We all know that when impulse is in control, there is no control. Fortunately, for most people most of the time, impulse is overlain by compunction. But for some, compunction is a rare check on impulse as atrocities from ancient times through Vietnam’s Mỹ Lai to the recent Bucha massacres reveal. We also see the obvious effects of a lack of guilt or propriety in the actions of the pathological killer or in that of the explosively angry person. But with regard to individuals, simplifications about human behavior, though easy to do are hard to justify given the complexity of personal histories and running circumstances. Humans have multiple motivators, so to label someone as “impulsive” is to miss layers of influence. Yet, there’s no denying that impulsivity exists and that its effects are often deleterious or regrettable.
Impulse throws people into imbalance. Whatever equilibrium people believed they experienced at the time just before their impulsive behavior and whatever equilibrium their brains acted to establish through that behavior never replace the equilibrium that was. Things always change, of course, but impulse changes things abruptly.
Take the invasion of Ukraine. One might argue that it was a plan in development over many decades—or at least since the fall of the Soviet Union—in the mind of Putin. That he did not execute that plan until 2022, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t driven in part by impulse. Impulse usually has a trigger, so the catastrophic American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the apparent weakness of the American Administration focused more on social justice and global warming than on foreign affairs seems to have been a trigger; add to that the trigger of Europe’s increasing dependence on Russian gas and oil. Since the current U.S. President did little to stop the earlier invasion of Crimea and has from the perspective of the Russians spent more energy on what he is convinced is an existential threat from climate change and also on his desire to eliminate energy from fossil fuels while buying fossil fuels from Russia in 2021 and 2022, Putin had no angel on his right shoulder cautioning him about listening to the devil on his left shoulder. And since that same Russian leader has an alleged history of tyrannical rule and corruption, he unleashed the hounds of his hegemonic impulse.
Impulse, however driven to establish a new equilibrium from the perspective of the impulsive, usually produces its opposite or an unintended effect, a circumstance with a new imbalance. That’s not unexpected because one person’s impulsive actions trigger another’s. European countries have reacted, and their responses are as much amygdalae-driven as Putin’s invasion. When action and reaction derive from pure impulse on such a scale, the tenuous equilibria of power and safety disappear.
The world will always be in a state of imbalance because no perfect equilibrium exists for long—if at all—in societies. If we had imbalance forecasters who could determine the impulse “weather,” we might have at least a 50-50 chance of anticipating the vicissitudes others impose on us through their capricious urges. I say 50-50 because predicting impulse is as difficult as predicting exactly where along a cold front a squall line will develop a tornado. People knew that an invasion by Russians was highly probable as they amassed a “front” of military along the Ukrainian-Russian border. The West seemed to have taken few steps to thwart that invasion. But just as many might hear about a potential outbreak of tornadoes, yet take few precautions, so the West took few precautions. All humans are subject to the whims of others. Keeping that in mind puts some pressure on all of us to be vigilant, but we have little choice to do otherwise if we want to mitigate the effects of impulse—our own or others’.
Impulse throws people into imbalance. Whatever equilibrium people believed they experienced at the time just before their impulsive behavior and whatever equilibrium their brains acted to establish through that behavior never replace the equilibrium that was. Things always change, of course, but impulse changes things abruptly.
Take the invasion of Ukraine. One might argue that it was a plan in development over many decades—or at least since the fall of the Soviet Union—in the mind of Putin. That he did not execute that plan until 2022, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t driven in part by impulse. Impulse usually has a trigger, so the catastrophic American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the apparent weakness of the American Administration focused more on social justice and global warming than on foreign affairs seems to have been a trigger; add to that the trigger of Europe’s increasing dependence on Russian gas and oil. Since the current U.S. President did little to stop the earlier invasion of Crimea and has from the perspective of the Russians spent more energy on what he is convinced is an existential threat from climate change and also on his desire to eliminate energy from fossil fuels while buying fossil fuels from Russia in 2021 and 2022, Putin had no angel on his right shoulder cautioning him about listening to the devil on his left shoulder. And since that same Russian leader has an alleged history of tyrannical rule and corruption, he unleashed the hounds of his hegemonic impulse.
Impulse, however driven to establish a new equilibrium from the perspective of the impulsive, usually produces its opposite or an unintended effect, a circumstance with a new imbalance. That’s not unexpected because one person’s impulsive actions trigger another’s. European countries have reacted, and their responses are as much amygdalae-driven as Putin’s invasion. When action and reaction derive from pure impulse on such a scale, the tenuous equilibria of power and safety disappear.
The world will always be in a state of imbalance because no perfect equilibrium exists for long—if at all—in societies. If we had imbalance forecasters who could determine the impulse “weather,” we might have at least a 50-50 chance of anticipating the vicissitudes others impose on us through their capricious urges. I say 50-50 because predicting impulse is as difficult as predicting exactly where along a cold front a squall line will develop a tornado. People knew that an invasion by Russians was highly probable as they amassed a “front” of military along the Ukrainian-Russian border. The West seemed to have taken few steps to thwart that invasion. But just as many might hear about a potential outbreak of tornadoes, yet take few precautions, so the West took few precautions. All humans are subject to the whims of others. Keeping that in mind puts some pressure on all of us to be vigilant, but we have little choice to do otherwise if we want to mitigate the effects of impulse—our own or others’.
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