Eyal Winter, is the Silverzweig Professor of Economics at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor of Economics The University of Leicester. His research interests include microeconomics, finance, game theory and behavioral economics.
This exchange focuses on Winter's book “Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions Are More Rational Than We Think” (PublicAffairs, 2014), which tries to refute the dichotomic distinction between emotions and rationality, claiming emotions are in fact often rational. Recently published in English, the Hebrew edition came out about two years ago and is still doing well in Israeli bookstores. (full disclosure: I was the editor in charge of the Hebrew edition, but have nothing to do with the English edition).
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Dear Professor Winter,
My column usually deals with political matters – or matters related to the Jewish people (or both). Your book is about emotions and rationality. So we need to somehow find a way to merge these two – it is not that difficult.
For example: you write a lot about things that are highly useful when one thinks about the relations between Israel and Iran. Here is a quote: “The fierce power that movements and nations that are fueled by religious fanaticism — such as Al Qaeda and Iran — can project is due to their ability to create credible commitments…[it] is a potent force that gives these movements and nations significant bargaining leverage”.
So – simply put: can nations without such force compete and win? What is the lesson from your book for such a case? Let's use this question as an introduction to some of the basic ideas on which you write about in “Feeling Smart”.
Best,
Shmuel
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Dear Shmuel,
Terrorism and religious fundamentalism are two edge swords. They inherit their power from their strong ability to commit and from the poor commitment ability of the western countries against whom they fight. A key ingredient of an effective commitment/threat against an opponent is the readiness of the threatening party to carry out the threat when its demands aren't met. The terrorists of Isis and Al Qaida are so good in issuing threats and carrying them out because they have little to no concern for the consequences of their actions on their own security as well as on the welfare of people around them. This is partly a consequence of the “acting in the name of god” mentality, but not only. It is also a result of the fact that they attract people who are living under such harsh and miserable life conditions that they have little to lose. In contrast, for the prosperous societies that are affected by terror, any engagement in a serious conflict is perceived as extremely expensive. Leaders who want to be reelected will be reluctant to impose this cost on their constituents even when they are aware that doing little to fight terror will impose a much more serious burden on society in the future. Just like we often procrastinate and defer important matters for tomorrow, knowing that it will be harder to deal with them in the future, so do leaders. In fact, they have much more incentive to procrastinate than us. After all, it is likely that tomorrow someone else will be accountable. Consequently they are slow in making commitments against terrorism and are poor in adhering to them even when they are made.
The implications of all this is twofold: firstly that terrorism and fundamentalism are here to stay and grow more violent until governments who are affected by them show a stronger resolve to fight them – perhaps by agreeing on a joint strategy and sharing the burden. Secondly: that poverty and the collapse of social and political institutions in the Arab world pose a direct threat to the west.
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