REPTILIAN SYNDROME

The discussion at our breakfast table this morning seemed unrelated to the newspapers spread out between us, but only on the surface. We weren’t talking about why we continue to be embroiled in a foreign war that never had any relevance to our national security. We weren’t talking about why our government’s system of checks and balances seems not to work any more. We weren’t going on about statistics like the top one percent of earners in our society increasing their wealth by 140% between 1979 and 1997 while the earnings of the middle class rose 9%. We weren’t even talking about how quickly Obama turned McCain’s unforgivable faux pas in not knowing how many houses he owns into an attack ad, or how quickly McCain’s people turned out a counter-attack ad.

We were talking about reptilian brains. We have both recently read a novel by James Lee Burke who is one of our favorite authors because he is able to paint the psyche of his characters so deftly. In this latest book, “Swan Peak”, he explored the psyche of the American male, particularly the southern-born American male, at some length and his explorations gave rise at our table to a discussion of the fear/anger circuit that currently drives the American psyche?

Throughout history political parties of all stripes have inflamed people to patriotic fervor in order to achieve their nationalistic goals. Over the past fifty years, the Republican Party has taken the process to its highest levels and reached a pinnacle few parties have ever even striven for, let alone achieved. That is the complete alienation of their followers to the messages of their political opponents – the vilification of all things leftward leaning. The phrase “bleeding heart liberal”, for instance, has no counterpart in the liberal lexicon. No one has been able to instill a phrase like “hard hearted neocon” into the language. “Gluttonous elite” just doesn’t carry the panache of “Welfare Mom”

The left has generally striven to open society to broader perspectives while the right draws its power by restricting openness. Why, we were asking, do people on Main Street accede to the demands of people on Wall Street instead of standing up for their own best interests? Why does our society so willingly spend so much on arms and warfare and so little on taking care of its own people? The answer, we concluded, lies in the fact that the majority of people do not feel a strong enough sense of personal empowerment to demand that their needs be met first.

At the very core of most Americans lies a somewhat scared, somewhat angry, privately insecure person who bluffs his or her way through life behind a wall of fear and anger that makes them susceptible to manipulation by those who understand how to turn personal fear and anger into societal action. It lies within that reptilian brain in our brainstems and reacts to sensed danger by attacking.

Today’s far right, better than any other force in American history, has learned to channel all that individual fear and anger into a refusal to consider other points of view and to support any action proposed in the name of national security. Rather than assuming that they can maintain their position in the world through the strength of their integrity and true belief in a god that teaches peace above all, our reptilian brain takes over and we succumb to the fear that someone wants what we have and that the only way to keep it to ourselves is through wars created by the same leaders who are spending so much time tweaking our insecurities.

We’ve all had experiences in life that make us feel insufficient, insecure, not as good as the next guy; learning that we didn’t make the team, being rejected by the high school ‘in group’, failing to get a date for the prom, being passed over for promotion, etc. We bury these deep inside those little turtle brains and hide our fears of inadequacy behind fierce masks designed to keep our neighbors at arms length while we wonder what they think of us. If we have faith in ourselves and get lucky, we get over it. If not, the insecurity festers unknown to us and those around us, but it makes us manipulable.

We all have had experiences in life that led us to create a bit of a chip on our shoulders. Those experiences tend to find a place somewhere deep in that reptilian cortex to lie in wait for opportunities to show themselves and scare off our “enemies”. Having difficulty loosening a nut on the lawnmower, we fling the wrench across the garage in anger for its failure to resolve our frustrations. Worn out from a rotten day at work, we stomp through the front door and kick the dog or terrorize our own children. Frazzled from the trauma of a terrorist attack, we sign up for the war our leaders create even though the target of that war had nothing to do with the attack.

It’s that chip on our shoulder that generates all that. It’s that anger and insecurity buried deep inside of us – if we have been unable to get beyond it – that allows us to accept an irrational argument for irrational action and then back it even if a half hour’s thought is all it would take to work through the insanity of it all.

Called by our political parties to vote for them, we do so in response to their negative ads because it’s a lot like kicking the dog. Answering “our country’s” call to serve in the name of freedom in a war that yields only death, destruction and restrictions of freedom is justifiable only if we can’t take an honest look at it for fear that our neighbors might disagree with us or that we might be thought unpatriotic. Our personal insecurities and buried anger make us vulnerable to the easy fix of feeding our feeling of empowerment through angry group action.

And all that’s needed to trigger it is a little flag waving and finger pointing. And that really works for any politician who wants to use it. And all that comes of it is more pain, more anger, and more insecurity that can be used against us again in the future.

It’s a cycle that needs to be broken. Got any ideas on how to do it? Put ‘em in the suggestion box. Maybe someone will act on it.

Or maybe . . . just maybe, we could take Gandhi’s advice, and BE the change we want to see in the world.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR