Fuzzy logic

In his letter to The Jakarta Post dated Nov. 5, 1999, Mr. Gottfried Roelcke commented on Ms. Rahayu's perception that 65 percent of voters preferred other parties to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) was fuzzy logic. Mr. Roelcke accuses Ms. Rahayu of using her emotions rather than her head.

I think what Ms. Rahayu meant was that if 65 percent of the people preferred other parties to PDI Perjuangan, an even greater percentage did not want each of the other parties, meaning that by whatever yardstick one uses, PDI Perjuangan still won the election. Therefore it appears that Ms. Rahayu used simple arithmetic and not her emotions.

Quite a number of contributions have denigrated our emotions and have urged us to use our heads, in the belief that thought alone will allow us to find the appropriate decisions to make in any situation. History is replete with disasters resulting from the belief in "rational" thought. (The murder of six million Jews by the Nazis was the result of long and carefully thought-out planning by highly intelligent brains).

Ms. Rahayu is the only contributor I have read who has touched on the concept of "Emotional Intelligence" (EI), albeit briefly. Contributors may not be aware that many corporations in the United States now select their male executives primarily on the basis of EI, while the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is a secondary requirement.

It seems, according to the research, that women (for instance Ms. Rahayu and Megawati) are more richly endowed with EI than men, and possibly this is why people like Ms. Rahayu and Megawati are understood or appreciated by "intellectuals".

A complete human being should possess strong and clear emotions as well as "rational" thoughts, the research suggests. Being emotional is a sign of vibrant life, so we should not denigrate our feelings. I find Ms. Rahayu's contributions both emotionally and intellectually satisfying, and wish that she would research EI versus IQ as a subject for her future contributions.

LEONARD JONES

Jakarta