“No one cares about your feelings,” I cruelly tell my writing students. I am always on a holy war against the expression, “I feel that . . .” in persuasive essays. I was therefore delighted this morning to read Proverbs 18:2 “A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind.” In the Hebrew the word for mind is literally “heart”.
I am, of course, exaggerating for the sake of emphasis. I want students to write with emotion and passion. My students’ feelings do matter to me. But I have three objections to the use of “I feel that” when expressing convictions or opinions.
First, students often use the expression to avoid responsibility and full ownership of their ideas. After all, we don’t have to defend our feelings. We feel what we feel. Sometimes when asked to explain why they “feel” a certain idea, my students say, “It’s just what I feel.” When applied to ideas and beliefs, not actual emotions or intuitions, “feel” is a weasel-ly word. We say, “I just feel” to head off any challenges and criticism of our position.
Second, because we do not need to justify our feelings, presenting our ideas as feelings can keep us from delighting in understanding (the first part of Prov. 18:2). If we say “I think” or “I believe,” we feel a greater obligation to explain why. We begin to examine our ideas and seek to understand whether and why they are true.
I blame my generation for this bad habit. Baby-boomers and counter-cultural types have dominated the fields of writing and rhetoric for the last 40 years. We have tended to make the individual the center of truth and therefore taught that the central purpose of writing is self-expression. Authenticity became an essential value of good writing. Clarity, craftsmanship, and critical thinking were sometimes pushed to the side. No idea was “wrong” if deeply felt.
Proverbs clearly presents the cure and the balance. First, we are called to value wisdom and delight in understanding more than self-expression. This means valuing correction and wanting to learn from those who are wiser. Understanding should precede declarations. Our passion for self-expression should be matched or exceeded by our passion to understand.
We should also embrace the high view Proverbs has towards communication. This same chapter of Proverbs declares, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Expressing ideas is not less important than understanding. The two must work together. What we express (truth or error) actually matters.
It’s like an archery student asking what’s more important: aiming the arrow or shooting it. It is tempting to say, “Just shoot! Let’er fly! Embrace the joy of the arrow racing through the air! Ignore those screams!” After all, aiming the arrow takes discipline, a proper stance, some muscle, and humble attention to instruction. We need both, but aiming comes first, then shooting.
I think our failure to first delight in understanding explains why so much of our communication misses the mark.
