{"id":38574,"date":"2011-08-12T10:52:53","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T15:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=38574"},"modified":"2011-11-26T18:54:39","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T23:54:39","slug":"the-long-side-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/08\/12\/the-long-side-of-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long Side of History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair Socioblog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Peter Berger* takes issue<\/a> with the phrase \u201con the wrong side of history.\u201d \u00a0Mostly, he takes issue with those who use that phrase. Specifically, he refers to proponents of gay marriage who claim that the Defense of Marriage Act is \u201con the wrong side of history\u201d (or in Berger\u2019s acronym, OTWSOH) The trouble with this statement, Berger says, is that \u201cwe cannot know who or what is on the right side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berger is correct (though he doesn\u2019t offer much explanation) because the history that people are referring to hasn\u2019t happened yet. The history of OTWSOH is the future, and we can\u2019t know the future. \u00a0However — and here\u2019s where Berger is wrong — we can make a pretty good guess about some things that will happen, at least in the short-run future. We can look at the trend — Americans becoming more accepting of gay marriage — and predict that the trend will continue, especially when we see that the young are more accepting than the old.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But beyond the short-run, who knows? It\u2019s possible that the values, ideas, and even facts that are right today will, decades or centuries from now, be wrong. \u00a0So it may turn out that at some time in the future, people will think that gay marriage is a plague on civilization, that human slavery is a pretty good idea, that Shakespeare was a hack, and that Kevin Federline was a great musician.<\/p>\n

The trouble with asking history, \u201cWhich side are you on?\u201d is that history doesn\u2019t end. It\u2019s like the possibly true story of Henry Kissinger asking Chou En Lai about the implications of the French Revolution. Said the Chinese premier, \u201cIt\u2019s too early to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

At what point can we say, \u201cThis is it. Now we know which side history is on\u201d? \u00a0We can\u2019t, because when we wake up tomorrow, history will still be rolling on. Duncan Watts, in\u00a0Everything Is Obvious… Once You Know the Answer<\/a>, makes a similar point using the historical film \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.\u201d The two robbers flee the US and go to Bolivia. Good idea? Since we know how the movie ends — that sepia freeze frame — we can safely say, \u201cNo, bad idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But if we had stopped the movie twenty minutes earlier, it would have seemed like a good idea. The vindictive lawman and his posse were about to find and kill them. A few minutes later in the film, Bolivia seemed again like a bad idea \u2013 it was a miserable place. Then, when their robberies in Bolivia were easy and lucrative, it seemed again like a good idea. And then, they got killed. Butch was 42, Sundance 31.<\/p>\n

But history is not a movie. It doesn\u2019t end. So at least for the long run, the OTWSOH argument claims certainty\u00a0 about what is at best speculation. It says, \u201cWe know what will happen, and we know that we are on the right side of history, and those who are not with us are on the wrong side of history.\u201d Some religious folks make similar claims not about history but about God.\u00a0 \u201cWe are on God\u2019s side,” they say, “and those who disagree with us are against God.\u201d\u00a0 They tend to populate the political right.\u00a0 The OTWSOH argument, Berger says, “comes more naturally to those on the left,”\u00a0mostly because that is the side that is pushing for historical change.\u00a0 The two sides are indulging in a similar fallacy — knowing the unknowable — a fallacy which, to those who don’t share their views, makes them appear similarly arrogant.<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

* Yes, this is the same Peter Berger whose\u00a0Social Construction of Reality\u00a0(co-written with Thomas Luckman), published forty-five years ago, has an important place in sociology\u2019s relatively short history.<\/p>\n

HT:\u00a0Gabriel Rossman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair Socioblog. Peter Berger* takes issue with the phrase \u201con the wrong side of history.\u201d \u00a0Mostly, he takes issue with those who use that phrase. Specifically, he refers to proponents of gay marriage who claim that the Defense of Marriage Act is \u201con the wrong side of history\u201d (or in Berger\u2019s acronym, OTWSOH) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23384,253,272,85,693,42,54],"class_list":["post-38574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-history","tag-marriagefamily","tag-politics","tag-public-opinion","tag-religion","tag-sexual-orientation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38574"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42412,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38574\/revisions\/42412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}