Steven Pinker declares in his most recent popular book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined that we are likely living in the most peaceful period in human history. He would contend that progress, modernity and human nature have contributed to the decline of hostilities in the world. I’m betting our natural instincts could be emerging more forcefully than ever before when it comes to lessening the level of violence on the planet.
Daniel Kahneman, who is considered the world’s most influential psychologist, contends in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow that irrationality is in our bones, and we are not the worse for it. If he is suggesting we might do better by trusting our instincts over reason occasionally by risking cutting through our fears to bond deeply with even a foe, life in this world will only get better.
One day, in the community of Ocean Beach in San Diego, a couple dozen very tough-looking members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club moved into the neighborhood near the church I served. Soon after their arrival on the scene several elderly members of the church came to my office to convey how anxious they were about the new, scary residents invading their community. The women insinuated that if I considered myself a shepherd of their church flock I ought to do something about the black sheep overrunning their neighborhood. They were genuinely terrified and claimed they had not been able to sleep soundly since the gang came into town.
While trying to comfort the delegation one of them asked me point blank, “Do those men frighten you personally at all, Pastor?” She caught me off guard with that. I was a little anxious about the bikers moving in but I tried to give my visitors the impression things were not out of control. I replied, “We can rely upon the police keeping an eye on them.”
One of the women smirked and whispered to the others on departing, “Yup, the preacher’s chicken too!”
After two additional members revealed to me their terror regarding the biker gang members taking up residence in our parish I thought it was time to deal with the matter in some fashion. I asked Charlie, a federal probation officer and a member of the church, if he could arrange a meeting with a Hell’s Angel contact person that might be willing to discuss the neighborhood fears and concerns. He assured me he would try to find an officer within the biker club who might be open to talking. A month later the federal employee informed me he had found a gang member. Charlie smiled and said, “His name is ‘Snake’ and he is the secretary of the Hell’s Angels local chapter, a major player!”
“Good, let’s go see him.”
Charlie claimed he was too busy and that it would probably be better if I were to meet him alone, one-on-one. All of my urban fears came down on me in that moment. The probation officer had known about my single encounter ministry days on the streets of L.A.
Charlie remarked “You ought to be pretty prepared after having spent three years on Skid Row as a street chaplain.” He enjoyed watching me squirm over the thought of his preacher meeting face-to-face with a bruiser named “Snake.” That was the morning I wound up inadvertently using hair spray under my armpits and deodorant on my hair in getting ready to visit the tough biker. How does one groom for a serpent?
I sat in my car for a half-hour in front of the Snake’s house working up the nerve to step out and approach his door. I finally got to the porch. Before I could knock the door swung open and before me stood a terrifying shirtless creature whose entire upper body was tattooed with snakes of all sizes and colors. The “Angel” turned out to be a middle-aged, strapping, balding, 270-pound chunk of a guy. He managed to actually hiss when he spoke. “Yeah,” he snarled, “whad-a-ya-want?”
I mumbled, “I’ve come on the recommendation of your parole officer.”
He backed off some, “OK, what the hell, if Charlie sent ya, come on in.” He nodded toward the couch and when I sat down he plopped himself right beside me, butt-to-butt; obviously a move to intimidate. It was working. I was duly threatened.
“Are you coming with a problem?” he asked abruptly.
“Well, yes, I’m a pastor in the community and there are several elderly widows in my congregation who are pretty terrified by your club’s sudden presence in the neighborhood. I was hoping we could just get to know each other a little and perhaps come up with an idea that could help me go back and put my parishioners at ease.”
He sat quietly for a moment. “What do you mean by ‘get to know each other a little?’” he asked petulantly.
“Maybe I could learn something about you personally that would make you and your biker buddies seem less scary to my parishioners.”
“And what do you mean by learning something about me that is personal?”
“I guess I’m not sure but perhaps if we just talked awhile something just might crop up.”
“You’re a preacher, right?” He stared at me for a few moments. “What a coincidence, my Dad was a preacher. We got crosswise and I left home in my young teens. He was an asshole! Your being here is stirring up some bad memories.” He began to talk about his father. His eyes narrowed, he clinched his fists and blurted out, “The son-of-bitch was tough; you tough, preacher?” I was not sure whether it was a physical challenge or just an innocent inquiry.
