Humans are clearly undergoing enormous stress around the globe. Fires, floods, displaced populations, famine, scamming, the endless greed of the wealthiest … the list goes on and on. And we can’t help but react exactly as our animal ancestors did. Five hundred million years ago the archetype of our present nervous system evolved in fish. Have you ever seen a school of fish react when a predator invades it? Panic, unfocused fear, ensues.

Some species look to an alpha animal, male or female, to lead them when stress levels increase. Today we are in search of our own such leader but, apparently, a person’s moral strength, psychic balance, and self-knowledge do not matter enough to us as our lives become more and more unpredictable and chaotic. When any candidate deliberately foments false fears with blatant lies and makes vicious unsubstantiated attacks on others, our nervous systems all register a threat and we become hyper-anxious about the future. History, as well as current election results worldwide, show us how the innocent and uninformed are often misled by unscrupulous leaders only to find themselves at their mercy. Victims of their cruelty.

Though I believe we can’t help but first react as dictated by our ancient biology, remember the newer reasoning part of the brain is also elegantly operative. Hopefully, enough of us will activate and honor it before we destroy ourselves. Our only chance of not docilely, fearfully, surrendering to authoritarianism is by strenuously cultivating our unique capacity to think, to discern. Call me old-fashioned and afflicted with a trace of sentimental patriotism, but if we act together, I do harbor a slight hope that Americans will elect the safer and saner leader in November.

Margot Fleck

Northfield