Obama has done it again, he has said that Angela Merkel is “on the right side of history.”
I’m sorry Mr. President, but there is no such thing! I truly hate this saying, because it assumes that you know the future. As with all actions, some work out for the best, and some spectacularly fail.
Beyond having to look into the future though, is the fact that the view of history changes with each generation. The best example today is the iconoclastic movements among the millennials, and their push to remove any historical US figure from public view that had opinions that we don’t agree with today. None of the other living generations have felt this way, but that doesn’t make either generation right, it just makes each an aspect of history. Like the other historic iconoclastic movements.
For all we know, being “on the right side of history” may make you history’s failure. Just look at the alliance system that supposedly was going to ensure European peace before World War I. We now know that it was the alliance system that actually ensured the massive outbreak of WWI.
So, let me repeat. THERE IS NO RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY!
The only thing history has is an ongoing debate with no conclusion.
Photo: [U.S. Army Infantry troops, African American unit, marching northwest of Verdun, France, in World War I]. [Nov. 5, 1918] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/96510701. (Accessed April 26, 2016.)