"Great Passions Are Maladies Without Hope" Goethe

Some will find the title quote from Goethe disturbing. After all, aren’t we constantly regaled with, “Find your passion” and “Find your bliss”? Presumably, once this great identification occurs, you are on your way to Nirvana, or some such. Well, I’ll let that piece of “wisdom” pass for now, although I may assail it later in life.

My definition of passion is the potentially explosive melding of an idea and huge emotion. The frequent result is absolute certainty, which I addressed in an earlier post (“The Problem With Certainty”). This condition can lead potentially to great harm or, in some cases, to great benefit. Notwithstanding the possibility of benefits, my focus (and Goethe’s) is on the malign outcomes of great passion. I do not think all passion is bad, it is a ineradicable part of being human. But when it is bad, it is really bad. At its worst, the horror and suffering it perpetrates are indescribable. Think of Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, the Inquisition, witch-burners, Islamo-terrorists, and numberless of atrocity perpetrators who likely believed passionately, and with great self-righteousness, in their goals and methods.

Passionistas (forgive my dig) relish their absolute certainty, often seeming to obtain their identity from it. Naturally, given this level of emotional commitment, it practically guarantees dysfunctional conflict with friends, relatives, strangers on the street, the man in the moon, and anyone who has the temerity to disagree. The passionista cannot be wrong, or even have an incomplete view. Those who see the world differently are not only wrong on all counts, but evil as well, justifying any behavior, from simple name-calling to slaughter.

Beneficially passionate people may agree that Pol Pot-type excesses are horrific and a tragic part of passion. They cannot see that their passion may be a problem even though the goal is a good thing. The problem is not the goal, which may very well be admirable. The problem is the passion itself. For most folks passionate about something, a problematic identification may have occurred: the outcomes they seek may well have merged with their egos, their sense of self. This produces a staggering level of emotional commitment to the object of their passion. Anyone who does not hold the same view of the goal cannot be tolerated. That person’s very existence represents an assault, not just on the goal, but on them as persons, on their personal moral righteousness. If he were in his right mind, the passionista may well see that hostile treatment of those who disagree is unhelpful at best and wrong at worst. He is not in his right mind, but in his righteous mind. Trashing of those who differ is seen not only as necessary, but obligatory, because the other person opposes a wonderful thing.

Passionate folks often fail to see that their immense emotional commitment to and support for something automatically brings into existence an equal (or at least significant) level of passion against something----against ideas and people in conflict with their view, a violation of their often-espoused values of tolerance and inclusion. Passion against moves easily into rage, with unfortunate outcomes for those who disagree. The passionate person may do wonderful things at one level, but very unpleasant things at another level. He is animated by a possibly beneficial vision of the world backed up by near boundless anger.

I have a friend who is passionate about the rights of those in this country illegally. Although his goal of helping is admirable, his passion consumes him, and when he encounters another who does not agree, his anger and attacks are something to behold. His passion completely blinds him to the idea that he could have a laudable goal even while others might disagree with that goal, or with the implications of pursuing such a goal. Dissent is not possible and must be instantly and powerfully eradicated. He cannot allow divergent ideas to exist, a defining characteristic of many consumed by their passion.

Passions are “maladies without hope” because the passionista is committed completely, both intellectually and emotionally, to the absolute righteous of his idea and to his own personal purity. This identification is an unassailable barrier to inner reflection, objective thought, and balance. To avoid challenges and to assure himself of support for his fragile emotional state (see prior posts on fragility and anti-fragility), he engages mainly with others who share the same passion, thereby ensuring the false reality retains its “validity.”

Sadly, while passionistas may do considerable damage to those who disagree, they also damage themselves. Off balance and emotionally needy, they cannot engage reality on its own terms, living in an unhealthy artificial world, in great, unacknowledged fear that the whole edifice will collapse.

“All doctrines are to be suspected which are formed by our passions.”

David Hume