Are you on the “wrong side of history”?
You may feel that way if you’re a social conservative — at least by the left’s estimation.
After the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal throughout the land on Friday, the lectures began pouring down on how anyone who opposed the unions is going against the grain of progress.
President Obama reflected this sentiment in a Friday tweet celebrating the gay marriage triumph as a “big step in our march toward equality” and implied in a later statement that religious groups will need to adapt to the latest advancement. (RELATED: Obama: Ditch Religious Convictions About Same-Sex Marriage Already)
Both Politico and The Washington Post published respective pieces wondering how the GOP will handle being on the wrong side of history.
Even ostensibly conservative luminaries such as S.E. Cupp warned fellow Republicans that if they don’t change on same-sex marriage, they’ll become a “relic.” (RELATED: S.E. Cupp Warns GOP Over Gay Marriage Ruling: ‘Shift On This’ Or Become A ‘Relic’)
And one prospective gay groom in Texas flat-out told a clerk she was on the wrong side of history after the public servant refused to give him and his partner a marriage license.
It’s clear that gay marriage supporters believe that their cause is part and parcel of humanity’s supposed progress to a gleaming tomorrow.
The notion that mankind is on a happy, linear path to utopia is not a new idea. Its roots can be found, oddly enough, in the theology of Judeo-Christianity that promises the eventual salvation of humanity through the coming of the Messiah.
This idea was secularized during the Enlightenment and many philosophers came to believe that — through reason and technology — we could escape the thick mist of the Dark Ages and realize a better tomorrow. Echoes of this mentality were found in Karl Marx’s view of history as one long build-up to the coming classless society of the future.
The Whig interpretation of history, taking its name from the early progenitors of liberalism, also mirrors Marxism in seeing humanity on the road to overcoming most of life’s nastier aspects — but imagines liberal democracy at the end of road, not the egalitarian commune of socialist fantasies.
The arrogance inherent in the idea that man was continually evolving up was revealed at its apogee in the early 20th century. Prior to 1914, it was common to think that progress is imbued into history and Victorian England was just as enamored with this idea as postmodern America.
Victorian historians pointed to expanding material improvement. Social scientists looked at society slowly coming to realize its lofty moral virtues. And many saw the rapid technological advancement of the time as an augury for an age where hardship would be virtually eliminated.
Then World War I occurred. Seventeen million human beings lost their lives in a bloodbath that unleashed the full potential of modern technology and modern philosophy. The whole idea that everything was getting better lost its luster after Europe witnessed an entire generation wiped out over a few square miles of land in France.
But some told us not to fear as this massive loss of life was just “the War to End All Wars.” President Woodrow Wilson promised the U.S. Senate in 1917 that the great slaughter would usher in a new era of peace in the world. Democracy would flourish in the coming years, he said.
Wilson’s promises failed to materialize. Instead, much of Europe embraced totalitarianism after “the final war” and the world was once again plunged into a devastating conflict that resulted in a death toll that conservative estimates place at over 50 million people — a number three times higher than the previous world war.
And the planet has witnessed its fair share of genocides and senseless violence since then.
Yet, for decades, optimism reigned — particularly among those under the sway of Karl Marx’s vision of man’s future. Now the Communists are certainly different from modern-day progressives in that they loved violence, adhered to silly economic notions and wore drab outfits, but they share similar sentiments of being right by history — as illustrated when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev angrily told western diplomats in 1956, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.”
Communists, like progressives, also had no problem imposing elite-sanctioned social policies on the general population without the input of the general population.
And while progress implies — by its very definition — improvement, many Americans today have a bleak view of the future that undermines the idea that we’re on a road to one, big, perpetual festival.
According to a just released Rasmussen poll, 67 percent of Americans think that the country is heading down the wrong path. Another Rasmussen report finds a majority of citizens think the nation’s best days are behind us. And a 2014 Wall Street Journal survey found that an astounding 76 percent of Americans — an all-time high — think the next generation will not have a better life than prior ones.
Looking at our culture, you will find that our cinematic depictions of the future is one dominated by totalitarian regimes, needlessly complicated bloodsports and killer robots. Progress is nowhere to be found in “The Hunger Games.”
Which brings us back to the sneering arrogance that those who are opposed to a progressive social agenda are on the wrong side of history. History tells us that we’ve never been on a straight path to utopia. The figures who’ve promised that heaven on earth is right around the corner created living hells for those unfortunate souls who experienced grand experiment after grand experiment.
History seems to be defined by cycles rather than by a single, linear path. A civilization which is great one decade may lie in ruins the following decade. The gods of a prevailing religion may be devils of the succeeding faith. What is progress one day may be horror the next week.
It’s pretty much impossible to know who may be the “right” or “wrong” side of history when it comes to present events as we are not afforded the luxury of hindsight given to future generations.
That’s why the argument that a person must change their beliefs and principles simply to keep up with the times is a flawed assertion that relies on a distorted view of the past. To think that one’s present values stand above all others simply because yours are in vogue is the height of vanity. It’s better to judge what’s right and wrong by other means than what seems to have the momentum of progress on its side.
To paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche mocking G. W. F. Hegel’s Marx-influencing idea of history, today’s progressives think the apex and culmination of the world process coincides with the White House lighting itself up like a gay pride flag.
It’s doubtful if that will be the verdict of future generations.