Consider this: development and continued viability of life critically and essentially depends upon continued generation of diversity on many levels---genetic variability is but one (proteomic variability is almost certainly far more important). Many of these genes are not "good", and that leads eventually to a speciation hierarchy composed of predators and prey. All are essential to the ecosystem and the well-being of its members. Homogeneity is self-destructive, and eventually lethal to all. Imagine if the world were only composed of one single species: sharks. How would they survive? They can't even prey effectively on one another.
I submit that this principle works out on many other levels as well, including levels that seem more relevant to civilization, i.e., the development of ideas, principles, laws, morals, codes of conduct, policies and procedures, etc. The viability of us all depends critically on the extent to which variability in these is allowed to flourish.
Taking an example closer to home from the perspective of this thread, TA critically depends upon diversity and variability in stock prices, which in turn depends upon various ideas among bulls and bears about what a stock is worth. We quantify this as volatility---the beta statistic, for example. If everybody thought the same way, the bid/ask would at the limit be fixed, just as it is in most retail situations. Bargaining would not occur, trading would be impossible, TA nonexistent, and the exchanges of the world would close. Stocks would be purchased just like you purchase a loaf of bread.
My point is threefold: (1) like it or not, our viability and continued development as individuals and as a society and civilization depends upon continuous generation of variability in myriad forms; (2) this principle is the ultimate reason why the Bill of Rights has been profoundly successful to the enrichment of us all; (3) anything that tends to facilitate generation of variability should be encouraged, anything that tends to squelch such variability should be discouraged----regardless of the short-term consequences.
I find it supremely ironic that generation of variability is generally and universally required, yet generally and universally resisted---not just by you and me, or entire societies, but even at the physical level: Newton's first law of motion can be paraphrased to say that all matter resists change. Were it not for the fact that thermodynamics mandates just the opposite---the preferred state of all energy is dissipation, delocalization, chaos, change---most chemical reactions and life itself could never occur.
Thank God for entropy, and thank God for the Bill of Rights---civilization's equivalent of the laws of thermodynamics. I don't have to like it, but I do have to depend on it for survival.
....all IMHO, of course.
T |
