I am faced with an ongoing and nagging dilemma, and some fairly serious related questions:

1. Who is responsible for our personal emotions? Are we, individually, responsible for offenses we experience? Are we capable of effectively attenuating and managing our emotional responses?

Or...

2. Is our experienced offense the responsibility of others? Are we simply victims of personally irritating behaviors with no capability to withstand their emotionally explosive effects?

Amateur Analysis

As an amateur societal analyst, I have spent considerable time watching YouTube videos of various human encounters displaying extreme emotion between participants. For example, so-called “auditors” video-record people in various locations in public areas. This is lawful behavior. There is no legal expectation of privacy when walking along a public street.

And yet, the auditors who record such persons, sometimes wear face coverings and intentionally taunt those they record in an effort to conjure an emotional response. These responses are often expressed as anger, and even violence.

Two important things are true here: 1) The auditors knowingly behave in a manner which is lawful but purposefully produces outrage in some people, and 2) Those recorded often behave in a manner which exposes their ignorance of the law, and their inability to effectively manage their emotions. Is the recording of anger a viable and productive financial endeavor? Do the auditors celebrate the recording of extreme displeasure? And, are the rest of us enjoying this, as entertainment? There are, apparently, enough emotional issues to go around.

Then there are those who are video recorded in public but who simply pass by while ignoring the videographer. These are quiet examples of mature emotional regulation. There is little question that the auditors are often annoying. However, many of those recorded are simply not compelled to be annoyed by a lack of personal emotional management. There is hope, but no click-profit, in that.

Traffic stop encounters produce another example of a lack of emotional intelligence. These are also found on YouTube, where law enforcement and drivers clash in a battle of emotional lightening bolts. Critical thinking exposes salient points on both sides. Law enforcement has a critical job to do, while drivers are protected in their Constitutional rights.

Like an emotional game of ping-pong, demands are made and rights are expounded. Anger ensues, arrests are made, lawsuits filed, taxpayers pay, officers disciplined, people inconvenienced, unnecessarily jailed, injured, or worse. (Frankly, I am very grateful for the body cameras worn, these days, by police, and the courage shown by citizens willing to capture altercations with their phone cameras. Both tyrannical officers and psychotic citizens are exposed to the light of transparency.)

For clicks and financial gain, we have YouTube fomenters instructing, and even emboldening, drivers about emotionally jousting with law enforcement and some police displaying a marked lack of emotional discipline. Do drivers have rights? Yes. Do police have a formidable task of public safety? Yes. And yet, we have YouTubers igniting the video fuel they spread resulting in emotional discontent in viewers on both sides of the question. Some learn to hate cops, other learn to hate Constitutionalists. It just becomes an unproductive mess. By design?

These, and many other, examples of emotional manipulation may be symptoms of a larger problem. And don't get me started on HOA shenanigans, or landscapers who donate their time and get harassed for it. It's an epidemic of anxiety and projectile vomiting of emotional detritus. Who would want the general population in a constant state of anger and discontent? Who, indeed?

People who are in a constant state of emotional upheaval are much easer to guide in a direction our mutual Adversary leads. Hegelian Dialectics and the influence of Edward Bernays, in social manipulation, apparently never cease. Continual discontent does not encourage critical thinking. And for leadership we have a cadre of emotion manipulators, not peacemakers. And we continue to put up with the scam.

We are frightened because we have no army to face and overcome the usurpers of our liberty, murderers of our children, and global genocide of millions. It's no wonder we're frightened as we forget God and his love. John tells us "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear..." (1 John 4:18 LDS; 1 John 1:20 RE)

The illustrative recount of Elisha and the King of Syria is a lesson, not of believing in God. It is a lesson in believing God. The first is passive, while the second is active and results in positive, courageous, and confident action based on faith in God and firm assurance of His love. The King of Syria was, rightly, concerned that Elisha was able to discern his private conversations, and counter his battle strategy. So the King had his men, "...a great host..." surround the city, which frightened Elisha's servant.

Elisha's famous response echoes John's sentiment, "Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." The rest of the story teaches us that great power is not in arms, but in great love for God and trusting His power. Elisha's servant could then see the "...the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."

The remainder of the story should inject courage to those who think they are without power. God is power, and that power is accessed by loving, trusting, and obeying His wisdom and letting fear be cast far away in the light of truth. "Putting up with the scam," as if we have no part in opposing it, is simply an excuse for a lack of love for God.

Recognizing that truth surely is wisdom, Proverbs 4:7 becomes even more meaningful: "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom..." Elisha had truth on his side and wisdom was his weapon. We have the same weapon. Why are we so fearful? Elisha was courageous, and yet was objectively weak, but was without fear.*
So should we be.

* (2 Kings 6:8-23 LDS; 2 Kings 2:20-23 RE)

Free Range Feelings

I imagine I’ve riled up some with all this so we’ll get to the point with a thought that may rile some even further. The only way this formula for agitation works is if we allow our emotions to have free reign and react, with impatience and anger, to every annoying thing that comes along. This isn’t the people poking the bear. This is the bear poking the people and we think it’s all serious and real. But we have protective spiritual armor available to us, if we will snap out of the emotional fog in which we find our vision dimmed.

This mess, and ultimately, the establishment of Zion, is going to require the kind of gumption and courage displayed by the six-hundred as they marched to the Valley of Death in the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. Tennyson’s poem has been heroic to me since boyhood when my grandmother had me read it as an example of courage and duty under fire. Emotional? You bet! The kind of emotion that convinced a young boy that courage was earned by facing difficult experiences with faith in God and a devotion to duty that forges ahead even when cannon balls buzz above.

This treatise takes into consideration the defensive retort: “It’s not up to me to wear figurative body armor to protect against possible emotional offense. You must wear a muzzle and not utter a syllable or behave in a way that doesn’t follow the modern accepted social guidelines to, therefore, cause no offense.”

The question, of course, is “whose guidelines?” In attempting to understand human behavior in this regard, my conversations with professionals using emotionally-focused therapies have resulted in face-plants into brick walls of rigid resistance. My efforts have been received much like those of the video auditors and I think I’ve discovered, at least, part of the problem.

Financial Incentives Replace Objectivity

My efforts thus far have missed the mark by my ignoring a crucial financial issue. Those in the practice of professional emotional analysis and manipulation, and I, find ourselves in a pedagogical dilemma. Their entire livelihood is based around emotion. Whether it’s manipulation or analyzation, emotion is their bailiwick in which they have invested considerable time, effort, and financial means. They have acquired advanced degrees and the necessary licensing. Must be cool. A reasonable living is possible, it seems, in the business of emotion. Another question arises: Why are most of the practitioners of emotional therapies, women?

“Based on the available evidence, a reasonable estimate is that roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of EFT practitioners are female, likely somewhere around 65–75%...” (ChatGPT)

So, big surprise, a counselling profession based on emotion, is largely practiced by women. To resurrect an old quip: “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It looks to me like the business of emotion picks the lowest of the low-hanging psychological fruit, to quote another oldie but goody. Okay, one more. In the movie “As Good As It Gets,” Jack Nickolson plays an entertaining wacko who writes romance novels. When asked how he understands and writes women so well, he responds, “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.”

After a quick chuckle, I will admit that Jack's response was a bit misogynistic but not entirely without defense. We extol emotion-inducing poster quotes that banish reason,* and move on to assume accountability is everyone else’s problem.
*See my post: Is Kindness Logical?

A quick reminder here of Feynman's valuable quip from his 1974 Caltech Commencement Address, may be helpful: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool." This will not be the last time you see this remark in this essay. Nothing else is more important.

Emotional Excuses

I dislike the way the word "triggered" is used to excuse a lack of emotional responsibility and accountability. It attempts to deflect responsibility for a lack of personal emotional control. Seems like Jack was on to something. A trigger does not pull itself. Since I am not you, and have no control over your emotions, I cannot, rightfully, be blamed for your emotional responses.

Using "trigger" in an attempt to transfer emotional responsibility is a failing effort, for the rational and intelligent. If someone calls me an idiot, I am not, thereby an idiot. I may be, that’s true, but I can call an apple, an orange, and that does not make the apple an orange. Neither does one opinion make an idiot and I am not moved to respond unless to say: “Well, you may be right about that.” I am convinced that a little self-deprecation is healthy!

Evidence of the feminization of our society, and its extreme focus on emotion, engulfs us. Rude and crass remarks are simply rude and crass. They are not sticks nor stones. Shouldn’t we be cordial with others? Of course. The difficulty is in the assessment of cordiality. Reality is not always cordial. If we find ourselves at odds and it becomes uncontrollably emotional, we’re baked, basted, sliced, and served on a platter. We’re done. It’s over. We’ve conceded any rational point.

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our power to choose our response." (Generally attributed to Victor Frankle’s philosophy, and others, rather than a direct quote.)

According to the “triggered” folks, there is no “power to choose our response.” We are simply beings of emotional instinct with no capability to choose our reaction, or whether there even should be one. We are taught powerlessness and that we have no emotional agency. And yet, we exist. Scripture sides with Frankle:

"All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man..." (LDS D&C 93:30-31; RE T&C 93:10)

If you side with the folks who profess an inability to choose behavior because our reaction to stimulus is instinctual, you have entered “unbelief.” The Remnant Glossary clears the matter: “ The word unbelief means to accept false doctrine or to have an incomplete and inaccurate understanding of correct doctrine.”
https://scriptures.info/scriptures/glossary/entries/unbelief

Our ability to choose emotional options, is fundamental to our agency and existence. To assert that we have no agency where our emotions are concerned, is unbelief. This assertion is grossly and unendingly wearying to those who work to discard this weakness for emotional maturity. Agency provides the means necessary to accurately assess light and truth. If we are powerless to control our emotions, then we are so by choice, not Nature.

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be." (Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.)