Article

Comment

Justice

20 February 2025

7 min read

Just where does the arc of history bend towards today?

What happens when the optimism bubble bursts.

Roger Standing

Roger is a Baptist minister, author and Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College in London.

The feet and legs of someone walking on a white rug, beside the words Justice and Government woven in to it,

Obama's Oval Office rug.

The White House, via Wikimedia Commons.

"Yes we can!

Yes we can!

Yes we can!"

There was something magical about hearing Barak Obama speak to a crowd. The rhythm of his sentences, the rhyme of his words and the melodic cadence of his baritone delivery had the ability to hold you spellbound. It felt so positive, so uplifting, so inspiring.

The call and response with the audience only underlined the positivity of the impression: ‘Yes we can!’

It was listening to Obama that I first heard the quote:

‘The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.’

I loved it. Obama used it a lot, and so did I.

It seemed to epitomise the hopefulness his presidency embodied. Implicitly, it advocated the qualities of patience and persistence that are so important in working for a better world. It doesn’t happen overnight. It also acknowledged his rootedness in what had gone before, ‘As Dr King used to remind us …’. Obama was borrowing the line from one of his own heroes.

In fact, the quote was with him all the time in the Oval Office of the White House, to the right of his desk. Along with four other quotes it was woven into the perimeter of a 23 by 30-foot oval rug that almost filled the room.

The one-liner still delivers a punch, just as it did for Martin Luther King. However, I am increasingly convinced that it doesn’t stand scrutiny. As much as I want it to be true, and long for it to be true, I do not believe that it is.

The sentiment was of its time. Not the 1950s and 60s of Dr King, but the 1850s of the Unitarian minister Theodore Parker from Massachusetts. The germ of an idea originated with him in a sermon entitled, ‘Of Justice and the Conscience’. At this point it was a complicated paragraph rather than a pithy one-liner.

‘You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.’

Parker was also responsible for ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ that Abraham Lincoln would go on to cut and paste into his famous Gettysburg Address during the Civil War. It also appeared on Obama’s rug.

The intellectual circles of the 1850s were alive with many new ideas like progress, equality and the abolition of slavery, and ‘transmutation’ (or evolution as it would become known). In science, industry and social life things were moving forward and getting ever better.

As the century moved on this conviction continued to grow and become more widespread. By the early years of the twentieth century Parker’s thought itself had been distilled down into the single line we’re familiar with and included in popularly published collections of aphorisms.

Prosperity and progress informed the narrative of Western culture and ideas of evolution were imported into other disciplines. In anthropology, for example, this gave rise to ‘social evolutionism’ and the categorisation of societies into a developmental sequence ranging from ‘primitive’ to ‘civilised’.

Of course, it doesn’t take much imagination to recognise that there was a darker side to such notions. Here was also an underpinning for a colonial worldview and an intellectual justification for racial hierarchy. Western culture was more ‘evolved’.

These views were epitomised in psychology where, for example, in Freud’s Totem and Taboo (1913) he speaks of indigenous people as ‘the most backward and miserable of savages’, comparing the way they live with features of a neurosis and mental disorder.

The carnage of the First World War effectively popped the bubble of an overly optimistic ‘progressivism’. I do wonder whether we are now at another ‘bubble popping’ moment in the West.

Is your ‘bubble of optimism’ in danger of popping, or has it even popped already, like mine?

In the decades since the Second World War we have succumbed to our own narrative of progress. We have witnessed amazing technological advances and stunning scientific discoveries. The forward movement is obvious, and the promise of an even better future is clear.

Then, supported and monetised by the market economy, our lives are tempted, enhanced and festooned by the latest products and services that our money can buy. From smart doorbells to wearable tech and TikTok to ChatGPT our world is constantly changing and upgrading and the movement forward is undeniable.

The narrative runs in our wider life too. We celebrate the triumph of the suffragettes, the defeat of fascism and the collapse of old-school communism. Francis Fukuyama may have been premature declaring the end of the Cold War as the ‘end of history’ in 1989, but it did seem like Western-style liberal democracy was what the world was striving for.

