More from Palo Duro Canyon

  

Here are a few more pictures from our October 20th visit last year to
Palo Duro Canyon, the largest one in the United States after the Grand Canyon.

 

 

Easy pickings, you might say, in such a scenic place.

 

    

 

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Tomorrow marks the start of the 118th Congress. As political discourse resumes, the phrase we’re likely to hear is that staple of progressive rhetoric: “the right side of history.” We will be told that this is where progressives are, and anyone who disagrees with them is on the wrong side—backwards, obsolescent, headed for the dustbin.

The phrase embodies a specific view of history, the idea that the course of human events—with whatever stops and starts and temporary setbacks—traces an inevitable upward path. The notion dates back to the nineteenth century, if not earlier: to Hegel and Marx, to the liberal or “Whig” historians, to the Progressive movement itself. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

And those on the “wrong side” of history? “History will judge them”—will judge Donald Trump, will judge Bill Barr, will judge Dave Chappelle and J.K. Rowling, will judge all the bads.

But history does not have sides. It does not take sides. The progressive view of history is not an observation. It’s a theory. It’s a myth that takes its place alongside other, different, historical myths: the belief that history is cyclical; the belief that history represents a long decline from some imagined Golden Age; the belief that we are heading towards apocalypse, or Messiah, or both.

 

That’s the beginning of a January 2nd article in The Free Press by William Deresiewicz entitled “There Is No Right Side of History.” The subtitle is “I’m a political progressive. The idea that ‘history’ is on our side—which we’re sure to hear during this 118th Congress—is a dangerous myth.”

I’m not a political progressive and I don’t share Deresiewicz’s criticism of certain people, yet I find his take on history cogent. You’re welcome to read the full article.

(Last August I referred to an article by him in Quillette titled “Why I left academia.” The subtitle was “I didn’t have a choice. Thousands of people are driven out of the profession each year.”)

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman