Everything Is F*cked(21)
He then drew another circle, adjacent to the first. The two circles’ edges nearly touched. From there, he drew lines of tension between the edges of each circle, the places where the gravity pulled in both directions, disrupting the perfect symmetry of each orbit. He then wrote:
“Large swaths of people coalesce together, forming tribes and communities based on the similar evaluations of their emotional histories. You, sir, may value science. I, too, value science. Therefore, there is an emotional magnetism between us. Our values attract one another and cause us to fall perpetually into each other’s orbit, in a metaphysical dance of friendship. Our values align, and our cause becomes one!
“But! Let’s say that one gentleman sees value in Puritanism and another in Anglicanism. They are inhabitants of two closely related yet different gravities. This causes each to disrupt the other’s orbit, cause tension within the value hierarchies, challenge the other’s identity, and thus generate negative emotions that will push them apart and put their causes at odds.
“This emotional gravity, I declare, is the fundamental organization of all human conflict and endeavor.”
At this, Isaac took out another page and drew a series of circles of differing sizes. “The stronger we hold a value,” he wrote, “that is, the stronger we determine something as superior or inferior than all else, the stronger its gravity, the tighter its orbit, and the more difficult it is for outside forces to disrupt its path and purpose.42
“Our strongest values therefore demand either the affinity or the antipathy of others—the more people there are who share some value, the more those people begin to congeal and organize themselves into a single, coherent body around that value: scientists with scientists, clergy with clergy. People who love the same thing love each other. People who hate the same thing also love each other. And people who love or hate different things hate each other. All human systems eventually reach equilibrium by clustering and conforming into constellations of mutually shared value systems—people come together, altering and modifying their own personal narratives until their narratives are one and the same, and the personal identity thus becomes the group identity.
“Now, you may be saying, ‘But, my good man, Newton! Don’t most people value the same things? Don’t most people simply want a bit of bread and a safe place to sleep at night?’ And to that, I say you are correct, my friend!
“All peoples are more the same than they are different. We all mostly want the same things out of life. But those slight differences generate emotion, and emotion generates a sense of importance. Therefore, we come to perceive our differences as disproportionately more important than our similarities. And this is the true tragedy of man. That we are doomed to perpetual conflict over the slight difference.43
“This theory of emotional gravitation, the coherence and attraction of like values, explains the history of peoples.44 Different parts of the world have different geographic factors. One region may be hard and rugged and well defended from invaders. Its people would then naturally value neutrality and isolation. This would then become their group identity. Another region may overflow with food and wine, and its people would come to value hospitality, festivities, and family. This, too, would become their identity. Another region may be arid and a difficult place to live, but with wide-open vistas connecting it to many distant lands, its people would come to value authority, strong military leadership, and absolute dominion. This, too, is their identity.45
“And just as the individual protects her identity through beliefs, rationalizations, and biases, communities, tribes, and nations protect their identities the same way.46 These cultures eventually solidify themselves into nations, which then expand, bringing more and more peoples into the umbrella of their value systems. Eventually, these nations will bump up against each other, and the contradictory values will collide.
“Most people do not value themselves above their cultural and group values. Therefore, many people are willing to die for their highest values—for their family, their loved ones, their nation, their god. And because of this willingness to die for their values, these collisions of culture will inevitably result in war.47
“War is but a terrestrial test of hope. The country or people who have adopted values that maximize the resources and hopes of its peoples the best will inevitably become the victor. The more a nation conquers neighboring peoples, the more the people of that conquering nation come to feel that they deserve to dominate their fellow men, and the more they will see their nation’s values as the true guiding lights of humanity. The supremacy of those winning values then lives on, and the values are written up and lauded in our histories, and go on to be retold in stories, passed down to give future generations hope. Eventually, when those values cease to be effective, they will lose out to the values of another, newer nation, and history will continue on, a new era unfolding.
“This, I declare, is the form of human progress.”
Newton finished writing. He placed his theory of emotional gravitation on the same stack with his three Laws of Emotion and then paused to reflect on his discoveries.
And in that quiet, dark moment, Isaac Newton looked at the circles on the page and had an upsetting realization: he had no orbit. Through years of trauma and social failure, he had voluntarily separated himself from everything and everyone, like a lone star flung on its own trajectory, unobstructed and uninfluenced by the gravitational pull of any system.