How to Think About the Times and See the Big Picture

 

The First Principles Method of Evaluation

I listened to Mark Steyn’s weekly Q&A just an hour ago. Subscribers write in and ask him questions about anything in the news. The subject of countless lawsuits, Mark often finds himself in the news. A lot of listener (and reader) questions are directed to him. Since he’s covered the English speaking world, his range of knowledge is quite broad. He doesn’t just feed information to his listeners like he’s reading from an encyclopedia. He’s a bit like Rush Limbaugh, his focus is always toward larger trends that can be seen in smaller ones. He calls this philosophy, First Principles. It’s the same idea I had when naming my blog. Here's how I defined it few years ago.

Thinkers Philosophy

I’ll sum it up like this, you have to understand the underlying philosophy of current issues or you won’t know how to think about them. For instance, free speech is fundamental to life in a democratic system. Laws designed to curb speech are unjust. I wouldn’t want a communist in America not to have the right to voice his opinion, even though I loathe communism and find it evil. But I don’t get to decide who can speak and who can’t.  

 In the same way, Mark always focuses on the big picture in the world. In this case, a mafia like federal government that’s trampling citizen rights. He’s tough on the Constitution ‘wavers’ who think our founding document protects them from assault. The whole apparatus of government, the deep state, is playing by its own rules and going around the official process.

Chaos and Disorder

The Constitution doesn’t mean anything if whole departments operate with impunity. The justice department comes to mind as the most egregious one. But you could make a case that any one of the official departments use ‘work arounds’ for their immediate needs. Matt Taibbi exposed a lot of these ‘work around’ tactics when Elon Musk gave him access to Twitter’s email database. The FBI (primarily) was using Twitter like its own digital secret police. That’s the larger point of what the civilized world is facing. “Enemies” like the J6ers or Covid skeptics get treated like domestic terrorists. Many are being locked up for years, after being held without a trial for years, over “trespassing”. While in blue cities the district attorneys refuse to charge violent offenders. Presumably to create chaos and control people who want to live free.

With this idea of looking at the larger picture, Steyn doesn’t get wrapped up in the minutiae of legalisms.

Because the legal rationale is beside the point. Soviet police chief Lavrentiy Beria famously said “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”. Legal arguments become silly in a world where citizens are locked up for years for entering the Capital to take pictures.

 The West is committing suicide by allowing corruption to fester for too long. Legitimate voices are being silenced in this era of widespread censorship. It’s the so-called liberal West that’s doing it too. That’s maybe the biggest change in my lifetime. The Soviet bloc countries were supposedly basket cases led by tyrants. The West, and mostly America was the land of the free. But the important thing to remember is, without a fight we’ll lose our way of life. Mark is a pessimist but sees the issues clearly. I refuse to be without hope. I might not know the status of the future, but I believe in God and His plan for me. I do think dark days are coming for America in the near term.

Conclusion

But it will also be a wonderful time of hope and restoration. New souls with find the Kingdom, wayward Christians will return to God. In the same way that First Principles types (like Steyn) can draw on small incidents to find a larger context, Christ draws on the impersonal to focus on the personal. Financial trouble can force you to evaluate your life the same way a health event can. Suddenly, spiritual things can be seen in stark relief again the world’s system. The world a lot of us grew up in isn’t coming back. The future seems bleak right now because we’ve come through a very wealthy period in history. We mostly had a strong legal system that respected private property, speech and religion. The federal government was smaller relative to what it’s become. I don’t mean in the number of employees who drew a paycheck either. I’m talking about reach. Here is why I’m not worried long term. God is just. Those who fear Him live according to His ways. It stands to reason those who don’t fear Him don’t live according to His ways. They’ll answer to God eventually. Now that’s a First Principle.

When we surrender to Christ we can never lose. Even if we don’t know where we’re going, we get to find out. In a way that’s kind of exciting.