Then there are the advances in our shared life together in Britain. If Acts of Parliament in some measure illustrate the pulse of the nation, the direction is clear. Take, for example:

the Sexual Offences Act 1967
the Sex Discrimination Act 1975
the Race Relations Act 1976
the Childrens’ Acts of 1986 and 2004
the Disability Discrimination Act 1995
the Human Rights Act 1998
the statutory instruments protecting against discrimination in employment on grounds of religion or belief (2003), sexual orientation (2003) and age (2006)
the Gender Recognition Act 2004
the Equality Act 2010
the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013

This list isn’t exhaustive and there are campaigners who are very keen to add to it. But we live inside this narrative, and we know the plot. It is familiar to us. And it would be so easy to be seduced into a new myth of inevitable progress, ‘The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice’.

‘Social evolutionism’ was so deeply embedded in late Victorian culture that its ‘self-evident’ truth went largely unchallenged. The vast majority believed their own hyperbole and complacently embraced the fruits of burgeoning industry and an expanding empire. They lacked the self-critical capacity to comprehend the flaws in their worldview and to understand what their world was capable of in the infernal, apocalyptic catastrophe that was unleashed in 1914.

Maybe, embracing a more contemporary myth of progress has a similar effect on us. We presume that our way of life will inevitably continue moving forward unchallenged. That we have a right to experience a tomorrow that will always be better than yesterday. And that those who do not subscribe to our notion of ‘progress’ are clearly inferior, ill-informed or backward in some way. But such a mindset also lacks a culturally self-aware and critical edge and is oblivious to how easily things could fall apart.

At this moment in time the world seems far less secure than at any point in my lifetime. Our community hosts refugees from Ukraine and Hong Kong, a friend has only recently returned from working with a voluntary agency in Israel and I am about to meet up with another friend who has just flown in from the United States.

Populist, anti-democratic and disruptive forces are more blatantly at work around the world than for many a long year. Developments in AI, cyber-terrorism and digital warfare create a disembodied sense of ‘existential threat’. And then there is the climate crisis. Fires in California, floods in Europe and the unprecedented sequence of six tropical cyclones in the Philippines in late 2024 seem to have had little impact in accelerating the response to global warming.

Is your ‘bubble of optimism’ in danger of popping, or has it even popped already, like mine?

Of late I have found helpful insight in observations made by Jesus. Rather than fixating about what might happen in the future, he encouraged those who had attached themselves to him to live in the moment,

'Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.'

For those who were concerned about what might be happening and felt the world was falling in around them, he offered reassurance. He counselled that such events did not signal the end of the world. Rather, this was simply the kind of thing that happened.

'You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen … these are the beginning of birth pains.'

Rather, the early Christian ethic was rooted in God’s loving, supporting and strengthening presence during unstable times.

Writing to the Christian community that had formed itself in Rome, the apostle Paul was convinced that whatever befell them – trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or weaponised violence – that nothing would be able to ‘separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

And right at the base of this ethic that Jesus advocated was an unswerving commitment to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’

Which takes us back to Obama’s rug and the West Wing office.

On the left-hand side of his desk was a quote from President Theodore Roosevelt:

'The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.'

And that really is it. History may not bend towards justice, and hard-won progress we’ve achieved can likewise be lost, but our future will always hang on the ‘welfare of all of us.’

Well said Mr. President!

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Article

Character

Comment

Leading

Politics

8 January 2025

9 min read

Jimmy Carter: five takeaways from a life well-lived

Lessons for budding politicians and the rest of us.

Roger Standing

Roger is a Baptist minister, author and Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College in London.

Jimmy Cater stands on a convention stage looking out over the crowd.

Accepting the presidential nomination, 1980.

Carter Center.

The year was 2014. Jimmy Carter was writing his concluding remarks for a new book of reflections to mark his 90th birthday. He and Rosalynn had already been married over 68 years. He wrote:

“The life we have now is the best of all. … We are blessed with good health and look to the future with eagerness and confidence, but are prepared for inevitable adversity when it comes.”

