The Laziest Liberal Argument: “The Side of History”
7th December 2015
In his lamentable speech last night, President Obama concluded that we could be confident of defeating ISIS because we are “on the right side of history.” As though “history” cares about us, and has something tangible like the force of gravity to bring to someone’s side. It’s what substitutes for gravitas among liberals. As the Wall Street Journal commented this morning, “History is made, not delivered as a birthright, and victory against killers has to be won.”
“The right side of history” is perhaps the laziest trope in the liberal lexicon, but it has a serious intellectual pedigree. By coincidence, this morning I was re-reading Leo Strauss’s lecture “Progress or Return?”, and came across this long passage that explores not the depths, but the total abyss, behinds this commonplace cliché.
This slogan is a pure reflection of the ‘progressive’ belief that Progress Is Inevetable (progress being defined as things going their way) and that history inevitably moves in their direction, and their ain’t nothin’ you kin do about it.
The connection with the Hegelian thought behind Marxism is obvious, and organic.