Brennan Ch. 5-7

"In positing that people in the Western world were once aware of the transmission of affect, and that we have been sealed against this knowledge by the deadening, passifying affects of modern times, I have implied that knowledge of transmission was once conscious, although that knowledge is now repressed. Accordingly, the problem of how we discern becomes more acute in modern context" (p. 117).

While I do not agree with Brennan's "discernment" process, I do find a lot of truth in her description of the Western world becoming "sealed against this knowledge" of affect. It seems that as people have moved toward ideologies which advocate the progress of the individual by the individual. This mentality is, in large, what creates a resistance to ideas such as affect. People experience a detachment from concepts of human connectedness when society functions in a manner that resists unity and advocates individualism. It becomes difficult to advocate the advancement of the individual by the individual when ideas such as a affect suggest a connectedness that goes so far beyond any one individual.

"By examining the affects experienced in judging another, one learns a great deal about how the illusion of self-containment is purchased at the price of dumping negative affects on that other. The dyadic and complex level of affective transmission is marked in terms of how it is that one part carries the other's negative affects; his aggression is experienced as her anxiety and so forth. By means of this projection, on believes oneself detached from him or her, when one is, in fact, propelling forward an affect that he will experience as rejection or hurt, unless he has shielded himself against these affects by similar negative propulsion, a passionate judgment of his own" (p. 119)

I find this description of projection to be an accurate explanation of the consequences associated with the misinterpretation of affect, specifically in instances characterized by the emphasis put on individualism by the Western world. Brennan argues that by resisting affect in the wrong way (essentially not understanding, acknowledging, or accepting it) one begins to project negative affects outward. When one is only capable of understanding one's self as a contained unit, one becomes susceptible to projection of the negative. If the individual is able to realize itself as part of a much larger system of connectedness, he or she is able to utilize affect in a positive way. Put differently, rather associating negative affects with others one is able to identify with their own particular sense of self at a particular moment. This is something that is far more manageable. If one is able to stop blaming others for their own particular demeanor they can prevent negativity in the future. So long as affect is harbored via projection, progress within one's self becomes impossible. This is because the individual is not able to completely control, explain, or fully understand what someone else is experiencing. It becomes necessary to accept affect, in part, as something that you are experiencing. It is also necessary to disassociate the cause of affect from the individuals around you. Individual progress is heavily dependent upon correctly interpreting, understanding, and controlling affect.