If so, are we playing this trick on ourselves?
Tricky, no doubt..but a trick, a ruse?..are emotions acquired from a source other than us?
If emotions are the result of thoughts, and our thoughts are not always our own, how would the individual recognize his thoughts versus an acquired, recycled thought, which causes emotion too?
This deserves further investigation, maybe.
"observing" the masses (the pain) instead of attaching emotion would then release the "chains" (emotions) the masses are chained to. ?? Gosh, what if all who knew this started to think this way? 
Original thought vibration, creates. Constantly.
No attachment to what it created now, or now, or right now..
No attachment to whether or not that creation will continue or cease to exist.
Emotion is attachment.
Stepping into the observer mode with no emotion invokes a "vibration" that is of "god" (sorry for the 'g' word) and assists for the highest and best good of all...??? Selflessness, for the whole of humanity??
Positive and negative are ideas that have been influenced upon our psyche's, acting as a trap, keeping man in psychological time.
Perhaps everything is nothing, yet we label, because we desire knowledge, but in reality, truth is not fixed.
Perhaps free will does not exist, because man is emotional, based on influenced, emotion based thoughts, rooted in man-made definitions.
I am comfortable saying, I don't know,
yet it's interesting to look into.
Wait one minute... is emotion simply a program we've been inputted with?
lol...maybe??
Or perhaps we're being inputted constantly. Other entities, other dimensions, we acquire thoughts from them, unintentionally & unaware, and rarely does one stop and exercise non-thought, or even question the origin of a thought and whether it is original (vibration) or acquired.
Now that could be another can of worms!
Money for example is VERY emotional and very much an ILLUSION. Yes?
Not long ago, I was talking to my 12 year old daughter about thoughts, emotions..
I asked her if she thought that her thoughts were her own..
Her reply was this..
" I don't know, not always, because sometimes I hear someone talking with an accent, and they're not even female."
Once again, another LARGE can of worms to open!
I often wonder where these thoughts could come from
??
Has this happened to you? It has happened to me.
And if left unchecked, those thoughts could become an emotion.
Is there an agenda?
ABSOLUTELY
And if so, how productive could emotions be, beyond keeping man stuck in the illusion that psychological time has enabled?
I believe keeping us STUCK IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL! This again is a LARGE new can of worms