First cabinet of Barack Obama (credit: Chuck Kennedy, via Wikimedia Commons)


As with courage and wisdom, in successful societies’ attempts to handle the second trait of reality, uncertainty, a balanced pair of values shapes the behavior of citizens. For a society to maximize its chances of handling the uncertainty of existence—the unexpected events that keep coming at us—that society must contain as wide a variety of responses to the challenges of the physical world as the people in the society can learn to master. In a scary world, if you’re smart, you try to be ready for anything. 

Encouraging each individual to aim to be versatile (the Renaissance man concept) helps, but the really important value a wise society should instill in all members of each new generation is a love of freedom: a desire in every child to become her/his best self and to show 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 of every sort imaginable. If an unforeseeable crisis threatens a freedom-loving society, 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 than a more homogenous society ever can have.

In addition, in more ordinary times, when a society is maintaining a steady state, the people in a vigorous, diverse society pursue a wide range of activities, do research on a wide range of theories, and develop a wide range of ideas, skills, services, and products. Any of these may one day reap benefits for the whole society.

Which activities will turn out to be more than just hobbies in a decade or two can’t be known in an 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 will prove to be brilliant innovations that make that society leap forward.

Therefore, a wise society cultivates diversity and also cultivates its dreamers. Occasionally, an eccentric invents something that is amazingly useful to all. The presence of eccentrics in a society is proof that freedom is part of that society’s moral code. In any society, in the long run, the more uniform its people are, the lower are that society’s odds of survival. On the other hand, pluralistic societies, over the long haul, adapt better to new challenges and thus, nearly always, they survive.

To balance or focus this value called freedom, in the same way as wisdom balances 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 and lifestyles practiced among its citizens must also teach these same citizens to respect one another’s property and rights. If it doesn’t, that society will be constantly torn by violence between its various factions. No matter which wins, some of that society’s versatility will be lost; this amounts to a net loss for all. Thus, in all long-enduring societies, some form of brotherly love for one’s fellow citizens has always been taught to each new generation coming up.