"The problem with emotion was that it was clearly something important, but-at least according to the old philosophy-it was something to overcome"
About this Quote
Emotion gets treated here like a design flaw: powerful, undeniable, but inconvenient to the tidy story that “reason” should run the show. Norman’s line turns on that dash-edged hesitation: emotion is “clearly something important,” yet inherited wisdom tags it as a hurdle, a residue of our animal past, a smear on the glass of rational thought. The tension is the point. He’s not merely describing an idea; he’s indicting a cultural operating system.
The “old philosophy” he nods to isn’t one thinker so much as a long Western habit: Stoic suspicion of feeling, Enlightenment faith in logic, the managerial fantasy that the best human is the most controlled one. Norman, coming from cognitive science and human-centered design, is poking at the cost of that fantasy. If you build tools, workplaces, or policies assuming emotion is noise, you end up with systems that are brittle in the exact places people are most real: frustration, delight, fear, trust, motivation.
The subtext is that overcoming emotion has been marketed as maturity, professionalism, even morality. Norman flips it: maybe the real immaturity is pretending emotion can be “overcome” at all. His phrasing keeps the door open - he doesn’t say the old view is evil, just outdated. That’s the scientist’s scalpel. The intent isn’t to romanticize feelings; it’s to restore them as data. Emotion isn’t the enemy of reason. It’s the user interface.
The “old philosophy” he nods to isn’t one thinker so much as a long Western habit: Stoic suspicion of feeling, Enlightenment faith in logic, the managerial fantasy that the best human is the most controlled one. Norman, coming from cognitive science and human-centered design, is poking at the cost of that fantasy. If you build tools, workplaces, or policies assuming emotion is noise, you end up with systems that are brittle in the exact places people are most real: frustration, delight, fear, trust, motivation.
The subtext is that overcoming emotion has been marketed as maturity, professionalism, even morality. Norman flips it: maybe the real immaturity is pretending emotion can be “overcome” at all. His phrasing keeps the door open - he doesn’t say the old view is evil, just outdated. That’s the scientist’s scalpel. The intent isn’t to romanticize feelings; it’s to restore them as data. Emotion isn’t the enemy of reason. It’s the user interface.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
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