If we accept, (and that is by no means a sure thing) that emotions are a natural resource from which we might profit, then there opens a hole into which every enterprising libertarian could rush in search of gold. Just look around, between prosperity gospel and professional sports, a pretty good case could be made for the profit to be found in relationships based on emotion. And I'd wager that the more you look, the more you see.
The scotoma in the room is that it's not just "them" that are to blame. We all do it. We all seek "emotional profit", which is to say we want relationships on the cheap. Caring helps us survive, thus, it feels good. But if we can get that good feeling without actually putting any skin in the game, so much the better. So you can root for the Cubbies all you want and nobody will ever ask you to actually put a glove on and help them win a game; all for the price of a blue cap. The need for this "emotional profit" results in a power relationship. All too often it seems, there is an effort to define relationships between ourselves and organizations, groups, and individuals for our own emotional profit. So churches and political parties are pushed to make all sorts of feel good promises (and laws), organizations produce overheated language and unreal expectations, and the divorce rate hovers around 50%.
Remember the "stranded on a desert island with only one book" question? What if you were stranded on a desert island with only one person and you needed each other to survive but you couldn't choose who that might be? What sort of relationship would ensue? What sort of spirituality would grow from having to use our emotions, our spirituality, pushing us to actually do something beyond feeding each others ego? What if we had to actually make it work? I expect any soldier that ever shared a foxhole could expound at length about that.
I think the great evil of our time is not war, or injustice, or hate. It's anomie. We really just don't fucking care, because we don't have to. The bulk of our emotions are just entertainment because we don't need them for anything in the real world. Spirituality is a commodity because it's so easy to generate. There are a million dispensaries for it and we're all just smart shoppers for the next spirituality ride.
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