Reason Over Passion or is it Passion Over Reason

Last year I visited le Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal to see an installation of Canadian artist Joyce Wieland and saw her textile creations Reason Over Passion et la raison avant la passion. It’s a direct reference to the then newly elected prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau who said that he valued reason over passion in his approach to governing Canada and meant it to be a strategic goal for Canada’s future and the possibility of some sort of unity between the French and the English. Wieland however, as a woman, as an artist and as a passionate Canadian nationalist, “Passion over Reason” described more of her own approach to art and life. So who was right?
The emergence of reason out of the obscurity of mythology with the early Greek philosophers, the struggle and antagonism between the forces of rationality (logos) and the forces of passion (pathos) have been the subject of innumerable deliberations. Scottish philosopher David Hume, argued in his 1739 work, A Treatise on Human Nature, that passion and emotion rule human behavior, not reason. He stated, "Reason is and ought to only be the slave of the passions." German philosopher Immanuel Kant disagreed in his The Critique of Pure Reason, writing in 1781 that reason possesses a clearly defined structure and the only things mankind can truly understand are empirical concepts that can be proven, such as mathematics or science. The Humean theory of motivation — that in order to have a motive to action, a person has to have both a belief and a desire. The competing model, the rationalist model, says you don’t need desire and can come to conclusions based on reason alone both about what you ought to do and how to achieve it.
This dichotomy appears in literature constantly. Novels and plays often explore this battle, such as in Jane Eyre and Shakespeare's All For Love, where passion (love/desire) battles with reason (morality/logic). In Antigone and Introductory Lectures on Pyscho-Analysis, the struggle of reason versus passion is on display. Antigone finds herself struggling between whether to follow the reason of the time and just remain a submissive woman, or to defy order form the king and give her brother a proper burial. In Freud’s lectures, the struggle of “reason versus passion” is represented by the difference between the super-ego, the part of human personality that makes decisions based on reason, and the id, the part of personality that only acts based on desires.
In today’s world these two dimension can be seen playing out in the political realm. Trump and Putin driven by a passion based on the past and nostalgia and most leaders in Europe and Canada driven by reason as they look to shape a new world order.
Some view the tension between passion (emotion, desire) and reason (logic, intellect) as a fundamental human conflict, often acting as a dynamic balance rather than a strict dichotomy. While passion drives motivation, energy, and authenticity, it can lead to impulsive, irrational actions. Conversely, reason provides structure and objectivity but can be sterile without emotional direction.
Join us for an exploration of what is passion and what is reason; what examples do you see in the world today for each; what is the case to be made for passion; what is the case to be made for reason; are they antagonistic or complementary; what conditions favour one over the other; what do you use to guide your life. I will add links for additional materials.