It's an idol worth examining. It's the idol of history.
Not long before the U.S. general election in 2008, a reader of this blog emailed me, in light of my opposition to Barack Obama, to ask if I was "afraid of being on the wrong side of history." Another email came shortly after the posting of my essay in which I confessed the election of Barack Obama did not FEEL all that special to me: "Time will prove you are on the wrong side of history," I was told (I could feel the finger wagging).
A blogging friend, one who supported Mr. Obama, rebuked me at his/her website with similar censorious vigor: I, Bill Gnade, would be stuck on the wrong side of history voting against Mr. Obama (I wrote a poem that partially replied to that rebuke).
But such love of history's good side is not limited to my friends or readers of this blog. Such love reaches high places. For example, regarding Republican opposition to Democratic health care reform projects, U.S. Senator and Democrat Harry Reid had this to say last December:
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.'
After it was revealed earlier this year in Game Change that Harry Reid had used racially-charged language in 2008 describing then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, Mr. Obama came to his defense:
[Reid] is a good man who has always been on the right side of history.
What is it about being on history's good side that is so important? What does being on the "right side of history" even mean?
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THE DEIFICATION OF HISTORY
In one sense, this adoration of history is about vanity, even envy. Certain people, Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not least among them, have an obvious existential need to be remembered in the history books: their apparent anxieties about death -- of being forgotten among the riff-raff -- clearly motivate them to get attention, to seek approval; to be remembered as special. After all, at least according to the old progressive adage, history is written by the victors. Mr. Obama and company need to be on the side of history's approving stenographers, not for political but spiritual and psychological reasons: they are desperate to be thought wonderful, good, consequential. This is about the limelight in perpetuity. It's about living an enviable life. It's about leaving an obituary that others will envy.
But it is more than vanity at play, it's religion. Atheist, agnostic, theist -- it matters not. In the secular arena there is the cult of history, where history is divinized and adored (as long as it flows according to progressive ideals). History is spiritual. History is a force, a will: time ALWAYS progresses towards a happy end. It has a plan; progress is God's goal, at least the goal of the idealist's god. Hegel comes to mind here, as do other idealists who believed that the universe was driven by an unfolding self-consciousness that moves ONLY in one purposive direction: more order, more justice, more approval of progressive golden calves in a cheery dialectic. Change, progress, an increase in justice -- these are irresistible and inevitable. To go with the tide of change, to flow with history's wondrous ends in mind, is the essence of being on history's "right side." To stand in the way, to walk against the tide; to deny that history is Spirit unfolding in blessed clarity, is to be on the wrong side of history, where the gods wag their fingers in your face, shaming you for recalcitrance. It's to where history's stenographers condemn you -- "YOU! You are on the wrong side of HISTORY! We are in charge of the narrative now."
And note that the "right side of history," which is the only authentic side of history, is always infallible, inerrant. It is the place of the always correct idea, deed, policy. It is indeed the place where the gods reside, happily, given to great applause.
But there is something odd, really, about it all. No doubt there is Darwin to consider. His genius was in seeing that things seemingly change without purpose, without a guiding hand from Spirit or the gods or history. But the heretics who adore him who've corrupted his vision with ideas of progress fail to see their mistake: they've imposed a meaning on the world the world does not provide. No one can say that the human species is more progressed or more advanced than an amoeba. Darwin surely can't. But the tendency toward narcissism, and the apotheosis of history, results in this religious idea that time and evolution and progress are all connected, and that the future is a land of undeniable bliss promised us by the mechanics of Darwin's theory. Humans are more advanced than an amoeba, or so the heretics declare, unaware that they've invented that value out of nothing but their own conceit. Evolution tells us nothing about worth, value, advancement, status -- or sophistication.
But the odd thing is that no one knows exactly where we are going. We are on a journey toward some progressive end -- some telos -- that is apparently akin to perfection, nirvana. But no one knows what the end looks like, or where it lies. As G. K. Chesterton so wonderfully pointed out, the confidence in progress is thus insane. If we do not know where we are going, then how do we know we've gotten any closer to arriving at our destination? If we don't know our destination, how can we tell our travels are not leading us further from our goals?
Undeniably and predictably, progressives will scoff at such talk. Of course we know where we are going, they will assert in question-begging confidence.
We do? Who says?
Peace.
©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
I WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY INDEBTEDNESS TO HERBERT SCHLOSSBERG, AUTHOR OF IDOLS FOR DESTRUCTION: THE CONFLICT OF CHRISTIAN FAITH AND AMERICAN CULTURE AND ROGER LUNDIN, AUTHOR OF BELIEVING AGAIN: DOUBT AND FAITH IN A SECULAR AGE. BOTH AUTHORS HAVE CRAFTED EXCELLENT CHAPTERS REGARDING THE IDOL OF HISTORY.
I WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY INDEBTEDNESS TO HERBERT SCHLOSSBERG, AUTHOR OF IDOLS FOR DESTRUCTION: THE CONFLICT OF CHRISTIAN FAITH AND AMERICAN CULTURE AND ROGER LUNDIN, AUTHOR OF BELIEVING AGAIN: DOUBT AND FAITH IN A SECULAR AGE. BOTH AUTHORS HAVE CRAFTED EXCELLENT CHAPTERS REGARDING THE IDOL OF HISTORY.
7 comments:
Meaty stuff, here.
So many of these people deny any truth in religion yet seek those things which religious faith promises: immortality.
It's as if they draw their life force from the thought that perhaps, their names will be printed in some book, read my millions at some point in the future. They fear that absent that sort of universal recognition and good will, that their bones will dry up.
The problem, of course, is that if they really were students of history, i.e. of the amoral recitation of occurrences past, they'd realize that there is no such thing as immortality among men. Memories fade; books weather and rot; obelisks become undecipherable then disappear into the sands.
When one realizes that, one then sees the truth in "storing up treasures in heaven," even if that truth is a metaphor for "don't sweat it. You're going to be forgotten no matter what."
Cheers.
There's nothing noble about being afraid to try anything new. No one will remember the yuppies for anything but the debt they left us and the problems they ignored, if they're remembered at all.
Ginx, true enough. Nobility or ignobility is not inherent in action or inaction. If fact, it is not inherent in success or failure. Rather, the nobility of the action depends upon the object of one's action and the means employed to reach one's goal.
Alas, I believe that most of what goes on among members of the political class, irrespective of party, has nothing to do with solving problems, but rather accumulating more and more power at the expense of individual autonomy. The debt you bemoan is the best example. Money borrowed today to be paid by our grandchildren, so that some senator or congresscritter can use it to buy more influence with his constituents, thereby assuring him/her a place at the table of power. The cost? Indentured servitude for the hoi polloi.
Cronyism is solely a product of campaign financing, something conservatives think is "free speech." You can't vote Republican can pretend to oppose corruption. Democrats talk a good game on the matter, but they're no better because it's not even an issue. Both parties are only interested in us fighting over whether an unborn baby is a person or not so they can keep the game going.
I've said it before: I hate all conservatives, be they Republican or Democrat. And there's no such thing as libertarians, only people too embarrassed to publicly admit they vote Republican.
I'm not sure what attributes place within the "conservative" box. Are they specific stands on specific issues as opposed to a general philosophical outlook concerning the ordering of society?
I tend to think that the question is not about change versus status quo or right versus left or Democrat versus Republican, inasmuch as while the labels tend to stay the same, the ingredients shift constantly, to the point where within a few years, the labels would be unrecognizable to those who claimed them.at one time.
The real struggle lies in determining which will be of paramount importance: the individual versus the state. Stated differently, the question is about who will control the individual's life: that person specifically or the state through whatever mechanism it designates.
Those are the only two positions worth talking about, in my view, because power aggregating to one side diminishes the power of the other. It is truly zero sum.
For me, anything that diminishes my personal autonomy is presumed anathema, no matter how worthy the desired end might be. Thus, I will examine it closely before I assent to to it.
I'm not sure where that fits in your taxonomy, but labels have never interested me. I find they're used to ward off close inspection of motives and projected ends.
I really only dislike two brands of current Conservative thought-one being the mix of KKK doctrine and that old style religion to produce a vicious mentality of "Lets blame group X (Be it gays, liberals, Latinos, or TS)for all our ills, make their lives as miserable as possible and then Jehovah or Wall Street or the Red States will magically appear to take us to happy-happy land." You often find that style on talk shows such as Fox News, right-wing Christian shows like the Coral Ridge Ministry Hour, and shouted by various overweight white male pundits (again on Fox News).
The other Conservative -thought which irks me (to a less personal degree I will say) is what I term the George Will school, which when you take all the statements that George Will ever made, they all boil down to "Lets not do anything ever under any circumstances, be it recession, unemployment, housing crisis, global warming, or H1N1, since anything worth doing last ended in 1783." Going through life as a bump on a log, as Mr. Will seems to advocate, doesn't really appeal to me. Not to mention that George Will also never seems to have actually talked face to face with making anyone under 100 zillion dollars a year, so he always appears utterly oblivious to the existance of the blue -collar Joe Lunchpail-type workers let alone that lower and middle income Amricans might really be hurting and need some assistance right about now. (Ummm, I don't want to leave a false impression that I might not have warm, fuzzy thoughts about the guy, because I really don't like him at all).
RS,
This essay, by the way, was very much inspired by the author I recommended to you, Roger Lundin. I have amended this post to properly acknowledge that.
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