Many of the events of the past proved that putting a finger in the dike of history is a futile endeavor. For all of recorded history there have been people who have tried to prevent the advance of the progressive movements of human relationships, but there has never been a prevailing long-lasting tyranny which could completely annihilate human social progress. All over the globe, there have been the greatest human tragedies in the attempt to, shall we say, keep Christmas from coming, but it comes anyhow. The innate drive towards social justice is unstoppable and has the daunting habit of leaving its adversaries and its advocates' deaths in its blossoming; the benefits and the continued battle taken up by successors. This is a lesson lost on those on the fringe political right seeking to impede magnanimity amongst people.
These are scary days in America; when one looks at the next seven years and six months, anything can happen at any moment. The dark clouds of some monumental calamity hang heavy in the air, we can all feel it. This time will be filled with fanaticism, invective, demagoguery and, perhaps, more deaths, deaths at an even higher level.But the march to social justice for all has the uncanny ability to get up off the canvas, dust itself off, and keep on trucking. So when one takes the long view of history, one realizes that midway through this century the march towards social justice will still be alive and kicking when its present day opponents are pushing up daisies; more importantly, their cause will have been greatly weakened. I say greatly weakened, because, like the poor, the obstructionists will always be among us.
I was born on August 5, 1941. That day, ten thousand Jews were murdered in Pinsk, Poland, and there was yet a bleaker period to come: the horrors of the Holocaust. This was a calamity from which, one would think, there could be no restoration, but the Jews of the world have moved beyond that time to a more secured position and can now say assuredly “Never Again.” The world now scorns their persecutors and their persecutor’s evil. The development of social justice is too vital to be impeded by hatred, bloodshed or genocide.
I look back fifty years ago, during my own time, when things were bleaker than they are today. I’m talking a time when National Guard troops had to accompany black children to school, and people in America were risking (and losing) their lives to win the right to vote. This was also a time when, on a visit to his grandmother, a young black paratrooper in uniform had to wait in the "Colored Only" waiting room for a train . A time when George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, stood in the doorway of a school and declared “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” He spoke for many, but George was wrong – dead wrong — and he lived to see how wrong he was. That was a pretty bleak time, but, as they say, the pendulum swings. The forces of history just rolled over George and his declaration. This was also a time of subjugation for gay people, immigrants and women. From these bleak times, gays have come out of the closet to near-acceptance in every aspect save marriage and the military. Latin immigrants are now the country’s largest minority and by mid-century, will be the bulk that turns non-white Americans into the majority. Women have broken through the glass ceiling time and again and a mixed-race man who identifies himself as black, has been elected president of the United States of America. All of this came out of the desolation of the 1950s. And where are the people who opposed this progress? Most of them are dead, while those still breathing bear witness to their failure – everything around them amplifies the defeat of their unworthy goals.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Arch Conservative
Their minions are not yet down to four, but two recent assassinations show how deadly they can become.
There were three recent assassinations [personal attack deleted]! But then the murder of an American soldier on US soil by some jihadi jerkoff doesn't really rank high on your list of concerns does it?
When we have a president who is a radical leftist and whose economic and foreign policy are going to make lives much much worse for the majority of Ameerican citizens then there's not a god damn thing wrong with anyone saying they want him to fail. King Barrys intentions and the welfare of the American people are mutually exclusive notions.
Keep smoking whatever it is you were smoking when you wrote this article. King Barry will be nothing but a memory come 2012. A very bad memory.
2 - Baronius
American politics has been in a deadlock for about 20 years. Congress has been a few points off 50/50 in either direction and no one's dominated a presidential election. The Democrats had very good Congressional elections last year. It doesn't mean that history is unalterably headed in your direction.
The abortion issue is a stalemate. Gay marriage can't even win in California. To judge by the latest Supreme Court nominee, racism hasn't gone anywhere. You'd have to go back to Dred Scott to find a Justice so plainly claim racial superiority.
And wasn't it just a year ago that everyone was worried about the rise of the religious right? But that only reflects the great error in your article's rhetoric, the claim that history is a pendulum moving constantly in one direction.
3 - Horace Mungin
Arch - I don't smoke.You didn't dispute the main point of my article and that is that the arc of the moral universe sway towards justice, not matter the temporary set backs like the last eight years. We'll see about 2012, but I think that Arch will take a heck of a whipping in 2010.
4 - Horace Mungin
Barinius, I'm sorry I was clearer - The pendulum of history swings back and forth from period to period, but its over riding ark is toward our (you and I) direction - because I can't win unless you win too. I can testify that things are better for women black, gays, the elderly then they were 50 years ago although you can look at many short spans of tim when thing were going badly for any of thee groups. That, my man, is my point.
