Sherlock Holmes, Karl Marx, & the Intellectual Life of the Christian

Recap

In our last article, “Just Tell Me the Rules Already!” I discussed my intuitive battles as a child trying to discern the rules for every venue of life and how that matured into a pursuit of the consequential “whys” of those rules. I was not looking for loopholes or escape hatches, but was seeking moral, ethical, and successful social anchors to bring harmony and peace to my life with others… including God.

Then, to end that discussion, I made what to some may have seemed a non sequitur, saying, “And, believe it or not, this is where Marxism comes in.”

Were You Listening Andrew?

This brings us back to my child days, watching TV, going to movies, listening to adults talk about the world in both academic and social settings… often when they did not know that I was keenly paying attention. “Surely that little boy playing on the floor with those blocks isn’t listening.” I’m sure our voices are not carrying through the air ducts to the kids bedrooms. “That droopy-eyed kid in the back row isn’t even listening to me!” Au contraire, mes seigneurs!

Classical Liberals

I discerned early that classical liberals had a tendency to equate “rational” with unemotional… and that unemotional meant disregarding silly things like religion, faith, loyalty, friendship, community, social outcomes, devotion, morals, ethics, manners, subtlety in communication, marriage, family, patriotism, etc. Even Love, after all, is, I’ve heard it claimed, just a chemical reaction whether in paramours or mothers… Freedom means being free from such pseudo-attachments. Sex however is a biological drive that should be freely exercised with whoever, whenever.  

Sherlock Holmes’ Logical Folly

For example, in the recent show Elementary, Sherlock, because he is so rational, has decided that mundane elements of life such as sexual restraint and relational fidelity were for those lesser emotional creatures who have proven unable to escape to a pure freeing of the mind without such unnecessary constraints. The character does grow out of this as the show continues, but his early commitments provide nearly perfect examples of the kind of thing I was observing.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Emotions

It often seemed to me that classical liberals believed that there was no rational reason to value those near you more than you should value those far from you, your own children more than you valued other people’s children. That was the stuff of irrationality in its purest form. So also, the body is a machine and there seemed to be no reason to add artificial constraints invented by others for emotional rather than rational reasons. Truth was truth and should be followed no matter what the actual outcomes of that truth for a society in the thrall of petty emotional attachments. It assumed, therefore, that philosophical materialism (nothing exists but matter, animated or not) was the only way to be rational about the world.

Devils in a Liberal Guise

I also discovered that there was this other group, often mistaken for the latter, because of their general acceptance of philosophical materialism and profession of being rational in their discovery of the true way of things. They came with many labels, partly because they seemed to work hard at avoiding labels and definition. They were the left, progressives, Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Critical Marxists, Post-modernists, Social Justice warriors and others… who all had the same essential beliefs and behaviors of those we were taught to call Nazis and fascists, but for some reason insisted they were different animals altogether.

The Demonic “Whys”

This group professed themselves to hold the key to every “why”. The world was unfair, not because people were flawed in some way, but because it was held prisoner by the very things that classical liberals disregarded as emotional rather than rational. Everything that was established in a society was established by oppressors to enslave the oppressed. If only we could escape it all, burn it all down, surely something beautiful would rise spontaneously like a phoenix from the ashes, free of these artificial constraints. Mankind could be reset to factory settings… unselfish, pure, communist.

Demonic Expectations

In a perfect world there would be no cultural norms (There is no such thing as “should!”) There would be equal outcomes regardless of personal input (End all inequity!) The answer to every uncomfortable “why” is oppression and the solution is disruption, resistance, and revolution. Every unequal outcome is an excuse to accuse and hate and revolt. Every rule should be disobeyed, every principle declared problematic. Every system disrupted, unraveled, and overthrown.

Hedonism or Bust

Want to cheat on your husband and are upset that people will think bad things about you for doing so? You are oppressed by morals invented by men to hold women down.

Don’t want to work and resent having to do so to get food, clothes, and shelter… or the newest Xbox? You are oppressed by economic systems designed by greedy people to rob you of your just due.

Angry that you were born in the wrong body? You are oppressed by mentally ill people (phobic) whose fear of difference made them invent things like male and female and heterosexuality so they could take control over everyone else. You will never be free until you burn this oppressive civilization to the ground.

I could do this all day.

