Right side of history?

Reader question:

Please explain “right side of history” in this sentence: Gay proponents claim to be on the right side of history.

My comments:

Supporters of gay rights believe they’re doing the right thing.

That is, if history be the judge.

In other words, they think posterity will judge their current position favorably. Simply put, they think future generations will take their side.

As humans, we move by taking steps forward instead of backward. Likewise, we tend to believe that history is advancing in the same direction – forward instead of backward.

Metaphorically speaking that means human societies are becoming more enlightened and less benighted, more peaceful and less violent, more democratic and less authoritarian and, in terms of dealing with gay and other people who are different from us in some way or other, more tolerant and less bigoted.

Societies worldwide, in short, are becoming more civilized and less barbaric.

Hence, if you do something to advance matters in this direction, then you’re on the right side of history. What you do may be controversial at this point in time, but in the long run, history will be on your side. Future generations will give you their approval.

We humans move backward, of course when we are in face of danger or something. We sometimes take two steps forward, one step back. History, too, often takes a zigzagging route, sometimes moving backwards before turning forward again. Generally speaking, though, we humans move in the right direction, i.e. from darkness to light.

That is relieving, isn’t it?

It is relieving if you care to think long term.

For time being, in the heat of the moment, we do sometimes find it doubtful whether something is on the right side history or wrong. Read the following examples to make a judgment for yourself, or, if you will, leave it to history:

1. Historians continue to debate the impact that individuals can have on their time period. In looking at the period 1985-1989, specifically the overlapping of Reagan’s second term with the rise to power of Gorbachev, and the almost immediate easing of tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, the reasons for the subsequent end of the Cold War have varied from Reagan's consistent economic pressure that allegedly bankrupted the Soviet Union to Gorbachev’s internal reforms that allowed for private ownership and governmental transparency. Many have argued that Reagan single-handedly won the Cold War. Others that Gorbachev deserves all the credit.

But those arguments, though important to the story of the end of the Cold War, leave out, I think, the most important factor in bringing the cold war to an end. Instead of Reagan’s economic pressure and massive defense spending that bankrupted the Soviet Union, or Gorbachev's internal reforms that westernized the Soviet Union, the private and mostly top-secret correspondence between Reagan and Gorbachev forced the two leaders to continue to talk, debate, argue, disagree, but also offer proposals even when they thought no agreement would be possible. Both Reagan and Gorbachev recognized that change was coming, and both wanted to be on the right side of history. But they needed to find a way to overcome forty years of Cold War ideology. They needed to find a way to trust each other. It was this trust, established through twelve detailed and frank letters that provided the basis for their first meeting in Geneva, in November 1985, just eight months after Gorbachev came to power. And 15 more letters that provided the basis for their next meeting, in Reykjavik, not even a year later. Though the Geneva and Reykjavik meetings failed to produce any arms control agreements, or really agreements on anything, their shared belief that they needed to continue to do everything in their power to prevent a nuclear war kept them talking, and kept them writing.

- Recently Released Letters Between Reagan and Gorbachev Shed Light on the End of the Cold War, HuffingtonPost.com, February 27, 2013.

2. There’s a photo in the lobby of the building where I work that I pass every day, and I never thought much about it. But then, one morning, a small detail caught my eye.

The photo shows bow-tied bandleader Lawrence Welk and singer Mildred Stanley posing with a sign that says: “Keep us out of war. Be neutral.”

The photo was taken Sept. 11, 1939, days after the Nazis had ignited World War II by marching into Poland. Less than a year earlier, Adolf Hitler’s followers had burned hundreds of synagogues, killed nearly 100 Jews and sent 30,000 to concentration camps during two days of terror that became known as Kristallnacht — the night of broken glass. The intent of the advancing Nazi regime, therefore, couldn't have been much of a mystery.

But there were Welk and his vocalist, smiles on their faces at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, as they labored against the notion of involvement in a conflict that had already sucked in France and England. They wanted to be ‘neutral” in the face of Hitler. Let that sink in for a moment.

It might sound odd now, but it wasn’t an unpopular sentiment at the time. The nation was still fatigued by World War I, which had ended two decades earlier with more than 100,000 American deaths. Another entanglement on the other side of the Atlantic was understandably unpalatable.

But all these years later, that photo looks, at best, hopelessly naive. There’s no telling what this world would look like had fascism been left to spread through Europe, but it probably wouldn’t be a place where democracy and freedom remain the ideal (even if both are often elusive). Plenty of people, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had already surmised as much by 1939.

Through the lens of history, we can therefore conclude that Welk, Stanley and their isolationist brethren lacked foresight. They were, as it is said, on the “wrong side of history.” And it is said often.

- History ultimately judges right and wrong, by Josh Noel, ChicagoTribune.com, May 27, 2017.

3. It’s crunch time for the fight against global warming.

And, despite ongoing conflict and uncertainty at the U.N. climate change summit here in Paris, optimism is still running high.

“It’s time to come to an agreement,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is presiding over this process, said in a meeting late Thursday night.

“We must do this, and we can do this,” he added. “I think, dear friends, that we will make it.”

…

“If you want to be on the right side of history on climate change you need to stand for some basic principles,” said Jake Schmidt, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “They’re trying to show other countries that there’s a significant group that wants to be in this camp.”

- COP21: ‘It’s time to come to an agreement’, CNN.com, December 11, 2017.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.