“constructive good, destructive bad” and “good is desirable, bad is undesirable” are good elements for a set of axioms to base logical reasoning on, though – as long as we take into account sometimes a little destruction is needed to prevent a greater destruction (eg killing a malaria mosquito before it bites you).

End of nitpick.

On one hand emotions can make us more fallible to manipulation (and hence potential loss of freedom) and on the other hand it can empower us to rise up against oppression.

I think this clearly portrays the dual nature of it – the blessing and a curse. So when talking about control I mean winning over the negative aspect, the fallibility to manipulation in the above example. This is not opposed to freedom, but obviously supportive of it.

Take for example me. Some are saying I easily get affected by conspiracy theory propaganda (and perhaps propaganda in general). Perhaps I am not keeping the part of my emotions which get me riled about about such things well enough, and so I fall to it. If I kept it better in check it would be easier for me to be more critical of what I’m seeing. Basically, when my emotions start being suggestive my reasoning should be there to calm it down and offer a different perspective.

Cheers

It does make sense to suggest having our positive emotions control the negative ones though. But even such an attempt as you well said is inspired by logic therefore it may be simply seen as one method of achieving this control I’ve been talking about. Logic says you should keep your negative emotions in check by propagating the positive ones.

It does seem like a tricky subject, but I think it’s not too hard for most people to see where we’re getting at. It’s at the very least an acknowledgement of how much emotion plays a role in who we are, what we do and how we lead our life and at most a suggestion to try to use this human trait the best way possible.

But then again I’m not necessarily good at psychology, which this easily fits with. I’m just an observer..

I think it’s much better to say our peaceful emotions / sides of our characters should keep the destructive emotions under control. Logic doesn’t have much to do with it except that it is only logical there will be less suffering that way.

It is not about giving up your emotions as much as not letting them be the ones controlling you. It is not about giving up control over yourself to someone else either, obviously. It is about taking your life under your own control – this is directly proportional to the amount of your personal power – including power to be vigilant and rise up for your freedom.

When talking about benefits you’re mentioning, what will be rational and logical depends on what your goals are. That statement doesn’t change the fact that they are YOUR goals and that you should be in charge of your own self and your actions as much as you can without meddling with someone elses self.

You’re simply way off.

In almost every definition of freedom I can think of, it stems from doing that which is not directly beneficial.

Without emotion, there’s no need for freedom. Slavery looses a LOT of it’s stigma when the slaves don’t care.