Voices in the City Square

So, as a child looking for “whys” I found all these people crying out in the city square to give me “whys”. These “whys,” however, never seemed to lead to anything good beyond the short-term pleasures of instant gratification… and they stood in defiance of the “whys” I’d been seeing in the Bible.

Biblical “Whys” and the Path of Life

We are not spontaneous accidental products of chemistry. We have a creator who gives us meaning and purpose and mission. That Creator offered us a beautiful world in need of cultivation. We rebelled against our maker and sought our own selfish designs.

Thus the worlds that man can make are ugly and corrupt. God did not abandon us to our own devices, however, but gave us, in addition to the preaching of sky and wind and water, His Word. His Word, read properly, reveals that path of life for man.

Sinful man struggles to keep that path even when he wants to. Many, because wisdom is hard, prefer ironclad rules, missing the soul of the journey. Still others seek out loopholes to excuse sinful behaviors while pretending to walk that road.

Man needs help from God Himself to find the path of life, understand the path of life, and keep the path of life. Because there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death. God has laid before us in His word, life and death, and pleads with our souls that we might choose life. Jesus came to repair that damage done by man with His maker. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly.

Some are Really Trying to Make a Better World

There are a lot of people, however, and most have no interest in the path of life laid out for us by our maker. They want what they want when they want it and how they want it, and they won’t thank you for interfering with them.

Still, evil corruption, and the dire consequences of it, grow tiresome. Men want the benefits of the path of life, even when they don’t know how to get them. So they try many things and… if they pay attention to outcomes, can discover many things about the way the world works best.

A Few Nuggets on Goodness

It’s a better world if people don’t go around killing each other willy-nilly.

There is no better world possible than one in which sexual restraint, marital fidelity, and secure and committed marriages between one man and one woman predominate. It creates stable children who grow into stable and productive adults.

People work harder if they get to keep and control the spending of what they produce.

Property rights are a great incentive to production.

Money and banks are a great boon to average people, who gain access through them to much greater control over their lives and outcomes.

No system of economics has done more for the poor than free market capitalism.

No better system of justice has done more for any nation than a government dedicated to preserving natural rights, viciously punishing those who violate them, and keep focused on referring the lives of free citizens than in trying to control the lives of free citizens.

Providing things that your fellow man needs or wants will earn you far more in life and make a better world than if everyone keeps trying to rob those who produce rather than producing themselves.

Good management of human effort is a great gift to those best employed in hard work and following orders. We should value and reward good managers.

Some Advice on Doing Better

Our world is complex. Outcomes can be complex.

Reject simplistic answers to your angry heart’s questions.

Discover what leads to human thriving and stable societies and good world. And, for my money, this is best found in discovering and understanding the path of life laid out for us in Holy Writ.

So when your heart rages at the unfairness of life, and you feel called to protest and disruption and revolt by those cultivating and orchestrating this rage toward revolution, stop! Stop and think.

Don’t hope for some spontaneous goodness to emerge out of the seven deadly sins let run amuck. Murder and wantonness never lead to goodness.

Don’t let revenge and envy rob you of peace and joy and make you a pawn in other people’s designs for gaining power over their fellow man.

Learn about what really works for the good of man… history, economics, systems proven through spreading human thriving.

Recognize the personal responsibility that most have in their own outcomes.

Two Sets of Important Questions to Answer Carefully

Ask yourself these questions.

1. Where did we come from? i.e. What are we?
2. What’s really wrong with the world?
3. How can this wrongness be best remedied in the here and now.

Know that it is not enough to desire good… you must do good.

It’s not enough to feel good about what you do, you must actually act for the long-term good of others. And that requires lots of information about real cause-effect structures in your world. That requires a solid vision of what goodness looks like and the best way to get there given human nature.

With every “good deed” you imagine will fix things (Like starting riots with the police over the removal of illegal aliens) ask yourself:

1. What evidence do I have that this deed will result in goodness.
2. At what cost will this deed be enacted? Who will pay that cost?
3. What unintended consequences may result given the way people respond to the incentives it will create?
4. What trade-offs will have to be made to make this a reality?

There is no room in the intellectual life of the Christian for siding with godless people in the outworking of godless agendas in the name of feeling loving. Love isn’t what feels good, but what does good.

~Andrew D. Sargent