Many will start from the belief that emotions and ways of feeling are inherent in their nature and form an indelible part of the baggage of their individual identity. But the British historian Richard Firth-Godbehere don’t subscribe to the idea and in his book “Homo Emoticus” (Salamander) explains how culture and society have influenced, and still influence, our perceptions of sadness, happiness, frustration, hatred, compassion, longing, melancholy or anger. For him, “emotional regimes are hierarchical, they are imposed on us by some kind of authority higher, often the state, but sometimes also the religion, philosophical belief, or moral code that we adhere to based on our education.

In our time, citizens are exposed from the beginning of the day to countless stimuli and messages that try to influence their desires with different purposes: to encourage their desires, to artificially increase their needs, to provoke their anger or to arouse their empathy. The manipulation of our emotions is not something that happens on the pages of a science fiction book or cinematic dystopia. This is a common fact, although few voices emphasize this fact. “If you ask me whether we are emotionally manipulated by politicians, the answer is a clear yes. When we held the Brexit referendum in the UK, a company was tasked with analyzing the emotions of British people to develop a specific advertisement so that, on election day, they would vote to leave the EU. Unfortunately, it worked. This happens all the time and with increasing frequency. It happens through the news on radio or television, on social networks … Politicians are very good at manipulating people’s emotions. Instead of using explanations, for example, they use slogans with three or four words which, when examined carefully, say nothing, but are capable of provoking various emotional reactions within us. We must be being manipulated.”