Emotion versus Reason

 Emotion versus Reason

Stimulated by some words in Meeting on Sunday, I recalled that I preferred sorting disputes by recourse to reason, rather than emotion. This strong preference of mine emerged during the period around the break-up of my marriage. In many soliloquies I had silently verbalised my preference thus: suppose one party wants this and the other party wants that, how can they  negotiate, short of 'giving-in'? How can they each know the strength of the other's wanting? It seemed to me that the best way forward was to seek reasons and arguments; talk, therefore, in terms of money, time, resources, where numbers could be put on the strengths of each case. I suspect I still feel that reason is my preferred way out of an emotional conflict. 

However, as I made my way home from Meeting, two further realisations flooded over me.
[1] I have been on a number of training courses on 'Conciliation'. I understand the nub of the technique to be that each party is brought to see very clearly the emotional impact of the problem at issue on the other party. Thus, with the two contestants (A & B) and the conciliator (C) in a protected ('safe') arena, A and then B each explain to C their case, and how they feel. Conflicts that matter are conflicts of emotions. (Conflicts over facts are easily resolved, as Father showed us children: you can force it to an issue by offering a 6-penny bet on your favoured outcome, then you 'look-up' the answer.)
[2] It occurred to me that I was essentially admitting an inability to assess either my own emotions, or those of other people with whom I interact; or of both parties. This is close to admitting to  'Asperger's Syndrome', which I understand as a deficit in the ability to read the emotional significance of the observable actions of other people. It is very hard to know, as I had always assumed myself to be 'standard'. But perhaps I am deficient! 

I can certainly see the observable actions (or think I can). Nor do I think of myself as lacking emotions; the opposite rather, for I weep with joy when I see kindness, and I feel contaminated when protagonists in a drama tell a lie. But I might be suppressing my emotions, shuffling them out of (conscious) sight, precisely because they are too painful. 

How can I test that possibility?  Any such attempt sounds like a recipe for noise and stress. Perhaps I shall continue with my present strategies.