The Good Guys Always Win in Overtime

A further observation on the interplay of good with evil, as we see it writ large in history, or writ small in our daily lives: the typical dynamic is very much that of death and resurrection. The story of the New Testament is the logos of all creation. This is so because everywhere, evil has the tactical advantage, while good has the strategic advantage. Therefore, evil always appears to be winning until the very end, when suddenly, deus ex machina, evil collapses and good comes again in glory.

In the Second World War, a stark battle between good and evil, Hitler could not seem to lose until well into the war. France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Jews all died and rose again (the last as Israel). Just as surely, Japan and Germany, after historic unconditional surrenders, complete defeat, rose from the destruction wrought on them by their own leaders. Britain and the Soviet Union were both saved by the slightest of odds, at the last possible moment: by a margin of a few planes, and in the German stall within sight of Moscow. God intervened with ice and fire. It was as miraculous as the Angel of Mons.

Similarly in some of the other examples we cited yesterday: IBM conquered Apple and took over its market—and then was crushed by Dell and others. Today, IBM is driven right out of the business, while Apple is more profitable than ever, albeit not really from its desktops. Microsoft crushed Netscape—but now looks like it will lose out (mark my words here) in the browser wars to Firefox and Google. Meantime, Netscape seems to have found new spark as a news aggregator—watch this space.

It is hard to believe now, but nobody in the chattering classes saw the fall of the Berlin Wall coming. Just the reverse: all the bright and informed people in the Seventies and Eighties were either warning us that the Soviets had a wide and growing military edge, or arguing that we would have to become gradually more like them. The democratic West was on the way out; the Soviets were the wave of the future. Right up until they collapsed.

The same—mark my words—will happen one day to China. Do not invest; do not pass Go.

Many of the nations of Eastern Europe are now undergoing an economic resurrection: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary. Nothing bears like land just burned over.

And so it goes. A roller coaster ride every time, even though the outcome seems pre-ordained. Perhaps God just likes to keep things interesting.