“Are you as angry as you look?” I sputtered. “You know, I have to be honest; on the way over here I had a crazy notion I would be encountering a bad guy or at least a guy with a bad attitude.”
“Do you want to know how I deal with my anger?” I was not sure I wanted to know, but I replied,
“Well, yeah, I guess.”
“If your church folk are afraid of us maybe I should tell you how I deal with my temper.”
“OK,” he confessed, “when I’m ready to explode I’ll ride out to a deserted highway in the middle of the night and punch my bike up to 90 or 95 miles-an-hour and start screamin’ in the wind.”
I let his remark hang there for a moment and then I took what I considered to be a chance and asked, “Any tears go with that?” He took his time answering but finally he softly emitted, “Yep!”
He went on to say “Let me tell you about Maggie and you can tell this story to your church people. It might help to cut down on the fear. A couple of years ago a bunch of us club members got busted on some minor traffic violations and outstanding warrants on unpaid citations. We got jailed suddenly and we were not able to come up with bail money. A neighbor lady, about 80 years old, who lived next door to us, learned about our arrest and put up a bond to get us released. We had never even talked to her up until then.
“After we were released and my biker buddies had left the house I went over to her place and thanked her for springing us from jail. She said, ‘My name is Maggie, what’s yours?’ ‘They call me Snake!’” ‘Oh, God,’ she yelled. I asked if I could do anything for her. She said she would like to go for a ride on my motorcycle. So, I took her for a ride. We rode around the block. After a couple of laps Maggie asked if we could stop for a minute. I was not sure what she had in mind. We got off the bike and she asked, ‘Mind if I wear your jacket on the next go-around?’
“Jeez, preacher,” Snake admitted, “my Angels jacket is very special to me and I don’t let many people touch it let alone wear it and I was not keen on letting the old gal put it on. I took it off and handed it to her. She handed it right back and told me to hold it like a gentleman so she could get into it. There I was, standing on the curb dressing an old lady. We got back on my bike.
“On the third lap around the block Maggie yelled, ‘You got a horn on this thing?’ ‘Sure.’ ‘Well, how about tootin’ it when we come by my place so my neighbors can see me on this contraption?’
Snake concluded with “I asked Maggie after our ride if she was scared getting on the bike. She said she was more frightened of me than the machine. I got a kick out of her, preacher. She started out behind me barely hanging on and then after a few minutes she held me tight and I could tell she was having fun.”
Weeks later Snake’s woman friend called to tell me he was killed in a drug deal that went bad with another biker. She eventually dropped by my office to offer me a few of her lover’s shirts and jackets. “You might be interested to know,” she expressed tenderly “that Snake stopped packing a weapon recently.”
His life ended violently but not before he lodged a piece of sheer compassion within Maggie, me and a part of his world. In a chapter titled “Better Angels” Professor Pinker cites David Hume who had to have had the likes of our better angel in mind when he penned the following sentiments.
“[It] cannot be disputed that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along with elements of the wolf and serpent.” An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.
The notorious WWI Christmas Eve truce in 1914 provided a night of peace between warriors on the front lines. An individual had to have courageously broken ranks by stepping out of a trench to lead others to exchange gifts with the enemy. I’m hoping that initial spark within the bosom of a single soldier that would spread across the battle field was a contributing element to the decline of violence on this planet. Most everyone who participated in the exchange were probably killed after returning to their respective trenches but some particle of the dove had to have taken flight that night for all time.
Did Jesus have that kind of valor in mind when he urged his followers to love their enemies? If so, there will likely not be many takers. Alfred North Whitehead offered a stark warning on the subject. He claimed “As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.” Dialogues, 1954)
You may have caught that Pinker picked up on the closing remarks of Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address for the title of his book. The president was urging citizens to strive to come through with the better angels of their nature but he also knew they could resort to living out of their shoddier angelic side when up again their antagonists.
What if mortals are finally evolving to the point of mustering a new kind of courage to get the job done? What if the Insula – a compartment in our brains that houses our deepest emotions – has matured over the past century or so? And what if we are getting better at enabling our compassionate urges to burst forth in the heat of the moment while wrestling with our fears, anger and rage, and those of our enemies?
“Heroism feels and never reasons and is therefore always right.” (Emerson, “Self-Reliance.” 1841)