Poor poor Eliot Spitzer. One day he’s riding high, a powerful man, governor of a powerful state. The next day he’s negotiating his resignation to avoid prosecution for hidden financial transactions that were used to pay for extremely high priced “escorts.” He had risen to his lofty status by virtue a very public and relentless pursuit of high crimes in the financial and corporate world of New York City when he was the Attorney General of the State. Being elected Governor was the next rung up on the ladder of success. So it was very ironic that he was laid low by some of the same investigative and prosecutorial techniques he had himself used so aggressively.

So this is what you get as a result of having wealthy and highly educated parents, an undergraduate degree at Princeton and a law degree from Harvard University? Surely Eliot’s most notorious moment was not part of the life plan that his parents Bernard and Anne had prepared for him? Didn’t he know any better? How dumb do you have to be? I remember having the same reaction that I had to President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. At first it was disbelief. Clinton was surrounded by sharks looking for blood. Surely he wasn’t so dumb that he would give those sharks something to feast upon. But, yup, he was exactly that dumb.

These two incidents and the countless others commonly involving men in positions of substantial power lift up two entirely different meanings of the word “freedom.” On the one hand is the freedom to do as one pleases. And when a person has a great deal of power, such a person tends to believe that they possess great opportunity to do as they please. Another President, Richard Nixon, summarized this view when he said, “When the President does it, it is not illegal.” This meaning of freedom is the one with which most people are familiar. It is the freedom to buy what one pleases, to live where one pleases; to conduct one’s life as one pleases.

There is a different definition of freedom which was described by the Protestant Reformation theologian Martin Luther in his Three Treatises. In that classic text he essentially states that freedom is the ability to act in a way that is consonant with reality. While the first conception of freedom declares that we are free to believe or do whatever we wish, the second conception of freedom suggests that believing or acting in error is not freedom at all. Adopting errors does not increase, but instead decreases our capacity for accomplishing anything. Ignorance is, from this perspective, a form of enslavement. Thus the phrase, “the truth shall set you free.” From this perspective adopting beliefs or behaving in ways which are contrary to fact or wisdom is never an exercise of freedom.

So, considering these two definitions of freedom, which one was Eliot Spitzer exercising, and was he right? He clearly was exercising his power to have clandestine meetings with escorts from the Ocean’s Club VIP service. At the same time it could be argued that a certain amount of arrogance led him to horribly miscalculate the degree to which he, just like President Clinton, had sharks swimming around looking for something to bite. Even though Eliot Spitzer was popular with the public he had made many intense enemies in the investment and banking world because of his prosecution of some of their somewhat shadowy deals. Many glasses of expensive wine were undoubtedly toasted on Wall Street the evening of Eliot’s departure.

But political miscalculations are probably not exactly what Martin Luther had in mind when he thought about beliefs or actions that are not consonant with reality. Martin Luther would instead point out that Eliot had become a slave to his compulsion. Eliot clearly had reservations about his behavior or he wouldn’t have tried to hide it. On some level he knew it was wrong. He undoubtedly did not want his wife Silda to know. So Luther would point out that willingly doing what you know is wrong is not freedom at all.

Martin Luther would be pleased to know that his basic argument about freedom is much more robust than he could have known. It is a fact that men in positions of great power regularly experience a marked increase in levels of male hormones. It has also been demonstrated that women are sensitive to these increased levels of male hormones and so find such men unusually attractive. The point is that the increase in these hormones tends to drive men toward sexual expression, and just as equally drives women to indulge as well. This is probably not what Dupont means when it says “Better living through chemistry” but it is clear that the chemistry is doing a lot of the driving here.

On the level of our consciousness we tend to assume that powerful people are an attraction because the hangers on will get to bask in their glow, perhaps meet other powerful people - network. They might even receive expensive gifts. Even when the deal goes sour there may be benefits to be gleaned. The young woman who was Eliot’s escort has had her fifteen minutes of fame and may even get a record contract out of the fracas. All these practical benefits are not to be denied.

But if you were to search for a reason why our culture is arranged in such a fashion that there are benefits to be gained by associating with the powerful, you would ultimately be led back to the hormones. It just seems to us like common sense that people would want to benefit from hanging out with the rich and famous no matter how tedious, arrogant, and narcissistic they may be. But in truth it is really not so much common sense as it is olfactory sense. The nose knows. It’s clear in any event, the powerful men who get caught in this kind of escapade, or indulge in it without getting caught, are not doing anything even remotely like a cost benefit analysis.

Men can be such animals. Which is, in fact, exactly what they are. Women too. For many many centuries human beings have sought various means by which deep seated drives such as sexual expression could be controlled. One would have to say that we have achieved on this score very limited success. But this is not actually the only “drive” to which we are subject.

