien persons who see the field of desire as a machine to be manipulated for their own ends -- They Live! :D) — Moliere

not quite what I'm getting at here.

not quite what I'm getting at here. — Darkneos

No? M'kay. Then my mistake.

"Propaganda" was introduced by me, mostly because it fit, to my mind, with what you were saying about our emotions being the result of cause-and-effect, that we are puppets to society, and that these influences render us disingenuous, and under control. But I'm willing to drop that, only justifying where I was thinking from.

Still -- I'm pointing out that I disagree that these influences make us disingenuous, in my first post. That we feel means we are connected to a world, which is, in fact, where we are. If we do not feel, then while we are in a world we are no longer connected to it.

It's not being under influence which makes us disingenuous. It depends upon more than that. Such as being manipulated in a particular way. (hence why I immediately went for propaganda)

Being under any sort of influence automatically makes it disingenuous as the original quote I cited said.

Quiet contemplation can help us experience our negative emotions without resistance. If we allow ourselves to feel our grief, sadness, anger, shame, or guilt fully and without trying to avoid them, they lose their power over us. — T Clark

This, or something like it, I know from experience. There are different methods - solitary contemplation works for me; for someone I know who suffers from depression, it's analyzing dreams, or it might be writing poetry or keeping a journal. Basically, the process boils down to: See it, name it, accept it, own it. Then it can't own you.

This, or something like it, I know from experience. There are different methods - solitary contemplation works for me; for someone I know who suffers from depression, it's analyzing dreams, or it might be writing poetry or keeping a journal. Basically, the process boils down to: See it, name it, accept it, own it. Then it can't own you. — Vera Mont

This is more like denying reality though. You don't genuinely feel anything so those emotions are more or less a lie.

I suppose that's the point I take issue with, then.

Though, if we're just taking that definition as the rule -- then your conclusion does follow. You and everyone else is disingenuous, as they are, in fact, influenced by the things around them.

Only God could claim to be authentic under such a criteria, though.

This is more like denying reality though. You don't genuinely feel anything so those emotions are more or less a lie. — Darkneos

What makes you think you know more about reality than I do?
But then, I'm still not clear on what you mean by feeling, emotions or genuine. Or why influence is considered control, or how that which is influenced by the environment becomes unreal.

Advertisement doesn't work on me so... — Darkneos

Yeah, I saw that one too.