Chapter 13                    Part E 

         As with courage and wisdom, a balanced pair of values guides the behavior of citizens in successful societies' attempts to handle the second trait of reality, quantum uncertainty. In order for a society to maximize its chances of handling the uncertainty of existence - the way that unexpected events keep coming at us - that society must contain as wide a variety of potential responses to the demands of the physical world as the people in it, individually and jointly, can learn to perform. In a scary world, if you’re smart, you try to be ready for anything. Encouraging each individual young person to be versatile (the Renaissance man concept) helps here, but the really important value that a wise society should instill in each upcoming generation is freedom, a desire to become one's best self, and to encourage others to do the same.

        

            In order to be equipped to meet the widest range of futures possible, a society must contain the widest range of humans possible, with skills and talents literally of every sort imaginable. Then, in the society whose people love freedom, if an unforeseen crisis arises and threatens the society’s very continued existence, it has a higher likelihood of containing a small group of people, or sometimes just one individual, who will be able to react effectively to the situation, and direct others to react effectively as well.  

            In addition, in more ordinary times, when a society seems to be merely maintaining a steady state, the people in a vigorous and diverse society are pursuing a wide range of activities, doing research on a wide range of theories, and developing a wide range of skills, services, and products, any of which may reap benefits for all citizens in the near, middle, or distant future. Which "hobbies" will turn out to be a lot more than just hobbies in a decade or two we can't know because in a truly uncertain universe that can't be known. Some will fit into the society's economy and, in a decade or so, become simply parts of the division of labor. But in a truly free society, many of these hobby activities will seem, and will usually prove to be, silly wastes of time.

               

            However, a wise society loves its dreamers. Once in a while, an eccentric will invent something amazingly useful to all. In addition, the freedom that allows these folk to carry on being as eccentric as they are is vital. The presence of eccentrics in a society is proof that the value called “freedom” is part of that society's moral code. Uniformity in a population is an enemy of survival in the long, long view.

            Individualism and cultural pluralism grow out of a society’s basing its values code on freedom. Teaching our young to value freedom is always good long-term strategy. In the long haul of centuries of time and generations of citizens, this educational practice enables a society to respond to the real world’s fundamental uncertainty because change that you can plan for isn’t real change. On the other hand, what life brings over and over is real change - events that, at least at first, baffle us and, if we’re caught in complacent smugness, dull and out of shape, deplete or eradicate our way of life and us. 

                                          
                                                 pluralism: a community of modern health-care professionals

               

         To balance or focus this value called “freedom”, in the same manner as wisdom balances and focuses courage, society must teach love. Brotherhood. Agape. Similarly, as wisdom plus freedom yielded work, so freedom plus love equals democracy.

        A society with a wide range of behaviors or lifestyles being practiced among its citizens must teach these same citizens to respect one another’s sensibilities and rights, or the society will be constantly torn by violence between its various factions. No matter which wins, some of the society’s versatility will be lost, which amounts to a net loss for all. Thus, some form of love for one’s fellow citizens is taught by the vast majority of successful societies and has been so taught for centuries.