When people make that claim I always think of the paraphrase of Churchill: "History will vindicate me, for I will write the history."
Apparently his full quote was:
"For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."
“The Wrong Side of History” is Hegelian idealism. Hegel saw history as Ideas acting through the State to finally find union with God (or something close to that). It is not hard to see how Karl Marx copied the idea and ran with it. Then it seeped into standard Left/liberal discourse.
It only makes sense if you claim to know the direction of history, that it is guided by some spirit, and it cannot be changed.
You should just respond with “increased carbon emissions are a clear trend in history, so I guess that anyone who fights against it is on the Wrong Side of History.
Same goes for Inequality, violence and a lot of other historical trends that the Left is opposed to.
1. They will usually start be bemoaning the paucity of sources for this or that period, then spin an elaborate story over 400 to 500 pages. They typically assume bias about those few sources they do have, but again they manage to present detailed accounts of what happened. Nothing wrong with this as long as acknowledge the highly speculative narrative they give.
2. A large part the history profession seems to straight-jacketed by the nonsense of Derrida and Foucault. They basically just assume things instead of demonstrating them--they impute motives based on some predetermined view rather than letting the (reported) actions of the players speak for themselves.
3. Developments in science have been helpful in discussing some types of history, such as economic history (pollen analysis, DNA analysis... etc)
When people make that claim I always think of the paraphrase of Churchill: "History will vindicate me, for I will write the history."
Apparently his full quote was:
"For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."
“The Wrong Side of History” is Hegelian idealism. Hegel saw history as Ideas acting through the State to finally find union with God (or something close to that). It is not hard to see how Karl Marx copied the idea and ran with it. Then it seeped into standard Left/liberal discourse.
It only makes sense if you claim to know the direction of history, that it is guided by some spirit, and it cannot be changed.
You should just respond with “increased carbon emissions are a clear trend in history, so I guess that anyone who fights against it is on the Wrong Side of History.
Same goes for Inequality, violence and a lot of other historical trends that the Left is opposed to.
A few comments on historians.
1. They will usually start be bemoaning the paucity of sources for this or that period, then spin an elaborate story over 400 to 500 pages. They typically assume bias about those few sources they do have, but again they manage to present detailed accounts of what happened. Nothing wrong with this as long as acknowledge the highly speculative narrative they give.
2. A large part the history profession seems to straight-jacketed by the nonsense of Derrida and Foucault. They basically just assume things instead of demonstrating them--they impute motives based on some predetermined view rather than letting the (reported) actions of the players speak for themselves.
3. Developments in science have been helpful in discussing some types of history, such as economic history (pollen analysis, DNA analysis... etc)
Nice turn down for what post
Wasn't aware history had ended. I guess Fukuyama was right. Who would have guessed it?
A hundred years ago, the same idea would be expressed as, "You're going to go to Hell for thinking/saying what you said."
History is a never-ending stream of lies, ignorance, and conceit.
Let's not go overboard.