Are You on the Wrong Side of History? | 5 Minute Video

Are you on the wrong side or the right side of history? Is there even a "wrong side" or a "right side"? What do those terms mean and why do politicians and pundits use them? Nationally syndicated columnist and best-selling author Jonah Goldberg explains.

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Script:

"The wrong side of history:" it's one of President Barack Obama's favorite expressions.

He's not alone, of course. It's a perennial favorite of liberal politicians and activists. Oppose gay marriage? You're on the wrong side of history. Against pot legalization? You're stuck in the past.

It's used a lot in foreign policy, too. In his first inaugural address, for example, President Obama said, "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history..."

As Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt disintegrated in 2011 and the United States stood by and watched, Obama fell back on the comforting thought that "History will end up recording that at every juncture ... we were on the right side of history." As Libyan dictator, Muammar Qaddafi's chapter on this earth came to an end, President Obama justified American policy in Libya by saying, "I believe that Qaddafi is on the wrong side of history." Speaking more broadly about the then still young "Arab Spring" he said, "I think that the region will be watching carefully to make sure we're on the right side of history." When Vladimir Putin started carving up Ukraine, the president insisted that America wouldn't actually do anything about it, but fear not -- because Putin is on the wrong side of history. The "long moral arc of the universe" -- another of Obama's favorite phrases -- will "bend toward justice." In the meantime: Tough luck, Ukrainians.

You may not have noticed, but the phrase has opposite meanings when used at home and abroad. Domestically, telling someone they are on "the wrong side of history" means "You're going to lose eventually, so why don't you give up now?" But in foreign policy, it means, "I'm powerless to stop you, but one day, long after I have any responsibility to do anything at all, someone else will say you were wrong."

In other words, when used at home "the wrong side of history" is a sign of strength -- our activism is vindicated; things are going our way! -- But internationally the phrase is a sign of weakness -- "you're winning and I can't, or won't stop you!"

What unites both terms is arrogance -- actually, arrogance and cowardice.

The notion that History is moving in an inevitable direction is ancient, but in modern times its main champion was Karl Marx. Marx argued that socialism was inevitable according to some scientific principle. Therefore any objection to its unstoppable triumph was not only morally wrong but anti-intellectual and even unscientific.

This is what the great historian of Communism, Robert Conquest, meant when he said that the phrase "the wrong side of history" has a "Marxist twang" to it. It was the atheist's answer to the religious notion that "God is on our side," and it led to millions dying as socialists desperately tried to steam roll the future with the Wheel of History.

The idea has non-Marxist proponents, too. There is what the renowned Cambridge historian, Herbert Butterfield, called the "Whig School of history" which holds that democracy -- though not necessarily socialism -- is inevitable.

This is a much nicer thought, to be sure. But being nicer doesn't make it any more true (and, to be honest, many people have died in service to this idea as well).

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