Hey bro, I have this theory that emotions have become a zero sum game since our society has become so competitve. For example if you are really happy that you got onto a good college, you've indirectly caused unhappiness for others. Does that extend?
This is a really good example ofwhat we might call a "naĂŻve" theory -- it's like "this prettysimple claim is true and there's not much more to it." Other naĂŻvetheories include "naĂŻve empiricism," where the naĂŻve claim is "empiricismis the only way to know shit, thanks for playing let's all go home now."Â
NaĂŻve theories typically fallapart when you look even a little bit closer; in fact, usually whenphilosophers talk about naĂŻve theories they're saying "Oh, you might thinkit's this easy but look, this fucking thing is full of holes and is ultimatelygarbage, let's come up with a more nuanced version of this idea." Soagain, rarely is a philosopher endorsing naĂŻve empiricism; usually we'relike "oh, sure, you can't just assume that empiricism is the way to go,but let's see if we can come up with a more sophisticated version."Â
Anyway, what I'm trying to say,anon, is that your idea basically just crumbles to shit when you really getinto it, but it's not necessarily a bad idea. It might be a springboardinto something deeper, or it might be totally unworkable. This is exactly thesort of idea that studying philosophy can help you refine!Â
To start with, this theory isvague as hell. I mean, "zero sum" means something really specific-- it means that the only way for anyone to gain is for someone else tolose. But what the fuck does it even mean to have an increase or a decreasein emotion? You gave an example of happiness, but there'sthis whole range of emotions besides happiness/sadness.Â
Like let's say I'm fucking pissedat my bro. Is anger a positive or a negative emotion? It seemsnegative, but that means that if I get angry, someone else has to getsome other positive emotion. But that doesn't have to happen, right? When onebro gets pissed at someone, usually that person get pissed right back.Or maybe they feel uncomfortable (definitely a negative emotion, right?!) orafraid or disdainful, but it seems like negative emotions tend togenerate other negative emotions. Sometimes when you get pissedoff it's because someone wanted to get a rise out of you, so maybe there"satisfaction" and "anger" cancel out, but"sometimes shit goes one way and sometimes shit goes another" isn'tnot the same as "this entire system is zero sum."Â
So the naĂŻve claim  -- emotions are zero sum -- is, as naĂŻvetheories often are, way too fucking strong. It just covers way too muchterritory and it's too easy to disprove.Â
So maybe we could fix it bysaying that happiness is zero-sum "in our society," which is aweaker claim, still a little vague, and probably still too strong. Why in thefuck should we think that happiness is zero-sum? Again, yeah, sometimes whenyou're happy it's because of something that makes someone else sad, but the claimyou're making is way stronger -- because of how competitive "oursociety" is, it's always zero sum. But our society isn't socompetitive that everything is a trade-off: consider when I tell a funnyjoke and all my friends are suddenly happier? Where is the correspondingdecrease? Maybe some people are like "aw fuck I wish I'd thought ofthat, I hate that I'm not as clever as he is" because it's true, I'm veryclever, but do people wish they'd thought of my joke so much that it exactlycounterbalances how much they enjoyed it?Â
So maybe you want to say that incertain competitive contexts, emotions/happiness are zero-sum, andthen later we can argue how common those contexts are in "oursociety." Like I've heard people say that the Olympic village where athletesstay during the Olympics is actually like the saddest place on the planet,because for every gold medal winner a shitload of people did not winanything, at all, whatsoever. It's going to be hard to argue that it's societywide, but at least you have contexts to use your theory. SO maybe now we'reclosing in on something workable.Â
Except that you also needsome explanation of how emotions connect to competition. We're reallycompetitive, but maybe we're competitive in a way that values excellence ratherthan just victory. Like if ten people run a race and four of thembreak the existing world record, are we sure the three of them that didn't alsowin are bummed? This seems like an empirical question, OH SHIT whichreminds me:Â
Don't make sweeping claims aboutshit we can look out and test. Like, you're telling me everyone sad when theylose but that’s a huge generalization that's probably true butfucking who can say? There are a lot of ways it might be false, like if peoplevalue competition for its own sake, and are happy to lose but perform well.Â
It might just be that what you'reobserving is "when some people win, other people lose, and people wouldrather win than lose" which isn't really a profound or difficultobservation. Or maybe you're noticing that "when resources are limited butour wants are unlimited, some people get what they want and other people don'tget what they want" which is also probably true, but doesn't mean thatit's zero-sum (for more on that read literally any intro to economicsbook).Â
Now we've got a lot of differentthreads going, and that's exactly the problem with naĂŻve theories -- they tendto way the fuck oversimplify complex issues. That's also why philosophy canproceed at a creep sometimes -- because we're chasing down all these threads.THAT IS FREQUENTLY A GOOD THING, that we're being careful. So while your theoryturned out to be naĂŻve and almost certainly false, it does suggest new andinteresting questions that you might learn from by trying to answer. That's soso so so important to philosophy, checking yourself and refining your ideas.
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