Feeling vs. Meaning: Affect theory and the intimate public

Where does your body end and your emotions begin?
Are we ruled by our rational brains or our irrational emotions?
Is it a bit of both, or something even more subtle?
Affect theory explores human responses to life.

• Introduction to Affect Theory: Brian Massumi & Eve Sedgwick (0-5.27 seconds)

1. What do you think “The affective turn” means ( mid-1990’s evolution of
   thought)
2. Do you think affect theory helps us understand the urges that humans have that they can’t explain?
3. Focussing on subjective feelings and responses is a contrast to trying to quantify and understand facts about events, how do you feel about that?
4. What do you think about the idea being of your body being something that “moves” and “feels”?

• Spinoza’s Affect and Emotion “affect is a non-conscious experience of intensity” (Shouse, 2005)

1. What do you think about Spinoza’s thought?
2. What do you think about understanding the world through “emotion” instead of with our intellectual analysis?
3. What emotions/affects do you think are driving some of the big things in culture?
4. Does the mind connect to the body? How does emotion affect the body?

• The Rise and Fall of the Main Stream Media From 1:04:28 – 1:11 ish

1. How much do you think “affect” has a role in changing the way people engage with media?
2. What other forces do you think are involved?
3. Has the splintering of MSM and the proliferations of new voices and platforms triggered “affects” or the other way around?
4. Is populism a type of affect? Is it still rising? In force, or on the wane?

Affect Theory vs. Jordan Peterson’s Worldview

| Aspect | Affect Theory | Jordan Peterson’s Worldview |
| ------ | ------------- | --------------------------- |
| Classification | Post-structuralist; interdisciplinary (philosophy, cultural theory, anthropology) | Modernist; rooted in psychology, Judeo-Christian ethics, evolutionary principles |
| Core Idea | Focus on pre-conscious intensities, bodily sensations, and affective forces shaping experience | Humans need order, responsibility, and meaning to thrive |
| Epistemology | Relational; skeptical of universal truths; emphasizes flows and emergent phenomena | Values objective truth, universal principles, hierarchical structures |
| View of Order | Non-hierarchical; dynamic networks of relations | Hierarchical order is natural and necessary for stability |
| Goal | Understand how affects circulate in culture, shaping identity and politics | Help individuals orient morally and psychologically in a complex world |

Extra Reading:
Shouse, E. (2005). Feeling, Emotion, Affect. M/C Journal, 8(6).
[https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2443](https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/2443)