THE INTERPRETATION OF SOCIAL EMOTIONS. AN OUTLINE ON THE ELITARIAN CHARACTER OF THE MANIPULATION OF INTUITIONS

Abstract

In Latin America the links between reason and intuition constitute an important theme. The political and cultural fields are yet under the influence of  collective emotions, which can be easily manipulated by elitarian groups. A substantial part of the Latin American population perceives the intuitions as the foundation of an ethics of immediate solidarity and fraternity, which supposedly cannot be understood by the cold western reason. These approaches can be considered as conservative because they presuppose the existence of collective essences, which should be inaccessible to the course of time. Those essences determine the identity of Latin American societies.