Great advice Tobias. Outside of inspiring TV programmes, I don’t often experience moral elevation in my daily life. I wish I experienced it more. I’m probably not seeking out enough morally elevating content. Two positive moral emotions that I do, however, experience with some frequency, are awe and tenderness.
Awe is a positive emotion that accompanies feeling “small” in relation to your surroundings – what I felt when I stood under the Titanosaur in the American Museum of Natural History. Like elevation, it can inspire feelings of humility and connectedness (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Recently, I brought a friend to a local eagle and vulture sanctuary. I recall experiencing a strong sense of awe when approaching the magnificent birds and we left the sanctuary inspired.
Contrastively, tenderness is a warm feeling that accompanies the perception of vulnerable individuals, and motivates care-taking behaviours (Sherman & Haidt, 2011). Back in 2017, my colleagues and I ran some studies and found that tenderness, when evoked by images of cute baby farmed animals, can temporarily reduce appetite for meat, particularly in women (Piazza et al., 2018). That was a nice finding because it suggests that feeling tenderness towards an animal and enjoying its flesh may be incompatible emotions. But, of course, emotions are temporary, and it takes more than a moment of displeasure to overcome a lifetime of eating and enjoying meat.
All of this to say that I agree with you: actively seeking out content that gets our “moral juices” flowing is a good use of our time. Thanks for the inspiring post.
I didn’t mean to imply that. I liked that you focused on moral elevation in your post. Each moral emotion is so rich and consequential, they deserve their own blog post. :)
I dare to say that most activists shy away from talking about our good deeds. This can be for many reasons, but most probably because, at the extreme, doing the work should take up all of our time to help animals. And talking about "doing the work" is not "doing the work".
I have come to learn that this is not exactly true and that both need to coexist. I would not be "doing the work" if others before me hadn't inspired me through their actions and sharing their good deeds.
Thank you for posting this and making me aware of why I follow Operation Angels founder, Steve Jenkins, https://stevejenkins.ca/operation-angels. Their effort to help animal sanctuaries around the world with emphasis always on love and kindness takes me away from the negativity in my doomscrolling.
Great advice Tobias. Outside of inspiring TV programmes, I don’t often experience moral elevation in my daily life. I wish I experienced it more. I’m probably not seeking out enough morally elevating content. Two positive moral emotions that I do, however, experience with some frequency, are awe and tenderness.
Awe is a positive emotion that accompanies feeling “small” in relation to your surroundings – what I felt when I stood under the Titanosaur in the American Museum of Natural History. Like elevation, it can inspire feelings of humility and connectedness (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Recently, I brought a friend to a local eagle and vulture sanctuary. I recall experiencing a strong sense of awe when approaching the magnificent birds and we left the sanctuary inspired.
Contrastively, tenderness is a warm feeling that accompanies the perception of vulnerable individuals, and motivates care-taking behaviours (Sherman & Haidt, 2011). Back in 2017, my colleagues and I ran some studies and found that tenderness, when evoked by images of cute baby farmed animals, can temporarily reduce appetite for meat, particularly in women (Piazza et al., 2018). That was a nice finding because it suggests that feeling tenderness towards an animal and enjoying its flesh may be incompatible emotions. But, of course, emotions are temporary, and it takes more than a moment of displeasure to overcome a lifetime of eating and enjoying meat.
All of this to say that I agree with you: actively seeking out content that gets our “moral juices” flowing is a good use of our time. Thanks for the inspiring post.
good to read you here Jared! It's probably indeed more correct to distinguish between various elevating emotions, which I didn't do here.
I didn’t mean to imply that. I liked that you focused on moral elevation in your post. Each moral emotion is so rich and consequential, they deserve their own blog post. :)
Thank you for the motivating article 🙏
I dare to say that most activists shy away from talking about our good deeds. This can be for many reasons, but most probably because, at the extreme, doing the work should take up all of our time to help animals. And talking about "doing the work" is not "doing the work".
I have come to learn that this is not exactly true and that both need to coexist. I would not be "doing the work" if others before me hadn't inspired me through their actions and sharing their good deeds.
So please keep sharing yours!
Thank you for posting this and making me aware of why I follow Operation Angels founder, Steve Jenkins, https://stevejenkins.ca/operation-angels. Their effort to help animal sanctuaries around the world with emphasis always on love and kindness takes me away from the negativity in my doomscrolling.
Another example is the movie Brother Sun and Sister Moon, about the live of St Francis of Assisi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRDxpmV27p8
And for those who speak Dutch, this song is incredibly moving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2a6m38D0K8
For me it's Schindler's list, and les miserables, among others.