5 - roger nowosielski
Horace,
I very much like your concept of "the arc of the moral universe sway[ing]towards justice," as you say - although we must grant the possibility of (I'd hope only minor) setbacks and reversals.
I'd like to refer you in this connection to my own three-part piece on BC, which is basically on the same topic: "Quantum of Solace: The Making of Modern Consciousness,", parts I through III.
The argument is rather general, but it does take cognizance of the recent explosion in mass communications and media - a modern phenomenon - to sort of insure against major setbacks. And it is an argument on behalf of humanity's progress, however slow and snail-paced.
6 - Horace Mungin
Roger,
Bingo. Set backs and reversals in the short run, under an overall ark that heads at a snails paced toward justice.
Now I must get to the articles you mentioned - Quantum of Solace.
7 - Ruvy
Horace,
I see why your writing is so good. You've been around long enough to hone it well, like a fine craftsman.
That said, I'm forced to disagree with you. The price of "liberation" for black people, gay people and women has been a social upheaval that has opened up gates of hatred between the races in your own country, left a trail of bitterness as the morality that once held the States together has been tossed out - leaving millions of broken and "repaired" families to cope - along with "comedians" who use smut to smear young women. In other words, something has been gained - and a great deal lost.
I remember hearing about this price from brave black grandparents in St. Paul who had built an anti-poverty agency - only to see their own grand-children embracing a culture of hate and failure. They said this to me quietly - over coffee and cake after board meetings of the anti-poverty agency. I would say these people are about your age.
Why were they brave? Well first of all, they had been willing to fight the bigoted establishment in Minnesota to build a uniquely democratic organization; second of all, they were willing to discuss their disappointments with a white man - me.
Focusing only on "obstructionists" only skews your vision of the whole.
But more importantly, I look overseas more than you do. The kind of culture that once represented America has been degraded considerably - and it is this degraded culture that has been exported overseas as the world's "popular culture" - trash with an American accent. That is the picture I see from Israel, where I now live. If Americans and Europeans can have a pornographic mentality, tinged with violence, it's okay for Israelis to have a pornographic mentality tinged with violence too. And boy, do they. Monkey see, monkey do!
I remember a girl standing naked on a Tel Aviv street, claiming to be a liberated woman (at age 12!) because the clothing store offered a discount to any girl who would strip naked on the street. "Lunch taxes" are now collected in secular schools in Israel, and every two-bit politician here who is anything has not made the big time until he has been caught with a few thousand ecstasy pills. And now there are at least two crime hits weekly in Israel. When I moved here, there were barely any.
I haven't mentioned human trafficking and prostitution. Don't get me started. All imports from that great western thedakar - America.
8 - roger nowosielski
I'd like to think these are excesses, Ruvy - the wages of liberalism (just like the wages of sin).
Of course, it's rather difficult to subscribe to any kind of progress given your particular predicament. Well nigh impossible.
9 - Christine
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it sways toward justice.” Love Martin Luther King Jr. and this quote is "right on"!
The only problem I have with this article is that it really depends on how you define morality! I think this is one of the root causes of the problem because each side (left and right) claims to know what is right and what is wrong. While some issues are obvious to sane and descent people (like murder and stealing), others issues are not that black and white (like providing welfare to all, even to those who don't want to work).
Wasn't Martin Luther King Jr. a Christian? What about Proverb 20: 5 “the lazy man will not plow because of winter; he will beg during harvest and have nothing”
And where do we get our sense of right and wrong? From truth? Truth is no longer ABSOLUTE, nowadays it is relative, which means it is a moving target!
10 - roger nowosielski
Justice is always right, Christine, and pursuit of justice always a noble end. And while some people might disagree as to what is just in this case or another, you'll never find them saying that justice is wrong.
Unless they're psychopaths or mentally defective. In which case, they need to be institutionalized.
11 - Christine
Good point, Roger! And at the end of the day, I believe in my heart, there will be justice for all even though there are only remnants of just people!
12 - roger nowosielski
I'm glad you're conceding in this respect, Christine. I certainly wouldn't fancy trying to persuade anyone that morality and what's right is something that's up in the air, only a relativistic mumbo-jumbo. It is a difficult argument to make.
13 - Cindy
Horace,
Excellent writing. I have just one question. I may have misunderstood this? If I didn't I would ask what you think MLK would think.
When someone says that he wants the president to fail, isn’t that the same as saying you want America to fail? Yet, there were some on the Left who voiced that view regarding President Bush’s war in Iraq. This is talk without thought.
I'm not sure quite what you mean by that.
14 - Christine
Roger, I'm not quite following you after, "I'm glad you're conceding in this respect, Christine."
