Chapter 14.                                           (continued) 

As with courage and wisdom, a balanced pair of values also shapes the behavior of citizens in successful societies’ attempts to handle the second trait of reality, quantum uncertainty. For a society to maximize its chances of handling the uncertainty of existence—the way 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. Programming each individual to strive to be versatile (the Renaissance man/woman concept) helps, but the really important value a wise society should instill in each upcoming generation is freedom, a desire to become one’s best self, and then a generosity of spirit that encourages others to do the same.

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. If an unforeseeable crisis threatens a freedom-loving society’s continued existence, it has a higher likelihood of containing a small group of people, or even just one individual, who will be able to react effectively to the situation and also direct others to react effectively than it would if it were a more homogeneous society.

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 ideas, skills, services, and products, any of which may reap benefits for all citizens in the future. Which activities will turn out to be more than just hobbies in a decade or two can’t be known in a truly uncertain universe. Some of these hobby activities will fit into the society’s economy and, in a decade or so, become simply parts of the division of labour. Others, in a truly free society, will prove to be silly wastes of time. Still others, in rare instances, will prove to be brilliant innovations that benefit all of society.

Therefore, a wise society cultivates its dreamers. Once in a while, an eccentric invents something that is amazingly useful to all. In addition, the freedom that allows these folk to carry on being eccentric is vital to everyone. 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 very long run. Pluralism, on the other hand, over the long run, works.

   

                                       Pluralism: staff of President Bill Clinton's One America Initiative 

To balance or focus this value called freedom, in the same way as wisdom balances and focuses courage, society must teach love. Brotherhood. Agape. As wisdom plus freedom yields work, so freedom plus love equals democracy.

A society with a wide range of behaviors or lifestyles practiced among its citizens must teach these same citizens to respect one another’s sensibilities and rights. If it doesn’t, 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 long-enduring, successful societies and has been so taught for centuries.

          

                                                       Thomas Hobbes, English political philosopher

In a democracy, the majority of citizens must cooperate to build into their society a process that will enable them to live, work, do business, and settle disputes without violence. For enlightened modern nations in the twenty-first century, this process is the rule of law. The law is not perfect, but we do not live in a perfect world. However, people in the majority sense that whatever the flaws in our legal system, it is infinitely preferable to anarchy. As Hobbes famously put the matter, life for humans with no system of social order in place is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”