By BOB FUSELIER
Los Alamos
Like almost everyone across this world, I’ve been watching the news from Ukraine with a mixture of emotions, ranging from the worry of an authoritarian leader bringing war to western Europe (and devastating the world economy along with it) to the hope of victory and peace for a defiant people willing to risk their lives to protect their families, freedom, and homeland.
Worry has its roots in fear, whether it is an empathetic fear for the people of Ukraine or one for how this war will affect us here in the US, both personally and societally. Fear is a natural and important emotion. The huge collection of scientific discoveries has successfully proven that fear is a state of mind produced through a myriad of neurons and their connecting network of axons and dendrites. Fear is critical for our survival as it prepares us to respond to life-threatening situations. We, all humans and most, if not all, animals, feel fear.
The origins of hope are more difficult to determine. I know of no scientific study describing the origins of hope in the human brain. Merriam-Webster defines hope as to “cherish a desire with anticipation, to want something to happen or to be true.” While the emotion of desire has also been well defined scientifically, hope is much more than desire, more supernatural than natural. For me, it is the transcendent potential to see a positive outcome in the midst of great despair. It is much more than mere optimism.
While fear can be overcome, unresolved fear can easily develop into anger and then, when the right scapegoat is found, hatred. This is an end we need to avoid because we will find any excuse to justify the violent means we use to obtain it. I’m not sure whether it is hatred or maniacal desire or something else that is fueling Putin’s blind ambition for the resurrection of old Russia, but he does appear to be a man controlled by his emotions, which is a tremendous challenge for us and the leaders of our country and those of our allies.
I lost last week a great friend, a mentor of mine over the years who could easily weave the truths found in ancient religious texts with the truths revealed by the latest scientific studies into an understanding and acceptance of who we are as a people and who I am as an individual. Joe Schmidt was a man of hope, full of wisdom and compassionate advice. I’ve missed being able to talk to him, especially these last few weeks.
It would take a bit of hubris to try to sum up the advice he gave me over the years into just one sound bite. However, if I were to try, it would go something like, “Be aware of your emotions or beware of them.” When we can’t see how our emotions influence our thoughts and actions, we turn over our freedom to our emotional systems, systems we share with the lowest of God’s creatures.
Most, if not all, our decisions and actions are made through one of our emotional systems. That’s just the way it is. The cognitive part of our brain, the cortical areas where we weigh options, are added upon the emotional systems in a way similar to how more RAM can be added to boost a computer’s ability. The RAM doesn’t run the computer; it just helps it run faster.
The more times we take a second to recognize which emotion is pinging our consciousness, the more accurate will be our decisions and the more compassionate and inclusive will be any word or action that follows. Do we recognize the fear we are feeling when we watch the images we see of the war in Ukraine? Are we aware when our fear activates our anger and when hatred begins to creep in? Are we aware of the influence that fear, anger, and hatred have on what we say and do in response?
I can’t count the times when the thoughts that came to mind as I was viewing the videos of the results of the Russian attacks on the Ukrainian people were fueled with anger and a bit of violent revenge upon the Russian army and Putin. With all my training, it can still take a few moments for me to see that my emotions are controlling my thoughts. If we desire (and with some practice), we can use the cortical areas of our brains to respond to our emotional reactions with mindfulness and awareness. This is where our human potential for true freedom lies. Perhaps this is where hope comes from.
Many years ago, when my children were teenagers, I found myself in need of a chat with Joe. I remember beginning with something like, “I can’t get my kids to listen to me unless I yell at them.” After an hour or so of Joe gently guiding the discussion, he ended with the following: “Keep mindful of these emotions that like to push us around and you will be able to find creative ways to solve these problems nonviolently.” Good advice for then and now.
Where exactly does nonviolence fit in when an amoral leader of a nuclear-armed country invades another by bombing its residential areas, hospitals, and schools while attempting to surround and starve its population centers? The answer is complicated and unfinished, but allow me to offer some thoughts.
Through an understanding of how our emotions control so much of our thoughts and actions and through my exposure to the Gospel message and those influenced by it, I know as much as I can know as a human that violence cannot bring peace. Violence can suppress other violence, but the pain and fear that results from violence will set up those receiving the violence to be easily controlled by their emotions of fear and anger. Neither emotion allows anyone to be the best of who they are as a person and, unfortunately, usually leads the victims of violence to imitate the violence perpetrated upon them as they seek revenge.
I understand that, at this point in our communal understanding of how to coexist, the force that is needed to stop someone like Putin will be violent. My hope comes in how far our armed forces, at least those forces in Europe and North America, are moving towards nonviolence in the means we use. This at first may seem counterintuitive, but it is happening.
In WWII and Vietnam, our armed forces had no problems destroying huge, non-military, population centers. Now, we use smart bombs that can even target a specific part of buildings in order to limit the possibility of injury and death to civilians in the surrounding area. Nowadays, when our armed services cause civilian injuries and deaths (as evidenced in Afghanistan), these attacks are not just investigated, but are also publicly acknowledged with responsibility taken and recompense offered for injury and loss of life. This tendency towards minimal use of violent force is an unmistakable move towards nonviolence.
While Putin’s immoral and unethical intent and actions in Ukraine are a cause of great concern, my hope is that the lessons learned from the last two generations of wars will guide our American and European leaders in responding with well thought out responses to accurate information, not just to react in fear.