Why, for instance, do we like powerful cars or large homes? Why do we spend time and effort on clothing and jewelry? Why do we panic when we believe our child’s life will be ruined if they do not get into some prestigious school? In each case there are social rewards and costs to all these, and many, more behaviors. But beyond the rewards and the costs, what is the intrinsic value of a powerful car or a large home, beautiful clothing or jewelry? And why does society assign these values to such things? Some of the assignment of value is rational but the vast amount of it is not. Yes, society is organized in this fashion, but again, saying “that’s how we do things” does not explain why we do those things.

I don’t want to claim that we are nothing but helpless pawns of our biochemistry. It is hardly that simple. But at the same time it is a mistake to underestimate the power of our chemistry to affect our behavior.

Perhaps the largest clue to understanding what is going on with these social markers and interpersonal drivers can be derived from a recognition that as soon as we get that powerful car or that large house, they become the standard. But the feeling that one has finally arrived—it passes. There is apparently new “arriving” that cries out to be done. New evidence is almost always sought. The drive behind the behavior continues and can be quite insatiable. Competition, ambition, the distaste of losing, the distaste of aging, these are not easily dislodged from our consciousness.

The Buddha believed that all human misery is derived from such desires. Because they are well nigh unquenchable the Buddha believed they create a life of serial dissatisfaction. Ephemeral and transitory reward is followed by the search for more reward. Loss, of course, leads straight to misery. In either case the hunger never goes away. He counseled that it would be wiser for us to forsake these desires. He and his followers developed several spiritual disciplines by which such longings could be expunged from human consciousness. These disciplines take a great deal of effort and resignation. They take such effort because in fact these drives exert their most powerful influence beneath the level of our consciousness. They have not been easily subjected to rational or emotional control.

It is obviously unwise to underestimate the power of these drives. And it is wise to acknowledge how much good they can do. Competition and the drive for success has created and continues to create many advances in human culture and our welfare. But the key question for us: of what does our freedom consist? Is it our blindly indulging in what we feel driven to accomplish and believe; or our ability to accurately assess and give due weight to all the consequences of our actions? Is it the joy we feel about being “on top of the world;” or the gnawing drive to ascend ever more? When is enough—enough? When does what is compelling become a compulsion?

It is easy perhaps to see the distinction in Eliot Spitzer’s case. But we are less adept at recognizing how common and insidious such behaviors are apparent in all our lives. And much of our problem is that we are not accustomed to understanding the origins of the behaviors. We do not like to think of ourselves as the unwitting tools of our biochemistry. We like to think that we are smarter than that. But it is important to understand that too frequently there is one thing smarter than you—your brain. You are paying attention to it only part of the time. It is paying attention to you all the time.

I have mentioned from time to time over the past several months numerous bits of research that have come out of evolutionary theory and in particular the very new field of evolutionary psychology. One of the most important insights of that research is the concept of a fundamental mismatch between what evolution has designed our brain to accomplish and the circumstances in which we now find ourselves. The mismatch appears profoundly in our religious life, our social life, our political life, our economic life, our family life, our personal life—everything that we are accustomed to do as human beings.

The mismatch has happened because biological evolution is generally a very slow process. On an evolutionary scale ten thousand years is barely any time at all. Substantive shifts in organic design of living creatures take place within a context of millions of years because advantageous and substantive mutations are not that common. From this perspective our brain, the seat of our consciousness, the primary source of human well being as well as all of our culture, has not evolved much beyond the circumstances in which it arose, the African savannah about 60,000 years ago. The brain is still best suited to living there and then, in small groups of about 150 people. It is best suited to living in a very stable cultural environment. In most, but not all cases, it really dislikes heterogeneity. In most, but not all cases, it really dislikes novelty. It is always eager to find the best sexual partner to create better, or at least not worse, versions of itself. Your brain drives you toward sexual expression, straight, bi, or gay. It doesn’t care that much about which just as long as you “DO IT!” It is a needy little bugger and it does not turn off.

