I once read somewhere that action often precedes the feeling. That is, if you act as if you feel a certain way, you may find yourself actually feeling the way you acted. For example, if you want to be a kind person, but don't have kind feelings, make yourself act kind, even you aren't feeling kind, and acting kind will make you feel kind, which in the future will cause you act kind because now you feel kind. I was thinking about this theory last week after watching the thankfully civil debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance, in which Vance shocked the nation by coming across, not as the nasty, misogynistic, cold-blooded nematode that had been his persona up until that point, but as an empathetic, sympathetic, agreeable Midwestern mensch. JD Vance did not go for Tim Walz's jugular, but rather he agreed with his opponent's view on several issues and even offered kind sympathy upon hearing that Walz's son had witnessed a school shooting. Vance was more cordial than hostile, almost out-Tim Walzing Tim Walz, the purported king of nice. Of course there were those moments during the debate when Vance lied, bald-facedly and through his teeth, as when he claimed that he never opposed a national abortion ban (he did), or that Donald Trump saved the Affordable Care Act (Trump tried, but failed multiple times, to demolish the ACA), or that when Trump left office there was a peaceful transfer of power. (Did Vance really Wite-Out the national trauma of 5 people killed, 140 police officers assaulted, and $1.5 million in damage done to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021? Indeed, he did).
But even while he was lying JD Vance spoke with such sincerity that one could almost believe, if not that he believed what he was saying, that he believed that what he was saying was the right thing: That women should have agency over their own bodies and healthcare; that the Affordable Health Care Act should be saved and improved upon; the there should be a peaceful transfer of power after our Presidential elections. Which brings me back to where I started and to my point, which is this: What if the behavior that JD Vance exhibited during the debate caused him to have an epiphany of feelings? What if behaving as if he were respectful towards and understanding of people on the other political side made him feel respectful and understanding of them? What if having behaved as if he were a person who believed in women's reproductive rights, affordable health care, and a peaceful transference of power after the next election turned him into the person he was pretending to be up on that stage, and actually made him believe in the things he said he believed in? What if what was a lie on the stage became true for him? What if the dramatic change in public opinion that JD Vance received after his debate performance - from deeply negative to positive - was so rewarding for him that it made him want to be the person that he pretended to be during the debate? And what if JD did become the person he pretended to be?
3 Comments
Sheila Reinhard
10/7/2024 02:38:34 pm
I don't believe JD had any changes in feeling. He made it very apparent he knew he was lying, when he said, "I thought the rules said we wouldn't be fact-checked?" At the debate he pretended to be nice. He is not. He lies, and knows he is lying.
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Patti
10/7/2024 03:45:31 pm
Alas, I believe you're right, Sheila.
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