Amazing.

Of course, I am partial when it comes to Jimmy Carter. He was one of a small handful of people who I’ve found to be genuinely inspirational. Here was a man who seemed to epitomise decency, hard work, public service and humility.

Yet his failure to be elected for a second presidential term led to him leaving the White House to calls of derision and a common assessment that he was, ‘the worst president ever!’ By contrast, his subsequent work as a peacemaker, housebuilder and humanitarian was exemplary.

Since his death on December 29 a great deal has been written. From factual obituaries to celebratory eulogies the column inches have been vast. The tributes have been fulsome.

“He was a committed public servant, and devoted his life to promoting peace and human rights. His dedication and humility served as an inspiration to many, and I remember with great fondness his visit to the United Kingdom in 1977.”

King Charles

“… he taught all of us what it means to live a life of grace, dignity, justice, and service.”

Barak Obama.

“… he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for. He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.”

Donald Trump

In more recent years his time in office has been subject to a re-evaluation. His presidency in no longer seen as the debacle of a ‘hapless and weak’ leader that it was caricatured as for so long. Not given to short-termism and often ahead of his time, as Stuart Eizenstat wrote in 2018, ‘[he] delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.’

So, what are the lessons that Jimmy Carter’s life can offer budding politicians and, indeed, the rest of us too? What is there to be learnt from this life well-lived in which Playboy Magazine, the Guinea Worm and a ‘killer rabbit’ all feature?

Here are five takeaways from Carter’s life and experience.

# 1. You can never control what happens

There is an apocryphal story in which a journalist asks Prime Minister Harold Macmillan what the most difficult thing was about running the country. Macmillan’s insightful, if fictional, response was genius, ‘Events, dear boy, events!’

In many ways Carter’s election to the White House was clearly a reaction against the events that had engulfed the previous administration. He was very definitely not ‘Tricky Dicky’ Richard Nixon. Yet it was to be events that undermined his presidency.

From double-digit inflation of over twenty per cent to the oil crisis and the soaring price of fuel following the Iranian revolution, the economy was not in good shape. His policy was ridiculed as ‘stag-flation’ (low growth, high inflation) and the experience of ‘gasoline lines’ alienated many who had supported him.

The nation’s anxieties about energy were only further heightened by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979.

In many ways Carter was ahead of his time on environmental issues. He had solar panels installed on the White House roof. His successor, Ronald Reagan, had them removed.

Then, when an Iranian mob seized the US embassy in Tehran and 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days, the clamour was for something to be done. The attempted rescue mission was an unmitigated disaster. Two aircraft collided on the ground in the Iranian desert and eight service personnel were killed.

It all added to the narrative that Carter was not up to the job.

He was president at a particularly difficult moment of history and was himself a hostage to events. Sometimes you can do your very best, make the best calls available to you and still lose.

Part of the reassessment of his time in power is that his economic strategy did work, it was just that Reagan benefited from it.

It is also believed that there were politics involved in the timing of the release of the hostages from Iran. Carter had completed the negotiations, but their release on January 20, 1981, minutes after Reagan’s inauguration was certainly no coincidence.

#2. Honesty is the best policy

During his presidential campaign in 1976, Carter famously pledged:

“If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president.”

There is no doubt that Carter’s reputation for speaking the truth underpinned many of his administration’s successes.

The Camp David accords brought an enduring peace between Israel and Egypt. His role as a trusted, truth-telling mediator for their leaders was pivotal for the process. It also anticipated much of his post-presidential work that ultimately led to his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. The Nobel citation lauded him for:

“… his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

Carter, however, also learned that truth-telling was also a double-edged sword. In his first presidential campaign he did an extended interview with Playboy magazine. The interviewer raised the concern that some voters were uneasy about his religious beliefs and feared he would be an unbending moralist. Carter attempted to say that he was no better than anyone else. He confessed:

“I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust in my heart. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something God recognizes I will do – and I have done it – and God forgives me for it.”

