Increasingly I am feeling that the Age of Enlightenment is over and that rational thinking and empathy have been overridden by our reptilian brains. It seems people have become more easily deluded, more selfish, and more ruled by hard-wired primal fears.
Why, for example, do people support the right to buy assault weapons when the price is dead schoolchildren, or why are so many ready to demonize immigrants and anyone different? Witness the current president’s rise to power, fueled by lies that appealed to tribal mentality and an irrational fear of the “the other” — lies like Obama not being born in the U.S. and or that Haitian refugees were eating people’s cats and dogs.
I like to think that I am a person who tries to make enlightened, ethical decisions, but I reflected recently on an incident in my past when I, too, was hijacked by my reptilian brain, defaulting into selfishness and paranoia.
It was the summer of 2003, and I was making a day trip to New York City to visit museums. I took the Jitney from East Hampton and first went to the Guggenheim Museum. I don’t remember what show I saw there, but I do remember in the gift shop buying a creamer and sugar bowl that were in the shape of the Guggenheim building itself. With my purchase in hand, I then took the subway to MoMA PS 1 in Queens to see a much-anticipated Max Beckmann show. I was halfway through this magnificent show of large-scale Expressionist paintings when, suddenly, the lights went out. I and other visitors were confused, and a few minutes later guards walked the galleries telling us we all needed to leave the building.
I was not sure what was going on. I had a cellphone but no service, and when I stepped outside the museum, I saw something was very, very wrong. The Aug. 14 Blackout of 2003 had just begun. In an elevated subway car, I could see trapped passengers with faces pressed against the glass. Cars were stalled and honking and traffic lights were not operating. Everyone on the street was standing in a state of shock, contemplating the next move.
This was just two years after 9/11, and my thoughts automatically went to terrorism. I also had to decide what to do. It was 4:46 p.m. and I knew I could not get home, but I didn’t know where I could spend the night. I didn’t know anyone in Queens, and subways were not running. I had a little money, not but not much.
I wondered if this outage was affecting my husband and daughter back in Springs, but I had no way to reach them. I had no idea how widespread the blackout was, not learning until later that the whole Eastern Seaboard was affected, impacting an estimated 55 million people in eight U.S. states and large swaths of Canada.
As I pondered how to find shelter before dark, I remembered that my husband’s sister lived in Brooklyn. I asked a couple standing on the street if they knew which way Brooklyn was, and they said they, too, wanted to get to Brooklyn. I asked if I could walk with them. The three of us saw a convenience store that was still open and we bought two jugs of water and a city map and began the long walk to the next borough.
I kept trying to call my husband to no avail and hoped I’d get to my sister-in-law’s place on Nevins Street near downtown Brooklyn before dark. My thoughts went to the looting that took place after a previous blackout in New York. My reptilian brain was switching on, as safety and a strategy for survival dominated my thinking.
Just then a mother with a young daughter stopped and asked us where we got the water. We said a store a block back was still open and pointed her in the direction. The women I was walking with then asked, “Maybe we should give her one of our bottles?” It was then I said something that to this day brings me shame to think of — “No,” I said, “we may need it for the walk.” I was thinking I was holding what might be the last clean water I’d have for a long, long time. The woman and her child headed back in the direction of the store, as we walked on. My thought was if this was a terrorist attack meant to destabilize the country, maybe we all would soon be thrust into chaos and a “Mad Max” existence.
So my two companions and I continued on our way, walking through some marginalized neighborhoods. We passed at one point a taxi garage where several drivers were standing by their cabs, but they were not going anywhere, not offering rides — they just stood looking at us and the throngs of others in the street. Again, my reptilian brain caused me to ponder if the drivers — who all looked to be Middle Eastern — were in on the potential terrorist attack. I had descended into an us-versus-them irrationality.
After a few more blocks of walking we came upon a stranded car surrounded by teenagers. The driver, a woman, was asking for directions. We approached and said, “We have a map!” She explained that she had somehow got a message from her Wall Street husband — apparently some cell service was working. He was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and wanted her to pick him up at the Navy Yards. We offered to share our map if she’d let us drive with her and she said yes.
The tension and craziness of the situation had us all running on adrenaline. Snaking our way through the streets was perilous because traffic lights weren’t working. We eventually got near the Navy Yards, where my two companions and I got out. They went their way and I was once again alone on the street. Not alone, exactly — I was at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and it was teeming with thousands of people, secretaries carrying their high heels, men in suits with loosened ties, and vendors who had suddenly appeared on the sidelines selling bottled water at inflated prices.
Somehow I remembered by sister-in-law’s address, and just as it was getting dark I arrived at her door, only to get no answer when I knocked. It was August and I remembered she used to go away to Maine, but luckily, a neighbor next door said she was probably in her back garden and shouted over to her that I was at the front door. I spent the night there, happy to be somewhere safe. I realized I still had with me my Guggenheim creamer and sugar bowl. So strange that on one hand I had been imagining the apocalypse and on the other I had held on to my purchase, thinking, “I can use these the next time I host a brunch!”
Soon things were back to “normal,” though it took a few days to restore all service. The cause of the blackout turned out to be a software glitch that had cascaded into a regional collapse of the whole system. But the shame over my instinct not to share my water haunted me.
It reminded me of an episode of “The Twight Zone” called “The Shelter.” Neighbors are gathered at a suburban cocktail party when news on the radio tells of an alien invasion heading to Earth ready to bomb the planet. The host of the party has a bomb shelter and as he quickly ushers his small family into safety, the neighbors begin to beg to be admitted. The host tells them, “No room!” before barricading his family inside. Meanwhile the neighbors become desperate and violent, turning on one another. “We don’t need your kind here!” one man bellows at the one immigrant family.
Eventually the radio comes on to say it was a false alarm, and things go back to normal. But could everything ever really be back to normal, the neighbors wonder sheepishly?
In the aftermath of the blackout, I remained disturbed at how easily my own selfishness took over in a crisis. I’d like to think if someone was really dying of thirst, I’d share my water. I hope so. And I also hope, if I am tested again, I might make a better choice.
But this country is in a new crisis now, with mass deportations underway. We are all being tested. It is easy to be in our bubbles, trying to ignore the news, watching Netflix movies, staying in our own comfort zones. It is human nature to adapt, to selfishly be concerned only with one’s own needs.
But I was buoyed by the Minnesotans in my home state rising up, acting with noble selflessness, protesting in frigid temperatures, delivering food to immigrant neighbors, nonviolently standing up to ICE operations, literally putting their lives on the line. And others are following their example across the country.
We are not just our reptilian brains. It is also human nature to aspire to repair, to seek justice, to try to bring light into the darkness. Let’s hope.