Truth through Simplicity

The opponents of freedom thrive in an environment of complexity. One of my favorite examples of this is when Politifact labeled as half true a statement by Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams “Gas prices have gone up $2 since Obama took office.” Politifact looked at the facts, determined that gas prices had in fact gone up $2 dollars since Obama had taken office, but after a long, complex analysis of things that had nothing to do with the statement in question still labeled it only “Half True.”

Our job as free market conservatives is to cut through the false complexity of the left and the big government moderates and simplify the issues so that people can see the truth. It is very hard to do this, because, as R.C. Sproul points out below, we have to have in-depth knowledge of the very complex issues ourselves before we can simplify them without distorting the truth. It is also hard because any errors we make will be attacked by opponents of liberty.

So learn the issues better than anyone else. And then simplify them so the average person can understand it and see the falsity of the arguments of those who are calling for more government intervention to solve a problem. And don’t worry about when the other side calls your simplicity simplistic. They are just trying to cover up their distortion of the truth.

Here’s some more related to this from R.C. Sproul:

A Great Teacher Can Simplify without Distortion

The K-I-S-S principle is frequently requested in a learning environment. The acrostic stands for “Keep it simple, stupid.” It seems we are a people who loathe difficult study. We want easy answers and we want them quickly. Mastery of a subject, however, requires years of diligent labor and study. But once the teacher has mastered his material, how does he transmit it to his students?

Certain assumptions are made in the classroom. The first is that the teacher knows more about the subject than the student. It is, in general, a safe assumption. The second assumption is that the teacher cannot communicate his mastery of the subject all at once. To educate (as the Latin root suggests), we must lead students “out of” ignorance into knowledge. That knowledge moves in increments, from the simple to complex.

The great teacher helps his students gain understanding. This may be the most vital and most difficult task of teaching. Students often complain that the teacher speaks “over-the-heads” of the students. What does this mean? It means that the student does not understand what is being taught. It may indicate that the student is lazy and is unwilling to be stretched intellectually. It could also mean that the teacher doesn’t understand what he is teaching.

Often times our educational process is a failure with respect to learning. The syndrome goes something like this: A student attends college classes, takes copious notes, memorizes the notes, and makes an A in the course. Then he graduates from college and follows the same procedure in graduate school. Now he becomes a teacher and he has a great store of information about which he has been tested yet has little understanding. Information has been transferred but never processed or digested by the inquiring mind. This teacher now goes in the classroom where he gives lectures from his notes and text books. He allows little time for questions (he fears questions he may not be able to answer). He continues the vicious syndrome of his own education with his students and the game goes on.

A great teacher can simplify without distortion. This is the supreme test of understanding. If I truly understand something, I ought to be able to communicate it to others. There is a vast chasm that separates the simple from the simplistic. Jesus, the greatest teacher ever, taught in simple terms. But He was never simplistic. To oversimplify is to distort the truth. The great teacher can express the profound by the simple, without distortion. To do that requires a deep level of understanding. The great teacher imparts understanding, not merely information. To do that the teacher must understand the material being taught.

This post from R.C. Sproul was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.