ObamaCare and Being on the ‘Wrong Side of History’
Recently, as everyone knows by now, Harry Reid compared critics of ObamaCare to apologists for slavery:
Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, “slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.” If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said “slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.”
Most responses to Reid have furiously concentrated on his spurious slavery analogy, but I’d like to call attention to his expression of what has become a staple of liberal thought that is even more disturbing: the accusation that those who reject liberal nostrums are “on the wrong side of history.”
For some reason, the Democratic caucus these days seems to be filled with deep thinkers who have cracked the code of the meaning and direction of history. Just a couple of weeks ago the sage of Ohio, Senator Sherrod Brown, told the New York Times that “I don’t think in the end, anybody here in our caucus wants to be on the wrong side of history.”
This uncanny ability to get in step with history is, of course, not limited to Democrats who are elected. For example, a recent Nicholas Kristof column, “The Wrong Side of History,” charged that if moderate Democrats “flinch” and health care reform fails, “they’ll be on the wrong side of history.”
In fact, it’s not limited to Democrats at all, as evidenced by John McCain’s comment on Face the Nation last June “that the United States needs to be on the ‘right side of history’ in responding to the disputed Iranian elections and ensuing protests.”
Thus history, it must be noted, does not have a narrow, one-track mind. Its commands, clearly visible to those standing on its right, i.e., left, side, are not limited to the enactment of ObamaCare; they extend over the full range of the liberal agenda.
For example, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone transmits the message from history’s lips to Huffington Post’s ears that all those who fail to accept “the moral analogy between discrimination against blacks and discrimination against gays … have simply blinded themselves to reason” and, you guessed it, “are on the wrong side of history.” (I have recently discussed this “moral analogy” and some questions it raises here.)
Stone, of course, is not alone. As Politico reports:
The movement to expand marriage to include gays and lesbians has gathered force from the perception that it’s a historic civil rights battle and that its foes are, as advocates often say, on the “wrong side of history.”
Although claiming that God history is on our side is not limited to Democrats or even liberals, it is, not surprisingly, endemic among those who are fond of calling themselves “progressives.” Indeed, the idea of progress itself implies that history is fundamentally linear, that it advances from a dark past produced and still defended by conservatives and reactionaries to a brighter future that, no doubt coincidentally, embodies the enlightened policies favored by today’s liberals and radicals. Progressives are thus all Whigs at heart, and progressivism is grounded as much in teleology (“Change We Can Believe In”) as in political or economic theory.
Whig history is typically sunny and optimistic, a record of the road from the repressive past to the tolerant, inclusive present (complete with clear signposts, to those on history’s “right side,” to the still more tolerant and inclusive future to come). There is, however, a prominent strain of what might be called pessimistic progressive history, although I will argue that it is more an apparent than a real exception to the picture I have painted above.
For the pessimistic progressives, perfectly exemplified by Howard Zinn (brilliantly skewered here on PJM by Ron Radosh), history is a continuing circular struggle of “the people” going round after round against “the elites.”
Radosh quotes a penetrating critique by the historian Michael Kazin:
History for Zinn is thus a painful narrative about ordinary folks who keep struggling to achieve equality, democracy, and a tolerant society, yet somehow are always defeated by a tiny band of rulers whose wiles match their greed.
The elites may always win, in this view, but “the people” never give up, always keep fighting, and may win some day with the help of historians like Zinn, who, Radosh writes, “knows that history is not about ‘understanding the past,’ but about ‘changing the future.’” Thus Zinn may be a pessimist when he looks at the past and present, but he must keep his faith in a progressive future or there would be no point in writing his books and thereby attempting to change the future.
A People’s History of the United States, Radosh notes, is “the single best selling text of history that has ever been published — selling over two million copies — some 128,000 each year since his first edition was published over twenty years ago!” Zinn, in short, may not assume that the course of history is fixed, but he is as certain of where it should go as any member of the Democratic caucus or New York Times columnist.
The notion that history is clearly marching toward a progressive future and that we’d all better get with (or against) the program has also been shared, somewhat oddly, by conservatives, the most famous personality perhaps being William F. Buckley. His November 19, 1955, mission statement for his fledgling National Review grandly declared that it “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
A modification appeared in 2000:
We recently asked readers to suggest a motto for National Review Online. The motto will appear on stationery, coffee cups, etc. It will also be tattooed to the foreheads of all future — and past — interns. Our working version is a play on the original slogan of National Review, which appeared in the original 1955 mission statement, about the duty of conservatives to stand athwart history yelling, “Stop.” Our modified version is “NRO: Standing Athwart History, 24 Hours a Day or Seven Days a Week.”
The trouble here, on both sides, is that history is not written in stone (or even Stone). Although theologians of both Marxism and other faiths may disagree, history has no mind, no purpose, no foreordained destination, and hence — Harry Reid, Sherrod Brown, Nicholas Kristof, et al., notwithstanding — no “right” and “wrong” sides.
There is only one thing that is absolutely certain about the future, and that is that it hasn’t happened yet, and so is still unknown and unknowable.
Excellent article. One thought I had — There’s a narrative written now. There are narratives written decades from now. There are narratives written hundreds of years from now. Perspectives change over that period.
For example, I’ve opposed “same sex” marriage. I have no doubt I’m on the wrong side of history in the short term, meaning the decades that will consume the rest of my life. In the long term rewriting of history, who knows? In any case, I’ve made my peace with it. SSM won’t destroy this country — the underlying assumptions that have led to conclusions like SSM will, of which SSM is only one tiny part.
Some people say the world went to hell when people started wearing business suits instead of formal attire to the opera. Others say it was rock and roll. Others hip hop. Others SSM. The point is, there became a time when we unhinged ourselves from the past — and some of that was necessary, and some wasn’t.
Does history have a direction? Of course. We can predict mankind will continue to do the same shit we’ve been doing since the beginning — only with better and more powerful technology.
Now that Marxism is being discarded by Russia and China, funny that Democrats should say that… they’re talking about themselves.
It is an idiotic notion to believe that history has sides. Both atheists and adherents to the Judeo-Christian traditions substantially agree on this point. The non-believer in God argues that there is no rational controller of the universe. It is therefore intrinsically impossible for anyone to absolutely control the future. The typical Jew, Catholic, and Protestant hold that God normally refuses to reveal the future to us. Human beings are usually compelled to confront the unknown challenges the best they can. The great philosopher Doris Day is brilliantly insightful: “Que sera sera, What ever will be, will be, The future’s not ours to see, Que sera sera”
Hegel’s stupid stuff is popular with the intellectually lazy—and those narcissists who don’t give a damn about the sufferings of other human beings. They are the one’s inclined to believe that it takes a few broken eggs to make an omelet. One should always run away from somebody who adamantly believes in the “waves of history” nonsense. The odds are that they are more than willing to commit some very horrifyingly evil acts. They love to see the blood flowing down the streets. In some instances, such a person is an avowed atheist who wants to have their cake and eat it also. History becomes a substitute for God.
This may sound like a cheap political hit, but I will say it anyway. Republicans are less likely to be narcissists. This is a phenomenon common to Democrats. It may even be inherent in the Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama Progressive mindset. Those who are members of the GOP rarely, if ever, think in terms of the “waves of history.” They are just not utopians. It goes against the grain.
What all these people mean when they use the phrase the wrong side of history is the wrong side of morality.
The word “history” just gives their pontificating a little extra high faultin’ cachet.
As for the Great Hair Reed, uh Harry, consider his observations on “healthcare” as vacuous and devoid of sense as his last big foreign policy pronouncement that “the Iraq war is lost.”
As for a relationship between morality and letting bureaucrats and a gazillion new bureaucratic agencies in to run “healthcare” even more than they already do, I can’t imagine anything more amoral, immoral, whatever.
Despite the verbiage and their pompous paeans to “history”, the real point of Leftists here is inserting themselves so thoroughly into American knickers that they, and their programs, become so deeply entrenched so as to be indispensable.
Letting self-aggrandizing, Constitution trashing* Idiots reign in perpetuity is definitely amoral.
(*Leftists are, to a man or a woman, incredulous when you point out that Congress doesn’t have the authority to pass this kind of legislation)
As for the notion of “progressives” being tolerant and loving individuals, my experience is directly opposite to that. It’s more like their offerings to inclusiveness etc. are part and parcel of some over-arching, hypocritical shtick, how they present themselves as opposed to who they really are.
They subscribe to “the religion of human kindness”, but it’s a front so you’ll perceive them as good people.
For the record, I’ve never seen a collective of people more intent on keeping alleged “differences” between people alive and well. They (see esp. their university enablers, professors) harp on identity politics (this that and the other group versus this that and the other group) until the cows come home.
There are many poster children for this mindset. (Teddy Kennedy harped on the poverty of “the other” practically to his dying breath.) To acknowledge any true healing and society having moved on from divisions of the past (e.g., racial) means the entire foundational shtick of progressivism falls apart.
The only things that can honestly be said about history is that those who don’t learn from it are doomed to repeat it, and that the winners write the history books. But perhaps therein lies the root cause of what we see today, for those subjective tomes of history don’t readily lend themselves to the kind of learning that allows the transcendence of mistakes.
However, our Founding Fathers were (again) wise enough to realize this, hence free speech. So while I may not like you making a fool of yourself in public (Reid, et al), it is your right to do so and I may not (and will not) lift a finger to stop you. Hence letting you create the rope with which to hang yourself.
So, let me see if I have this right.
Until history gets here we won’t know which came first; the chicken, the egg or Obamacare.
But, what we do know for certain is that no one wants to doo-doo on anything.
Since Harry Reid is a liar, a socialist and an elitist why would anyone believe anything he has to say. He should be asked politely to leave the country along with “the one” and his adherents. They could take their new religion on the road, to say, Kenya and practice their government or lack there of there. I’m sure the animals won’t mind and the people won’t care.
As for whether history has sides, it does. For thousands of years, he who wins the war (literally or figuratively) writes the history. It has only been in the last 100+ years that we’ve done research into what the losing side has to say. Mostly they are assimilated or annililated creating a new society containing some of the victor’s and some of the loser’s contributions. It is the way of the world, no society has been able to escape this syndrome, so far. Then again no society’s ever embarked on a freedom based experiment either, so the jury is still out.
That said Reid and his sychophants will never rest until we are all chained to the government trough because they are not here to serve us, they are here to make sure we serve them. For the religious among us this whole idea harkens back to the very first war in which one personage promised to return all spirits (no matter what) and one promised to allow all to chose whether to return. I wonder who’s plan good ol’ Harry’s promoting. Choice, it’s just the simple.
Reid is a bit confused. He and all the rest of the people in Congress take an oath of office. They don’t swear to fund abortions. They also don’t swear to redistribute wealth, force us to purchase insurance, especially when we need it least, steal our money and give it to Al Gore and his psuedo-science associates, provide a maximum number of jobs, and provide so-called free health care to all.
The thing that they swear to do is protect and defend the Constitution. What Reid and company actually do is ignore that oath and do whatever the hell they feel like doing to buy votes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703278604574624021919432770.html
Do the word Recall strike a familiar note?
I doubt that history makes moral judgments. History does provide lessons, but people can pick their way through them with careful editing. It can be a condition of arrogance to assume history supports a position or ideology, it can also be exceedingly narrow and stupid.
Harry Reid? He wouldn’t know history if it could and did sit on his face.
The most difficult task, for freedom loving people, is to make effective improvements in our society without doing more damage to our freedoms.
So called progressives, do not do this. They believe that the only path to social improvement is through the restructuring of the society. They believe that they are on an historic path to restructuring our society. Harry Reid speaks his truth. He thinks that if you don’t go along, you are messing with the inevitable and placing yourself on the wrong side of history, as it were. Problem is, Harry believes the people should serve their masters, the government. Just like so many governments that came before ours. Just like a re-hash of history. Pretty much a world view of the weak and afraid. Not much like a progressive.
Now for my truth. Nothing is inevitable. Making the small adjustments that become necessary is the more difficult path to take and it is also the only path that will allow the individual to continue to be his own master. The only real advances in the civilization have come through individual ideas. It is the only available path to us. It is the progressive way. It is not for the weak and afraid.
I agree with the author’s idea that there is no right side of history, but I don’t really have much concern about the semantics. We might just as well argue that there is no side of history, right or wrong.
“Once again it must be repeated that history does not, and indeed cannot repeat itself, but we learn from experience if we are ready to adapt that experience to changed conditions.”
J.C. Masterman from “The Double Cross system”
Certain places repeatedly are however the sites of recurring Battles…Megiddo (Armegeddan), Thermopyle….but that is more a function of geography rather than history.
Sasquatch
No I B Bill, you’re not “on the wrong side of history” for opposing gay marriage. As a point of fact, all societies that eliminated the concept that marriage was other than between a man and a woman have disappeared and ARE history. Here’s a link to an outstanding if long argument to that effect.
http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.html
History is a chronicle of the works of the Great God Murphy, whose law is that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and woe unto them who think that they are above that law in anything they say, attempt, or predict, for that is Sin.
And the Great God Murphy, unlike Jesus, has no mercy at all, although he does have an exquisitely fiendish sense of humor that even his detractors have to admire.
To even have the presumption to declare that something is “on the wrong side of history” is to invite the wrath of Murphy.
It is blasphemy. Time will reveal how the blasphemers will be punished. I doubt it will be pretty.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=41
Best speech ever about the role of the Declaration of Independence in the teleology of history.
“About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.”
Screw Harry Reid.
“It [history] can be a condition of arrogance to assume history supports a position or ideology, it can also be exceedingly narrow and stupid.”
Is that true?
History, as a chain of events (or, at least, a description of them) can show that not all things are possible.
It is not possible – or at least it is incredibly unlikely, for example, for Communism to be a humane idea. One does not even need to catalog the horrible outcomes of all the attempts to try it. One need only refer to infinitely large set of data that shows that people are rotten, murderous, lying bastards, and realize that any system sufficiently large enough to implement a Communist (or maximally HopeNChangey) system will clearly have more rotten, murderous, lying bastards in power than any such system could possibly have and stay “decent.”
Assuming of course that any ideology that begins with plunder and treats every human as means to the ideologue’s ends is ever decent to begin with.
We know that these things are what they are, not just by logic, but because there’s a mountain of evidence – history – that shows it. Look into the eyes of a person who wants you to bow to their HopeNChange, and you will see someone who views you with at least a small bit of contempt. You’re a poor-fitting sentence in their autobiography, not a story of your own. There is no decency to be found in that.
Well put Amos, well put indeed.
I particularly like the allusion that liberals are using “history” the same way, in the past, people have used God. An unknowable entity whose support can, without fear of contradiction, be used to lend fake moral weight to any otherwise entirely debatable topic.
Harry Reid’s latest “negro dialect” comments show that “history” is finally catching up to this sleazy character. He should be forced to live among his constituents in Nevada who must wonder who in the world he is representing. Certainly not them, or us for that matter. Rosenberg once again has put the nail in the coffin of those who throw around slogans about “history”, when they really just want to reinforce their self-righteousness, false intellectualism, and elitist moralistic rantings. Provocative article as evidenced by the thoughtful comments.