Our World Is Built on Emotional Wars
Our world feels understandable and beautiful when it operates under a single set of rules. But when parallel, competing, or alternative rules emerge, opportunities for comparison and conflict arise. Soviet censorship and the Iron Curtain were designed to prevent competition between Soviet and Western rules. No foreign movie hero was allowed to enter our territory.
People see themselves as rational beings, always making the right decisions. We believe that the messages we receive are purely rational, and only in our free time are we allowed to indulge in emotions. Yet everywhere, we encounter permitted sets of emotions. Emotions affect us automatically, unlike rational thought. We easily adopt them, as this was key to our ancestors’ survival for millennia.
Today, industrial forms of emotional transmission are found in TV series, just as they once were in movies. This explains why both Stalin and Hitler loved cinema, seeing it as a partner in building the state. Quality films became milestones in the West, opening new worlds or new stages of the old world.
The USSR managed its citizens’ emotions. The arrival of television allowed the simultaneous broadcast of specific emotions into millions of homes. The worldview was shaped not by the speeches of party secretaries—who often just read prepared texts—but by the emotional content delivered through media. Written and spoken language have different structures, making it hard to listen to written speeches. In 1917, orators could inspire crowds because they were emotionally in sync with them. Today’s presidential speechwriters can’t manage crowds with emotion in the same way.
Emotions vs. Rationality in Society and Politics
Emotions can overpower any rationality. Without emotions, influence is impossible. The USSR always activated emotions, even borrowing them from the past when the present lacked them. This is why the last wars never truly end—they are constantly revived by propagandists in movies and on the streets, through holidays that generate the emotions the state needs.
When a political regime changes, old holidays and their associated emotions are canceled. A new worldview is built on new emotions. Enemies and friends switch places, as happened during Perestroika, when former enemies like Trotsky and Bukharin were reclassified as “friends.”
Foreign films and TV series brought a new worldview to the USSR, speaking directly to the masses. The turning point was October 16, 1988, when the Brazilian series “Slave Isaura” aired on Central Television, followed by “The Rich Also Cry” and “Simply Maria.” “Santa Barbara” was the first American soap opera shown after the Soviet Union’s collapse, from 1992 to 2002. During these broadcasts, city streets would empty—a level of emotional engagement Soviet films, with their ideological seriousness, could not achieve.
Mass Emotions and National Identity
The phenomenon of synchronized information is crucial, as it unites individual consciousness into a collective whole. In the USSR, such unity emerged with television—not during party congresses, but during sports victories and losses, or popular TV programs. These shared experiences built identity. For example, Yuri Gagarin became a symbol of Soviet identity because he united everyone.
Major historical changes occur during mass emotional activation, often artificially induced. The emotional peaks of Perestroika or the 1991 coup, and the Ukrainian “Maidans,” brought thousands to the streets, creating a kind of mass thinking where people understood each other without words.
When the state generates shared emotions, it strengthens national identity. When emotions are generated by enemies, unity is destroyed. External influences, especially through social media, can easily create divisions, turning a country into a “boiling pot” of opposing opinions. This is the offensive tool used by Iran, China, and Russia, as seen in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, to polarize political views and escalate emotional tension, resulting in political warfare.
Emotional Influence in International Politics
According to K. Watts, each authoritarian regime targets different segments of the American electorate: Russia aligns with white nationalists and Christians, Iran with minority groups, and China uses its economic power to influence multinational corporations. Their strategies rely on emotional impact to achieve their goals.
After George Floyd’s death, Chinese, Iranian, and Russian state media focused on anti-racist protests in the U.S., each reinforcing their own narratives rather than stoking American division. China aimed to discredit U.S. criticism of Hong Kong, Iran targeted U.S. human rights critiques and sanctions, and Russia highlighted the protests themselves, following its tradition of covering Western unrest.
The Fall of the USSR and the Power of Laughter
The collapse of the USSR was also triggered by emotional influence. Aging Brezhnev lost legitimacy, becoming the butt of jokes that undermined the system. In Stalin’s time, jokes were dangerous because laughter could destroy the world being mocked. Comedians like Arkady Raikin were forced to stick to everyday topics, but even there, they managed to subtly criticize the authorities.
Revolutions reflect emotional surges, as seen in 1917 and the Arab Spring. If there is “emotional intelligence,” there is also emotional warfare, especially targeting mass consciousness, which drives historical change. History is made of changes, and the more changes humanity experiences, the more emotional history becomes, often focusing more on enemies than friends.
Architecture, Religion, and Ideology: Building on Emotion
Even buildings are designed to evoke emotions. Religious temples and Stalinist skyscrapers inspire awe and reverence, making people feel small before something grand. Research shows that awe fosters pro-social behavior. Religion and ideology function similarly, each with their own “priests” skilled in both emotional and rational persuasion, targeting the same object: the human being.
Philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev wrote about the religious nature of communism, arguing that it sought to replace Christianity and demanded total devotion, acting as a “sacred” state that shaped souls and required not just “Caesar’s due,” but also “God’s.”
Emotional Warfare and Political Preferences
Politically targeted emotions create tension, which can then be channeled into new structures. “Hurrah” and “Down with” are two types of crowd reactions, and the same dynamic shapes the history of war—not just a contest of strength, but of emotions. Ultimately, the side with the stronger will prevails. Emotional war always precedes traditional war. Liking or disliking a neighboring country often stems from religious or ideological differences, making it easier to dehumanize the “other.”