Much of the time what we want, and what it wants are not very different. Other times we simply accept what it wants as a kind of gospel truth. You or I might think, “Hey I’m just being me!” Still other times the difference between what we want and what it causes us to do may be a little disconcerting. Although an area where we find the most easily glimpsed discrepancy is in sexual behavior, that arena of human relationship is hardly the only place in which our brains are doing things with us that we might wish to ordinarily avoid. Humor is probably the single most dangerous area. And I should know. I have had to learn, and still have a long ways to go in learning, how to avoid using humor as a stealth attack on someone else’s well being. Humor is too frequently aggressive but because what is said is supposed to be “funny” the aggression is masked. Let me give you another example of the dangers that humor presents. Not all that long ago a couple visited the congregation. They were black. The member from Emerson, who was genuinely eager to have this couple think well of the Emerson congregation and wanted them to know how deeply he wanted them to become part of the congregation said, “We won’t bring the chains out until later.” Now the member was thinking “chains” as in, “we really want you to stay so much we will chain you.” Or he might have been anxious about appearing too anxious and thus was flummoxed enough to mangle his metaphors. But no matter the motivation it seemed to me clear at the time that his brain’s deep distrust of heterogeneity was undermining his best intentions. It is at the very least horribly bizarre for a white person to mention “chains” to a black person. Yet I know this guy. He is not overtly the least bit racist. He’s a really good guy. But the point I wish to make is that our brains can easily subvert our best intentions. We end up thinking, “Why did I say that? Why did I act that way?”

We are all chained to very old patterns of distrust that exist beneath the level of our consciousness. These patterns of neurological interest are intently focused on status and power, and are primarily interested in those things for exactly three reasons. These are the questions which your brain will insist that you answer: when will I get fed; when will I get—the chance to pass on my genetic inheritance; and who will help or hinder my getting fed or getting—the chance to pass on my genetic inheritance? We have conscious ways of addressing each of these questions, but the conscious behaviors do not necessarily supplant the neurological behaviors, and in many respects our conscious behaviors are only extensions of neurological behaviors. So, for instance, your brain thinks, “Well that person is not likely going to help me get fed or get—the chance to pass on my genetic inheritance. Neurological suspicion arises even when we have absolutely no conscious reason for being suspicious.

For most of our history as a species this arrangement has worked well enough, meaning that enough of us did survive the suspicion that so often leads to violence, and the hoarding and control of the necessities of life that led to injustice, oppression and sexual exploitation. It has frequently been a very bloody and immoral process interspersed with moments of a far more positive humanity. And we have for long wondered, how can we dampen the prospects of violence and injustice and enhance what is truly good about us a species? Thankfully, we now have a very profound insight into the sources of a lot of our self-made misery. It’s not at all the case that human beings are sinful or evil.. What is instead true is that we are not free enough from a brain which still acts like it is living in a society that except for a few isolated tribes, is not the current human habitat. Our brains are dislocated.

If Eliot Spitzer lived 20,000 years ago he would be the chief of a tribe of 150 people. When he became that chief he would experience that increase in male hormones because it always, from our DNA’s perspective, has been advantageous for the fittest members of the species to produce the most offspring. So Eliot would suddenly find that he has a little extra lust in his eye and he would think, “Wow, I didn’t realize how many hotties there were in my tribe!” Eliot would then have to weigh the consequences of acting on that feeling of lust. He would have to calculate the possibility of threats to his survival versus the chances of having more offspring that would thrive. In a tribe of 150 in which he knows all the people his odds of making an accurate assessment are pretty high. 20,000 years later, Eliot is also the chief, also has that extra hormonal thrill and that extra feeling of lust, but his odds of making an accurate assessment are extremely low. And to top it off, Eliot doesn’t even want more offspring. Ah—but his brain does.

In Eliot’s life, as well as our own, a deeper freedom is experienced when we are able to more clearly sense what our brain is up to, and making more conscious choices as to what we might then do. Yes we still have those occasions when we notice someone who appears to us to be very attractive. It is silly, I think, to try and dismiss such feelings. They happen and they even can be sweet. But we can also make choices about what we will do about such feelings. Similarly, we can be attentive to the fact that people who speak with an accent or have a different skin color cause our brains to be anxious. But we can quiet ourselves, remind ourselves that we do not live in the savannah and more truly see the humanity that exists beyond all the cultural baggage that humanity has heretofore created in an unconscious response to our neurological suspicion. And when it comes to the thrill of competition and the search for status we can ask ourselves, “How much do I really need this? How freely am I acting? What’s really in charge here—me or my biochemistry?”

Unitarian Universalism has always been a religion about freedom. We have consistently maintained that our future well being depends upon more freedom—not less. But that devotion to freedom has always been one of service to what we come to know about the world and ourselves. The road of freedom is not a simple nor an easy one. But with greater awareness and steadfast companions, that road will be one that is filled with life abundant and songs of praise. Freedom will come as we better grasp our circumstances. Yes freedom will come. Healing will thus be found, true joy will be felt, and love, it will rest easy in our hearts.

Perhaps the easiest example of the dislocation is revealed in our diets. We feel compelled to eat fat and sugar—which were valuable and scarce on the savannah. Now they are in abundance and it is a really bad idea to eat them in the quantities we do—and yet we still do.