The Arc Of History Bending To Justice Is A Worrisome Fallacy

This famous saying fosters complacency that lets injustice prevail

- ADRIAN WOOLDRIDGE

Ronald Reagan was wrong. The nine most terrifying words in the English language are not "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." They are: "The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice."

This is a pretty phrase that was invented by a good person, Theodore Parker, and revived by another good one, Martin Luther King Jr. But it's terrifying because it produces unjustified confidence that history is on your side, and this has consequences. Donald Trump might well not be in the White House if progressives hadn't been so convinced that the moral universe was bending in their direction.

The phrase presumes that history has a predetermined direction. But Karl Popper demonstrated that such historical determinism is based on a fallacy: The direction of history is clearly shaped by inventions (like the internet or AI), and we cannot predict what these will be.

Every day brings yet more evidence that the liberal vision of history is wrong. In the 1990s, liberals predicted that, thanks to the 'moral arc,' democratic capitalism would triumph globally. Great sociologists such as Max Weber and Emile Durkheim predicted that modernity would bring bureaucratization and secularization in its wake.