Externally,
reality’s uncertainty and adversity are always weathering, eroding, and jolting
the body of any society, compelling it to deal with change. When a society no
longer deals effectively with these jolts and pressures (e.g. overpopulation,
pollution, drought, war, famine, plague, and economic and technological
advances) by one process or another, it is sooner or later superseded by a
society that does.
Mutualism: bee sipping nectar while pollinating a flower (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Another
interesting feature of how values drive society’s behavior patterns and morés
is the paradoxical design that value clusters, at first look, appear to
exhibit. Values are designed in matched pairs. As one value drives humans
toward a particular set of behavior patterns, it is tempered with a
complementary one which attenuates, gives focus to, and reduces the excesses of
the undiluted use of the first value. Our guide here is nature. Nature creates
endless clusters of relationships by balancing cooperating and competing
forces.
If our young
people were filled only with aggression—or daring or courage, as they might see
it—they would die off continually, in large numbers, hurling themselves at
cars, cliffs, ocean waves, outer space, and one another. But they are also
encouraged to acquire judgment—wisdom, as their elders see it—that will direct
them to practice courage in ways likely to benefit rather than harm them and
their society. Be aggressive, assertive, and ambitious, but aim to use your
drive to become an entrepreneur, a scientist, a doctor, an athlete, an artist,
or a musician, rather than a criminal or a highway casualty. Strive to
participate in your society in a way that encourages compromise rather than
cruelty. Most importantly, remember what would exist today if, historically,
there had been no humans with values at all.
Some
societies and some individuals within those societies don’t balance courage
with intelligence very well, and excesses result. But the corrections come, and
over time, the overall movement for our species, despite the difficulties or
pain incurred, is toward a social ecosystem of ever greater vigor, wisdom,
tolerance, and diversity. There were once a few hundred of us; there are now
over seven billion. On this earth, on Mars, and beyond our solar system,
nothing living sits still; we either evolve or we die.
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