There is no ‘right side of history’

In England, it seems you can get away with destroying a public statue if you claim you are ‘on the right side of history’. This was the surmise of Liam Walker QC, who urged a jury to be on the right side of history by acquitting four defendants accused of criminal damage after they toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston. Walker’s invitation was accepted by the jury, which acquitted the defendants.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise. Today, our political and cultural elites frequently tell us to be on the right side of history. For example, last week US president Joe Biden told Senate Democrats to ‘get on the right side of history’ and support his voting-rights reforms. The implication is that to not support his policy is to be on the wrong, and therefore backward and bigoted, side of history. In making such an appeal to the authority of history, Biden was following in the tradition of his Democratic predecessors Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who both frequently used the same rhetorical strategy. Indeed, Clinton alone referred to the ‘right side of history’ 21 times during his time in office.

Actual history, however, has a tendency to make a mockery of those claiming to be on its right side. One of the first usages of the phrase I encountered was in Harold Laski’s Reflections on the Revolutions of Our Time, published in 1943. The pro-Soviet Laski said the Soviet Union was ‘certainly on the right side of history’ (1). Given the grim reality of the Soviet Union, Laski’s misplaced faith shows that the trajectory of history cannot be second guessed.