History isn’t on anyone’s side

Saying you are on the right side of history is just another way of saying, “God is on our side.”

History does not choose sides, it records outcomes. It does this most accurately when the events are far enough in the past that the unintended consequences have all played out.

This might seem like a trivial matter, but it has an ugly background. If God, nature or history is on our side, we can do no wrong. Those who oppose us can be dismissed as sinister or subhuman. We can justify all sorts of unethical or inhumane behavior if we believe that God, nature or history is on our side.

Such a belief has turned many ordinary people into witch hunters or war criminals. Those people were made of the same moral fiber as we are. We may take comfort in seeing them as the monsters of history, but if we embrace their presumptions, we will be vulnerable to their errors.

That alone should frighten us into a more cautious approach when making political or moral judgments.

If it turns out that historical events and their consequences played out just as we hoped they would, our great-great-grandchildren should learn about it in school. But we who lived through the events are unlikely to see that far ahead. Like all people, we will have to make our choices as wisely as we can, without expecting to know the future, and without being able to control it.