Freedom, as a value programmed into children, is useful to society. It drives all, the young especially, to develop talents and live motivated lives. But, if it weren’t tempered and complemented with love, freedom as a social value would beget cliques and subcultures, then xenophobia, then suspicion, then prejudice, then strife, then anarchy.

Brotherly love, as a widely accepted basic value, solves this dilemma for society. In Roman times, for example, love seemed so crucial to Jesus that he told his disciples to aim to live by love above all other virtues. He proclaimed that it was the one thing he’d taught them that they must not forget. Implicitly, he was saying that all other values—even courage and wisdom and their benefits—accrue from love.

“A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13: 34-35)

Thus, humans sustain and spread their societies by practicing lifestyles that may seem paradoxical to anyone who looks for all phenomena to be reduced to simple parts. Our behaviors and the values that drive them mirror the balance principle of their prototype—that is, the ecosystem of the earth. A culture is a self-monitoring and self-regulating system that is designed to respond to reality within strategically set limits or parameters—set by the values that it teaches to its citizens. Our morés can seem to be built on logical contradictions, but they are anything but. Rather, opposing forces, by constant interaction, create dynamic equilibria. 

This is basic systems theory. We couldn’t survive long in this uncertain reality, as individuals or societies, if our lives were otherwise. And the balances are tricky to find and maintain, but who really expects easy? Freedom is a precious, beautiful thing. If the price of it, over the long haul, is an honest, loving attitude and standard of conduct, there is a deep sense of justice and symmetry to that picture. A good life for an individual or her/his society is hard - but not impossible. Freedom only asks of us all we have to give.