| As I walked to work, I approached a sparrow sitting idly on the sidewalk. Drawing closer, I realized he was lording over a wounded moth, presumably planning breakfast. Upon noticing me, he fluttered a few feet away – more likely out of fear of me not guilt of what he was about to do. As I moved away, he returned to his prey. When I moved closer again, he retreated once more. Eventually, I moved on to work and he moved in for his meal. I did not prescribe any other motive on the bird beyond his nature and hunger. One of the benefits of my work is that I am often introduced to extraordinary thinkers whose original ideas hold the potential to reshape the way we think about a given topic. And so it was that Robert Sapolsky’s name came across my desk last week. Sapolsky is a neuroscientist at Stanford and author of the new book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. The reference said Sapolsky is a tour de force and if you watch this amazing 15-minute talk, you will no doubt agree with that assessment. It has become too easy to see a specific behavior and label it good or evil without giving much thought to what went behind the act. We are a nation founded on the idea of free will and this is not an attempt to diminish the responsibility attached to our choices. Yet as Sapolsky lays out with great wonder there is so much beneath the surface that it is likely to blow your mind. In his talk, he walks us back from the moment of an action to consider how different factors happening minutes, days, years, decades and even millennia before has impacted that behavior. Weaving moral psychology, social science, genetics, epigenetics and neuroscience, he is able to take us on a miraculous journey deep beneath the surface of behaviors, labels and policy. Perhaps most importantly, he provides us with a blueprint on the many ways in which we, as individuals and a society, can understand AND change our own behavior and that of those around us. Just listen to the story he shares of the Christmas Truce of 1914 in World War I or the brave American helicopter pilot who stopped one of the worst massacres of the Vietnam war by doing the unthinkable and you will be left with hope and a greater appreciation of what change is possible. And maybe the next time you see a behavior that leaves us with shock or awe, we will approach it like anyone would have approached that bird, with curiosity and not judgment. |
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