Here’s a great expression, one of my favorites: “What’s the big idea?”

There’s a lot more behind this phrase than it might seem.

It’s not just something random you (or, as the case may be, a character in a 1930s Disney cartoon) say when someone runs into you on the street.

In fact, it’s an instant challenge to the entire worldview of the person you’re mad at. With just a few words, you’re accusing them of being duped into some grand scheme or vast conspiracy, something that has scrambled their brains into doing something wrong to you.

In some cases, “what’s the big idea?” would be a reasonable question.

For example, if you’re a member of the nobility getting guillotined in 1793, there’s a straightforward answer. The “big idea” is Jacobinism.

If you’re a tsar getting shot in the basement of a Russian palace in 1918, the big idea is Bolshevism.

If you’re a protester getting punched at a political rally in 2016, the big idea is Trumpism.

Those are clear examples of cases in which it’s generally, if not universally, frowned upon to let the Big Idea dictate your actions. If you use the phrase “what’s the big idea?” what you’re really saying is that having a Big Idea is no excuse for guillotining, shooting, or punching someone.

Most of the time, most people think that life is much easier without Big Ideas. We can all just get along if no one is worrying about Big Ideas.

And in general, there is not a Big Idea in play when someone is behaving badly. That’s true in my life.

When I cut that guy off on Route 2, it wasn’t for some noble reason. It was just because I was trying to save two seconds. When I barged into that group of tourists turning the corner outside my office, it wasn’t in pursuit of some lofty goal—it was just because I was too lazy to put my phone down for 90 seconds. When I am cold and unfriendly to every pedestrian I ever come across, it’s not out of some consciously-formed habit. It’s because I am from Massachusetts and that is how Massholes behave toward each other.

On the other hand, maybe it is good to have Big Ideas driving your day-to-day actions.

Think of another phrase: “Where is that written?”

If you’re like me, you first heard this expression watching the cult classic The Princess Bride.

“Well, who says life is fair? Where is that written? Life isn’t always fair,” the grandfather tells the impatient grandson.

He’s joking, but it is true that any time we are called upon to justify our own behavior, our first instinct is going to be to appeal to some authority, some precedent that has long defined the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

Since the time of Hammurabi, humans have looked to a written code, specifically, to set norms.

Back then, the rules were clear: Eye for an eye. If you cut me off on the freeway, I’m going to track you down until you stop and then key your car.

Eventually, the code changed. We live in a democracy, and supposedly we’ve agreed to the rules, which are not to hunt someone down if they cut us off on the off-ramp. Instead, we are supposed to peacefully give them the bird and hope that a police officer is nearby to impose justice.

At Notre Dame, we don’t even have to think about the right and wrong ways to behave, because it’s all spelled out in detail in du Lac, and we all have that internalized … right? Right?

But although we may not have, at our fingertips, all the guidelines laid out in du Lac, or the Indiana Code, or the U.S. Code, or the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we understand that there is a reason those rules were written down in the first place.

They are the reason we can have nice things like, off the top of my head, a golden dome. Without those rules, we would have to worry about rival tribes coming in to strip the gold off the dome, not to mention looting all our riches and stealing our livestock.

Yes, we have people with guns enforcing the codes. But more importantly, we have a collective sense that we really are better off acting as if we’re obeying some written set of rules all the time, and that it’s nice to live in a place and time with all these rules.

By all means, let’s avoid bad Big Ideas like Bolshevism. But once we’ve done that, let’s get out there and inflict some big ideas on each other.

Joseph Lawler graduated from Notre Dame in 2008. He served as managing editor for the American Spectator, edited RealClearPolicy, and currently serves as the Economics Writer for the Washington Examiner.