Throughout history, the “outsider” has symbolized danger. When real differences are lacking, they are invented, often using something frightening. The concept of the “enemy of the people” long governed Soviet politics.
Researchers note that the word “emotion,” first used in 15th-century France to describe political or social upheaval, was often linked to physical violence. In Elizabethan England, it entered the language as a way to explain escalating conflict, especially in historical contexts. Emotions not only started wars but were deeply rooted in them and justified subsequent narratives. Thus, the history of emotions must consider the recorded history of war and violent conflict.
Political preferences shape what we see and whom we love or hate. Political “glasses” differ from person to person, so two people can see the same event in completely opposite ways. For example, in an experiment where participants judged the accuracy of 16 news headlines (8 real, 8 fake), those with more conservative views were less able to distinguish real from fake headlines, felt less vulnerable to the coronavirus, and rated it as less serious. They were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories and view media as exaggerating risks, and viewed President Trump’s actions more positively. Approval of Trump correlated with less knowledge about the virus, making fake headlines seem more plausible.
One researcher noted, “Our response to threats depends greatly on our political beliefs, likely because people get information from the president (or reject it) and from different media sources. The study shows how hard it is to separate issues from political differences, even in matters of public health.” The study also found that “ideological conservatives are generally more sensitive to threats than liberals, as they see the world as a more dangerous place.”
Soft Power and the Business of Emotions
Today’s political parties often focus only on being pro- or anti-president, making it hard to discern their true positions. Another study found that formal clothing increases abstract thinking, which is important for creativity and long-term strategy, likely due to a sense of power.
This is another example of soft power, which can strengthen or even intentionally weaken hard power. Soft power is built on positive emotions, attracting rather than repelling. It works as a generator of positivity, helping countries “disarm” opponents emotionally. As Joseph Nye wrote, “When China rapidly developed its hard power, its leaders realized it would be better to accompany this with soft power. This is a smart strategy, as China’s growing military and economic power could scare its neighbors. By increasing its soft power, China can reduce incentives for anti-Chinese coalitions.”
Nye also noted that most of China’s soft power comes from civil society, not the government. Propaganda lacks trust and thus fails to attract. China should empower its talented civil society, though this is hard to reconcile with strict party control. Soft power is also limited by territorial disputes. For example, opening a Confucius Institute in Manila doesn’t create appeal if Chinese ships are chasing Filipino fishing boats nearby.
The History and Future of Emotions
The history of emotions is a vital part of human history. People in the past were more emotional, but civilization has forced us to control and diversify our reactions. Today, people seek emotions externally—in movies, books, TV series, and video games. Selling emotions is the most profitable business. New children’s heroes are highly emotional, like the revival of dinosaurs in movies to generate new feelings for both kids and adults.
Strong emotions can lead to terrorist acts. Researchers write, “The stress epidemic is global, and as the population grows, so does the number of people who might engage in extreme actions. While external security can minimize the frequency and scale of barbaric acts, the structure of the emotional brain is both the problem and the solution. The more stress people experience—metabolic, physical, or emotional—the more extreme life becomes. Caring for others can boomerang back as improved safety for your own family and community.”
Artificial intelligence is now being used to work with emotions. The military faces issues with autonomous devices like drones and moral responsibility for their actions. Reducing human involvement leads to less guilt for negative outcomes and more credit for positive ones. This highlights the all-encompassing problem of emotions in humanity.
Emotional surges can hide the truth when there’s nothing real behind them. As Victor Pelevin observed, “I suspect that, at its core, nothing ever really changes in Russia. The same little demon keeps visiting, dressed as a commissar, a salesman, a bandit, or an FSB agent. His main job is to confuse you, making you believe the poles are shifting, when only his costumes change. From this perspective, Russian history is just a history of fashion.”
Gleb Pavlovsky also reflected on post-Soviet times: “The communist ideocracy was unwieldy but ideological. Until the very end, there were ideas to debate. But the new ideas had no principles except opposition to Soviet power, creating a vacuum after the Belavezha Accords. I realized this even earlier, during Yeltsin’s first inauguration—a bizarre fusion of incompatible themes: democracy, a great Russia, Russia as the successor to Ukraine and Belarus, and even Prince Vladimir. It was a dangerous emptiness filled with creativity. We had to reinvent the principles of the political system from scratch. The Soviet democratic intelligentsia buried the Union, but the next day, it had nothing to offer the new state. Its views were shaped in Tvardovsky’s ‘New World’—but what use were they in the era of the Gulf War?”
We live in a world where all ideologies are allowed, yet the most popular seems to be the “absent ideology.” The Soviet Union had perhaps the largest group of ideologists in the world, except maybe China. They disappeared along with their ideology, for which they had fought so passionately, sending opponents to camps.
As clear ideologies fade, the world loses different models of itself. If everyone follows the same map, no one will reach a new destination, which isn’t always good. Perestroika was a rare moment when a country fought itself with all its resources, especially propaganda, and ultimately won, leading to a change in ideology.
The West became emotionally more attractive, even though no one really knew it—information came from the media. The media image of the West defeated Soviet reality, long before Perestroika, which only formalized the transition emotionally and then legally. The shift in people’s minds was stronger than any ideological battles fought on TV or in universities. There was no separate ministry of ideology, as the whole country served that function, producing ideologically oriented newspapers, magazines, books, and films. But in the end, human emotion prevailed.