Even Black Holes Once Shone

The entire universe is filled with darkness. If you observe the Earth from the night sky, countless beautiful starlights fill the heavens. But not every star emits its own light like the sun. Some are fixed stars that shine by themselves, like the sun, while others are planets, like Mercury or Venus, that reflect that light. Through this invisible exchange of light among the stars, the vast universe is adorned with beautiful starlight.

On Earth, night where sunlight does not reach is not illuminated by any exchange of light. It is illuminated by exchange among human beings, making the night shine brighter than the day. Someone produces electricity, someone else produces something needed to generate that electricity, and yet someone else produces something needed for that something needed to generate electricity... As these processes are repeated countless times, what lights up the Earth’s night comes down to simply flipping a switch with a click. Of course, it is now an all-too-common miracle. As this miracle is repeated day after day, the Earth’s night comes to shine brighter than its day.

Through this miracle, which has now become so commonplace, humanity is filling the Earth’s night with light. Through this miracle, humanity is escaping the darkness of ignorance. Through this miracle, humanity is even escaping death. Through this miracle, we live in an age in which pressing a smartphone button allows us to communicate with millions of people at once. We call the principle behind this simple miracle “exchange,” and we call the society in which the exchanges that sustain this miracle are free a “free market economy system.”

This same principle is at work countless times in nature as well. More than 6 billion people are constantly emitting carbon dioxide on Earth, yet no one suffocates because of it. That is because plants everywhere on Earth exchange even more carbon dioxide for oxygen. There are countless principles like this. Adam Smith, long ago, possessed such an insight and explained the order by which society operates through the metaphor of a clock.

The gears inside a clockwork spring each turn diligently according to their own roles, yet regardless of their intentions, they show the time. The gears do not know that this is the clockmaker’s intention. This is like Smith’s famous example of the baker. When we act according to our nature and advance society, we are easily led to believe that this is the result of reason, but that is arrogance. Just as the spring turns without knowing the clockmaker’s intention, the progress of human society also develops according to God’s intention. The more a society reveals such divine intention, the more important good faith becomes. And the more faithfully such good faith is upheld, the more miracles occur at every moment, just as time is accurately shown by a properly wound spring.

Exchange, the source of all miracles, does not refer merely to economic activity. Language, law, culture, and every human action are all closely connected to exchange. We easily judge exchange by reason and divide it into right and wrong, but that is not natural. It is like saying that “yumocha” is wrong and should be replaced with “yuacha,” or that “donkkaseu” is wrong and should be replaced with “fried pork cutlet.” Acts that obstruct the natural exchange of language through such rationalistic distinctions of right and wrong are always awkward and bound to fail. The same applies equally to every other kind of exchange among people. Exchange is human nature.

Recently, a photograph of a black hole was observed in space. It is a strange image in which darkness becomes substance and light becomes shadow. Because a black hole pulls in the surrounding light with its force—its mass—the light appears like a shadow revealing the darkness. Contrary to the pitch-black black hole we had imagined, the area around a black hole is extremely bright. Looking at this photograph, I was reminded of a satellite image of the Korean Peninsula. I also thought of the government’s 513 trillion won budget. Just as darkness, which ought to serve as the background of light, becomes a black hole when it becomes the center of light, so too when government, which ought to serve as the background for the people, becomes the center of the people, the people become mere extras. Yet just as socialism, with its ever-expanding government, at one time appears to succeed, a black hole too appears, for a time, to shine. But its true nature is the distortion of light—and annihilation. Government reveals its beauty only when, like darkness, it remains in the background, in the boundless depth of that darkness; and only in that darkness can a human being shine as a single ray of light. Wholly.

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Original title: 블랙홀도 한때는 빛난다

Author: Kyeong-mo Son

Date: 2020-01-06

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&pn=16&idx=22254