My point is that morality (standards of conduct that are accepted as right or proper) are different for different groups. For example one may think it is moral to do drugs and others may not. And other standards of conduct like; sex outside of marriage, adultery, gossip, lying, fowl language, etc. One may think these are moral and others may not!
I then pose the question: where do we get our morality (our sense of right conduct)?
In these days of "tolerance", which is good, however, it seems tolerance has bred an "anything goes mentality". Morality now is just what you feel like, instead of a set of standards you try to live by!
15 - roger nowosielski
Some "moral questions," Christine, are undecided (and they may remain so). But I was addressing mainly the notion of justice. And although, as I said, there may be different opinions as to what justice is from case to case, there is no disagreement as to its desirability.
And morality has never been a matter of what feels good or what one feels like doing. Anyone who'd say that is perverting the concept in order to justify themselves and their behavior.
16 - Baronius
Christine, are you saying that morality is up in the air, or that it seems like that to a lot of people?
17 - Cindy
In these days of "tolerance", which is good, however, it seems tolerance has bred an "anything goes mentality". Morality now is just what you feel like, instead of a set of standards you try to live by!
I have not found it to be tolerance that breeds an any-thing-goes mentality. I have found it to be the inability to break out of an authority oriented paradigm. That itself is like an arc. Sort of the authoritarian vs the permissive parent. Neither can see past authority as the salient criteria in raising children. Neither gets it right, imo.
18 - Christine
Oh shit! I hope I am not being misunderstood!
What I am saying is that morality is NOT the same for everyone (we all have our moral code), and yes, SOME have, "perverted the concept in order to justify themselves and their behavior."
The truth be told, I am very black and white when it comes to morality, but that's what keeps me in line (most of the time, not always) and I don't use it to judge others.
Baronius, it is just my perception that many people have an "anything goes" mentality these days!
Roger, I do agree with your commentary on justice!
I hope this makes sense!
19 - roger nowosielski
Judging others is not our prerogative, ultimately speaking. But the language of morality is important when it comes to exhortation and forms of appeal - a different matter entirely from that of passing a judgment.
20 - Horace Mungin
Cindy, I didn't support Bush's war in Iraq, but I would never wished that, once American troops are committed, Bush's war policy failed - that would be the same as wishing death to my countrymen. I was once a paratrooper.
Wishing that the president's policy fail is wishing that America fail when one assume that the policy is designed to improve America.
the whole point of my article is although there are setbacks in the long march to justice - set backs that, at times, seems insurmountable, but in the long run, the march to justice keep moving. Its just how the Cosmic Host has designed the development of human relationship. We have a saying, were I come from "He ain't never there when you want him, but he's always on time."
21 - Arch Conservative
If MLK were around today he surely wouldn't be a Barack Hussein Obama fan.
22 - Jeannie Danna
Great article Horace! It does feel like an awakening towards more equality. I like your question [What motivates people to vote against themselves?] The answer to this is beyond me. I have been asking that for years now. The only motivation I can come up with is perhaps people see sharing anything like education, health care or opportunity as getting less for themselves. This is selfishness isn't it? I know we have a long way to go before we stop judging each-other, myself included, since I have trouble tolerating the right.
I really like reading your articles Horace and I will comment more in the future without fear of reprisal.
23 - roger nowosielski
The obnoxious right (as well as the obnoxious left), I would add, Jeannie.
Welcome back!
24 - Dave Nalle
The forces of repression get smaller every generation
Horace, I'm afraid you're mistaken about who the "forces of repression" actually are. Today's oppressors are not the oppressors of the 1960s. Those days and those problems are gone.
Todays "obstructionists" stand in the way of a government which seeks to oppress us all regardless of race, gender or sexual preference, on the basis of our desire to work and be free and enjoy the benefits of our labor.
Your mistake here is in applying the paradigms of a past era to the present and thus missing the broadening and institutionalization of injustice and not noticing that rather than lifting minorities up, the goal of the current overlords is to equalize by pushing all of us down into the underclass.
Dave
25 - roger nowosielski
Dave,
I think you and Horace are talking past one another here. I wouldn't presume it would be as easy to shake off the 1960 paradigm as you seem to suggest - not if I were a black man.
Is it right for you to so minimize his lifelong experiences with prejudice and racism?
Indeed, isn't it the case that from Horace's point of view, whatever gains there had come on behalf of the "colored people" (forgive everyone for using the sixties' expression) - whether by way of integration, affirmative action, or civil rights - it was at the hands of the government? And now you expect that Horace should view "the government" as the enemy and entrust his lot to the good intentions and honor of all those who were the oppressors?
It's a tall order, I should say.
Roger