Future imperfect

Every president has his characteristic sayings. In the near future, “Let me be clear,” “This is not who we are,” and “I have a pen and a phone” will remind us of the administration now ending. Those were all understandable, if not always justifiable, statements; but one favorite phrase has always puzzled me: “the right side of history.” It sounds profound, especially to us history buffs. But what, exactly, does it mean?

It probably stems from one of Obama’s favorite quotes: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” These words shaped the climax of a sermon called “Keep Moving from the Mountain,” preached by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965. King’s typical eloquence did not obscure his meaning: By faith and perseverance humanity must progress beyond the “mountains” of materialism, war, and hatred toward a new era of brotherhood. That moral universe is probably what Obama has in mind when he speaks of history, and he’s not alone.

In recent speeches, opinion pieces, and headlines, history has taken the role of mountain sage, nodding with approval or warningly shaking its head. According to some alarmed observers, history is even palm-smacking its forehead at recent developments, such as Brexit and that force of nature called Trump. A certain rogue segment of history turned vicious. Curse you, 2016! railed millions of tweets and Facebook posts as the campaign season rolled on, crushing hopes and reputations month by month. The cries were even more intense whenever the year, with a low, Grim Reaper chuckle, mowed down another celebrity. Apparently 2016 had it in for us.

Brendan O’Neill, in an essay in the online journal Spiked, describes this way of thinking as the “objectification of history.” Recently, he notes, historians have come into their own as pundits and prognosticators. They speak as mouthpieces for history itself, which has mysteriously transmuted into something other than stuff-that’s-already-happened. It’s a kind of god, or eternal magus, like Janus who looks both forward and back. History holds clues and secrets for those keen enough to search it; history grants rewards to those wise enough to perceive its intentions.

History has no right or wrong side, and it doesn’t repeat itself. Rather, we repeat ourselves.

President Obama used the “right side” phrase often enough to gather he actually means the left side: the goals of social justice for all races, creeds, abilities, genders, sexual preferences, income levels—and other aggrieved groups who may not have recognized their grievance yet. Social justice, whatever that may turn out to mean, is what history is confidently striding toward. Or at least it was, until the aforementioned Trump rolled into its path, causing history to stub its toe and hop around like a disoriented chicken.

The real roadblock is not Trump, Obama, or Daffy Duck; history is blocked by its own objectification. As O’Neill points out in his essay, history is not a Marxian process but a human artifact. Humans are not passive observers and victims, but active participants and shapers. The apathy that afflicts many young people today (and some who are old enough to know better) comes from not believing they are free agents in a dynamic world. Instead they see themselves as loose debris in a downstream current. “History,” O’Neill writes, “becomes the controller of men, and a warning against change.”

The problem goes even deeper. When we objectify any abstraction, we make it both god and slave: endowed with limitless power, but interpreted only by priests of the cult. Here’s what history actually is: a many-legged beast lurching generally forward at angles impossible to predict or control. History teaches lessons, but never in the same way twice. It has no right or wrong side, and it doesn’t repeat itself. Rather, we repeat ourselves—human nature is the gear train that moves history and makes the same mistakes again and again. But to progressive intellectuals, human nature doesn’t exist. That’s why the continual push to remake it.

I suspect that 2017 is going to be as mischievous as 2016. But a true King holds history in His hands, and that’s the side we’d better be on.