What would I have done? The question haunts me.

            Last week, three men were stabbed after they intervened on a commuter train in Portland, Oregon, to stop a white supremacist from harassing two young women, one of them wearing a head covering.

            It seems the women were not doing anything objectionable, other than riding a public train. But the stabber started yelling racial insults and profanities at them. The three men tried to stop him.

            Now two of them are dead, and one still recovering in hospital.

            And so I wonder, what would I do? I like to think I would do the noble thing, the honorable thing. I like to think I would have stood up for common decency.

            If so, would I be dead now?

Our many minds

            The possibility makes me reflect on the way our brains work.

            I find psychologist Michael Dowd's popularized vision of the brain helpful. Dowd says that our brains have evolved, in four stages.

            The most primitive part of the brain lurks at the top of the spinal column. Dowd calls it the Lizard Brain. It doesn't really do much thinking. Mostly, it just reacts to external stimuli. It has three basic responses to anything -- fight, flight, and fornicate.

            Dowd calls the next evolutionary level, the "Small Furry Mammal" brain. We humans, of course, are mammals. Unlike many other animals, mammals nurture their offspring. They nurse, they clean, they cuddle, they teach.

            The Small Furry Mammal part of our brains drives our emotions. We want to belong. We want to be cared for. We want to be loved.

            Next up the evolutionary ladder comes the Monkey Mind. We all know this one. It bounces from idea to idea. It is undisciplined and hyperactive; it suffers from an attention deficit disorder.

            Keeping all of these brains under control takes a lot of processing power. Fortunately, we have such a thing -- technically called the prefrontal cortex, the big mass of gray cells behind your forehead. This part of the brain helps us define purpose and meaning.

            Dowd continues his zoological metaphor by calling the cortex our "Higher Porpoise" brain.

Thinking things through

            The Higher Porpoise brain monitors the other three brains. Particularly the primitive Lizard Brain. The Lizard reacts instantly, but not always wisely. The Higher Porpoise assesses the risks and benefits of stepping into a conflict like the one on the Portland commuter train.

            Obviously, I can't ask the dead men for their motivations. But I suspect they had two, almost simultaneous, reactions.

            Their Lizard Brain urged either flight or fight. Flight, to stay out of trouble. Let someone else deal with this jerk. Or fight -- that instinctive rush of adrenalin, that tensing of muscles, that says flatten this idiot!

            Then their Higher Porpoise mind moderated those impulses. Stop. Don't descend to his level. Step between the man and the objects of his venom. Reason with him. Explain that this is not the way Americans treat each other.

            So they did.

Crime against humanity

            The stabber, on the other hand, operated entirely out of his Lizard Brain. First he sees two women, one black, one apparently Muslim. He despises both of them. So he attacks – with words and body language.

            They cower, as he hopes they would.

            And then three strangers interfere. Now he feels physically threatened. His Lizard Brain overrides whatever his Higher Porpoise might try to tell him. He pulls a knife. He kills.

            I'm not making excuses for the killer. He failed, or was unwilling, to monitor his reptilian reactions. He acted like an bad-tempered alligator. An alligator’s lack of reasoning does not exonerate it from the damage it does.

            Humans, I contend, need to be held to a higher standard than alligators. We do have a more developed brain. We can exercise control over all the unruly parts of our minds. We are not ancient reptiles who attack anything they fear. We are not small furry animals clinging to the security blanket of our mothers and our relatives. Nor are we amoral monkeys swinging from branch to branch, grabbing whatever attracts us.

            It has taken humans about two million years to develop brains that can exercise discipline over the legacies of our evolutionary ancestors.

            In that sense, the Portland stabber didn’t just commit a crime against a few individuals. He -- and all who think like him -- commit a crime against humanity itself. Their convictions and their actions reject the reality that we humans have evolved beyond primitive reptiles living in prehistoric swamps.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

I sometimes surprised by how many people who call themselves atheists, but who read these columns and respond to them. One of those is Ted Archibald, who spends much of his time raising red flags about the dangers of electrical radiation on our brains and bodies. Ted wrote, “I enjoy your musings even if some of content has a religious touch.”

            Ted shared his own misgivings about Donald Trump, and ended, “Maybe we would be happier if we did not get the news from wherever and just went for an extended drive, read some mysteries, and did something creative, like painting or digging the garden. If anything big happened, someone would come by and tell us.”

Tom Watson commented on last week’s non-column: “It's likely good for the soul to have a ‘nothing has jelled yet’ week once in a while. The world will go on its whirling dervish frenzy in spite of us.

            “One wonders, though, if it isn't whirling out of control. If a candidate can get elected in spite of decking a journalist, how long it will be before someone hears the Governor of Texas' dog-whistle in the middle of the night and goes out and shoots one?”

June Blau appreciated the letters in place of the usual column: “Thank you for passing on Debra Huron's letter, the content of which expresses so well this complex issue in a way that I can begin to comprehend it.”

I should also acknowledge some adverse reactions to the letters from Debra and from Judyth Mermelstein, but I’m not interested in taking apart their arguments.

Bob Rollwagen told me, “Good on you to take a week off. A lot of interesting insight from your audience to a very complex issue. Other countries are also trying to deal with this. The one I am most familiar with, outside of Canada, is Australia. While traveling there recently, I found it difficult to get any of the locals in my circles to acknowledge or discuss it for any length, passing the baton to government and moving quickly on to issues that they were more interested in personally.  There is so much in the morning news every day of the week that the two percent of the population that even listen, do not know where to step in.”

By coincidence, Carol “Cogs” Smith wrote about the Australian situation: “It was Australian Indigenous Reconciliation Week last week. I am sending on the Uluru Statement that we mentioned in church worship on Sunday, and then sent out to the congregation to read. It is a hope of a possible shared future and better rights for the indigenous people. As a white person, I am taken aback by how we as a country treat Indigenous people and refugees, too.”

Below is the Australian ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART (edited slightly for space):

We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:

            Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.

            This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

            With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.

            Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

            These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.

            We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

            We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

            We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future…

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the “Reply” button.

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            My webpage is up and running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca

            I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

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PROMOTION STUFF…

            Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca

            Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com

            Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net