«Half humbug and half true»: la valenza politica delle emozioni tra spontaneità individuale e regolazione sociale

The paper starts out from a consideration of the paradoxical nature of emotions, which are regarded spontaneous and authentic while at the same time being strictly socially regulated, in order to take a deeper look at two opposite modes of social regulation, one according to which emotions about an experience are the exclusive property of the individual who owns the experience, and one according to which they can be shared more and more broadly while preserving their original intensity. By referring to a construct of ancient rhetoric, epideictic discourse, to Russell Hochschild’s concept of “emotion work”, and to Ignatius’s spiritual exercises, a way is envisioned in which this sharing could actually be achieved.