The Plot Thickens—or Not: Protonarratives of Emotions and the Chinese Principle of Savoring

Abstract

What are emotions good for? This article makes the radical claim that the primary function of emotion is not merely to serve the purpose of coping and adaptation, but to foster an expansion of experience and consciousness that contribute importantly to a subjective self, without which biological survival would be meaningless. This argument is inspired by the Chinese notion of aesthetic savoring, which is explicated by a phenomenological account of “protonarratives” of emotions. Protonarratives are “small stories” that are more creative than full fledged narratives, partly because of their successful resistance against the latter's telos. By keeping the narrative impulses to the minimum, and by resisting the temptation of the plot to “thicken,” protonarratives reduce our risk of submitting to compulsory outcomes—such as action and problem solving—of the emotion narrative. This phenomenological analysis of savoring concludes with a discussion of its implications for the psychology of emotion.