On Fear and Quantum Mechanics

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

John Rhys-Davies is a rare commodity in Hollywood these days. Best known for his portrayal of Gimli, the King of the Dwarfs in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Rhys-Davies has stood up to the political correctness that has calcified Tinsel Town into a liberal monolith. He believes kimono-opening comments he has made have cost him friends as well as opportunities for other roles.

Rhys-Davies has extolled the virtues of free speech, disagreement, and debate that simply cannot be tolerated in the enlightened utopia of Southern California. He compounds his sin by stating in reference to his new film, “Peter: The Redemption”,

“I think the film touches on something fairly important – whether you are a Christian or not, we are all heirs to Western European Judeo-Christian civilization, and your right to have your opinions directly comes from the Christians.”

Such comments are enough for Hollywood to edit the Gimli character out of all future releases of the “Lord of the Rings” special edition boxed set. Disagreement is one thing but then compounding it by crediting Christianity for anything positive? That merits banishment to Mordor!

The PC virulence that seethes in Hollywood is just a little ahead of where the rest of our society is. Tolerance is practiced in reverence as long as you believe what the purveyors of PC preach. However, may the fires of Hell itself consume you if you challenge the mandated groupthink.

What is it about Marxist/Socialist conformity that is so seductive to so many? Why is it such an easy sell? Anyone making a reasonable and objective study of the history of the world for the last hundred years can reach no other conclusion but that collectivism fails completely in its promises. Rather than producing equality, prosperity, and freedom; it instead maximizes poverty, misery and death. It can’t be argued yet if given the chance, half our country would choose the socialist path today.

Granted, we have become an increasingly ignorant society and the history of our founding is taught with hostility towards our founders and their principles, if it is taught at all. However, there has to be something at a more personal level that so many are acquiescing to.

I believe it boils down to one thing – uncertainty. Uncertainty and the fear it produces. To be human is to have fear and apprehension about the future. Whether it’s about our health or that of a loved one, our concern for our jobs, the safety of our children, or the ability to continue to live financially independent, we all have fears and concerns about the future. And therefore, much of our waking activity is focused on reducing uncertainty about these concerns and in turn, lessen our fear.

Fear is the ultimate motivator and the utopian pied pipers understand this very well. Virtually all of the Left’s talking points today are fear producing. They frantically claim global warming is going to destroy the planet or the police are out to get you or capitalists are stealing your money or Christianity is based on hatred. Instill fear and the masses’ hearts will follow.

So once the demon is unleashed, the Left then has a freedom robbing remedy ready to go. So what if you give up some of your freedom and autonomy? We are going to make sure you have some money or some food or protection from violence or a roof over your head. You don’t have to worry or fear anything.

Great, but what happens when all uncertainty is removed? Striving stops. Invention stops. Innovation stops. The familiar phrase, “necessity is the mother of invention” can be better stated as “fear and the reduction of uncertainty is the mother of invention”.

Which brings me to quantum mechanics. Yes, quantum mechanics. You know, the branch of physics that deals with the behavior of subatomic particles, wave-particle duality and most importantly, the uncertainty principle.

Unlike the macro-world where everything is consistent and predictable, the subatomic world beneath all our existence is highly chaotic, a roiling sea of unpredictability. Physicist Werner Heisenberg formulated his famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (you Breaking Bad fans should know this) stating that it is impossible to measure the position and momentum of a subatomic particle with one hundred percent certainty. Positions of a particle at any point in time only have a certain probability and we can’t know for sure ahead of time just what their position might be.

However, out of the chaos and uncertainty that characterizes the subatomic world, we get this beautifully certain and stable macro-world. Gravity works consistently. My desk is always solid. The gas in my car’s cylinders always combusts as it should.

I believe capitalism is highly analogous to the quantum mechanics reality. Out of the roiling sea of individual human efforts, out of all of the chaos that exists in the millions and millions of unpredictable individual transactions all intended to reduce personal uncertainty, rises this beautifully efficient and stable societal form. The economy grows, lifestyles improve, knowledge increases, and optimism abounds. Yes, there is some failure and suffering on an individual level but society as a whole flourishes.

Utopians essentially say though, if a few suffer than we all must suffer. Therefore, they strive to remove all possibility of adversity and constrain us to rigid egalitarianism that saps all vitality and striving from a society. How about instead we return to capitalism and though a few might fail, they will still be better off than all of those occupying Utopia.

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