On the TV Saturday Night Live mocked him; secular pundits painted him as a ‘redneck Baptist with a hotline to God’, while Conservative Christians questioned whether he had the moral character to lead the country having granted an interview to such a salacious publication.

Then, while in office in 1979, concerned about the mood of the country, he held intense discussions with a cross-section of guests at Camp David to help address the situation. It resulted in a speech where he talked about the “crisis of the American spirit”. He suggested, “we are at a turning point in our history” and warned against choosing

“… the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.”

Initially well received, media coverage quickly turned it against Carter. They maintained he was blaming the American people for the failings of his own administration. They labelled it ‘the malaise speech’’. Now political pundits see its forewarning of political paralysis and fragmentation as ‘prescient’.

Over the decades Carter’s commitment to tell the truth has borne fruit. Truthful consistency over the years established a secure foundation for trust. Such trust has then provided the opportunity to work for good outcomes in difficult, dangerous and demanding situations.

#3. ‘All people are equal’

Carter grew up in relative poverty with no running water or electricity in Archery, Georgia. His mother was the community midwife, and his father farmed. Of the 200 residents only two families were white. The boys he played with and worked with were all African American.

In his 1971 inaugural address as Governor of Georgia, he made his stance and agenda abundantly clear:

“I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.”

This was no mere sloganeering or political positioning. As governor he appointed more minorities and women to state government positions than all of his predecessors combined. This was a habit he continued as president appointing a then-record number to federal posts.

Civil rights activist, Andrew Young, said of Carter:

“All the liberals I had worked with got nervous in a room full of Black people, and Jimmy Carter didn’t”

#4. Reputation is about character, legacy is the result of hard work

It is a wonder that any politician aspires to high office. The attention of the media is relentless and their scrutiny forensic: mistakes are highlighted, misjudgements castigated and personal flaws relentlessly scorned.

Carter never courted the media, and they did him no favours. When he left the White House after his landslide defeat to Reagan, his standing and reputation were shot. But he did not take up lucrative opportunities in industry or the world of celebrity. Rather, through the Carter Center he established in Atlanta, he set about his peace-making and humanitarian work under the banner of ‘Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope’.

The work accomplished is impressive from the monitoring of 125 elections in 40 countries to their leadership of a coalition of agencies committed to the eradication of the Guinea Worm parasite. With the latter, the 3.5 million cases reported each year in the 1980s, by 2023 had fallen to a mere 14. As James Fallows observed in The Atlantic:

“… as unglamourous as it sounds, [it] represents an increase in human well-being greater than most leaders have achieved.”

For over 40 years since leaving the White House, Carter put in the hard yards. His consistency of character, integrity and respect for others have ensured his reputation as well as his legacy. As Rolling Stone headlined in their obituary,

“the 39th president will be remembered for his extraordinary decency and philanthropic legacy.”

#5. A moral centre

Jimmy Carter was clear about how his faith defined, motivated and sustained him.

Speaking to a convention of Methodists he shared:

“I am a peanut farmer and a Christian. I am a father, and I am a Christian. I am a businessman and a Christian. I am a politician and a Christian. The single most important factor in my own life is Jesus Christ.”

It was his grasp of the message of Jesus that inspired and animated his life of service. It was his faith relationship with Jesus that nourished and energised him.

On another occasion he was quite clear:

“My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

That just leaves the tale of the ‘killer rabbit’.

While out fishing in 1979 a swamp rabbit began swimming toward his boat. Taking an oar, Carter chased the creature off with a few flicks of water. It was the sort of stupidly trivial incident that no one involved would ever normally remember – until the press got hold of it. The Washington Post ran the headline “President Attacked by Rabbit” along with a cartoon entitled “PAWS”, parodying the hit movie “JAWS”.

The story was a PR nightmare and was milked by a hostile press for a week. It reinforced their narrative of Carter as a helpless laughingstock, a bumbler flailing around and not up to the task.

The story was a cheap shot. But Carter appeared not to have been left bitter about it. When his biographer Jonathan Alter raised the story for discussion, “He smiled ruefully.”

Jimmy Carter (1924-2024). As his friend Bob Dylan said: