Performing for an Invisible Future Audience
Reflections on "The Right Side of History" Rhetoric
While I am aware that shoddy rhetoric comes from all sides of the political spectrum, my aim is to provide a focused analysis on how American leftist movements weaponize the “right side of history” argument. I’ll be exploring how far-left ideology, moral puritanism, algorithmic influence, and the Marvelfication of history lessons all combine to create the platform for such rhetoric, and breaking down the fallacies of this seriously worn out argument. Let’s begin!
I. One Nation Under Algorithms
The Internet was once a haven we logged onto after the day's end, a respite from reality where we posted pictures with our friends in strange analog-simulated filters. Now, paradoxically, it's the very realm we seek to escape, as the Algorithm has ascended to the deity of our modern era.
Content that is shocking and perceived as subversive has become food for The Algorithm—both in far-left and far-right online spaces. Journalists who were once obligated to remain completely neutral when reporting are now proudly posting images of themselves at protests and openly discussing their political beliefs on social media platforms. Nuance and neutrality are gone, but their engagement is up! More people are likely to read their work, leading to more hiring opportunities, and more money. Celebrities and influencers are no longer able to just act or just sing or just post OOTD’s— they’re expected to use their platform to discuss socio political issues without any credentials or prior knowledge on these topics. Why? Because a celebrity with millions of followers can cause a topic to trend, making it more algorithmically beneficial for others to post about it.
This appeal to the Algorithm’s hunger has become the moral compass of modern American leftism. If you do not post about the Current Thing the Algorithm has deemed important, you are neutral, and therefore Bad. If you do not cancel the people everyone else is canceling due to Algorithmic opposition, you are secretly supportive of their beliefs, and therefore Bad. We were the controllers of the algorithm in the early stages of the Internet, but in yet another paradoxical turn of events, the Algorithm now controls us.
II. The Marvelfication of History
The American education system teaches us that there are “good guys” and “bad guys” in history, and often makes heroes out of the American perspective. That is, the heroes (people supporting American interests) can do no wrong, and the villains (people undermining American interests) were always acting in bad faith. In their attempt to correct these biases, the American left falls into a similar trap by inverting the roles. That is, everything we were taught to think of as “evil” automatically becomes “good”, and vice versa. Although well-intentioned—and arguably a necessary catalyst due to the pervasive hegemonic historical narratives by far-right publishers such as McGraw Hill—this method still fails to acknowledge the complexities and nuances of historical events and is rooted in reaction rather than reflection.
When history is learned through the lens of “good versus evil”, it creates a hindsight judgment toward people who were not acting with any awareness of a future audience, who could not conceptualize living through the lens of a present beyond their own, but rather were just trying to get through their daily lives within their own modalities of understanding. There was no internet to teach people about the experiences of others who were not like them, they simply didn’t know better than what they were taught, what they themselves experienced as individuals. To assume most people were acting in bad faith is to have a deep misunderstanding of human nature and human history at large.
This sentiment is expressed best by Hannah Arendt in her work The Banality of Evil, written after observing the the trial of Adolf Eichmann (one of the major organizers of the Holocaust):
Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been farther from his mind than to determine with Richard III 'to prove a villain.' Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all… He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing… It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is 'banal' and even funny, if with the best will in the world one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from Eichmann, this is still far from calling it commonplace… That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man.
III. Performance as Currency: The Consequences of a Deified Algorithm
Before exploring the “Right Side of History” argument, we must first discuss the social and fiscal benefits of online performance. As previously mentioned, the Algorithm has become the moral compass of the modern American left. Through successful (meaning ‘viral and money-generating’) online activist movements such as BLM, we can assume that the digital sphere, although not physical, has significant sway in the zeitgeist as well as significant financial benefits. Simply speaking, if enough people care about your cause, you can make a ton of money and no one is really regulating who or what it actually goes to. People who are currently engaging online in leftist spaces are looking to subvert the power structures that the Algorithm has told them are Bad, so a call-to-action framed as a subversion of power will often generate the most social and fiscal currency. For example, if a musician with millions of followers posts a “Free Palestine” infographic, they gain social currency (i.e. they are seen as “moral” and “Good”) and as a result, gain more fiscal currency (i.e. streams on their latest album, brand deals, and/or artist collaborations). The inverse can be broken down into two paths:
If said musician posts a “Stand with Israel” or “Bring Them Home Now” infographic, they lose social currency (i.e. they are seen as “immoral” and “Bad”) and as a result, lose more fiscal currency (i.e. they are boycotted, less streams on their latest album, less brand deals, and/or less artist collaborations).
If said musician doesn’t post anything, they still lose social currency (i.e. they are seen as “suspicious”) and as a result, may lose fiscal currency (i.e. less streams on their latest album, and/or artist collaborations).
This means that if you can convince the online left that your cause is a subversion of some sort of power structure—whether historically accurate or not—this cause becomes a new tool to measure morality, and can be weaponized through space and time.
IV. “The Right Side of History” Doesn’t Exist Yet
The “right side of history” is a fallacy that misuses an appeal to pathos (one of the three modes of persuasion):
More specifically, this argument is a clear example of the Popular Appeal Fallacy, where an invisible future audience’s perceived opinion is used to strengthen the credibility of an argument.
The concept of being on “the right side of history" invokes feelings of guilt as a method of persuasion, using stark black-and-white imagery—such as scenes of White individuals shouting at Black students integrating previously segregated schools—to suggest to the audience, "This is what you'll resemble in the future if you don’t agree with me." Since we are taught to judge history through a Marvelfied lens, we assume that an invisible future audience will do the same to us. This leads to a superficial performance of morality for a future audience, rather than deep self-reflection, engagement, and integration of morals. When morals are not actually ours and instead belong to the judgment of an invisible future audience, it becomes extremely easy to manipulate the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the masses. In other words, if enough people in the present day agree on what a future audience will deem immoral, this projection, which does not yet exist, can be used to significantly sway public opinion.
More importantly, however, it emphasizes the appearance of morality for the sake of social currency rather than actual care for a cause, conflict, or group of people. This prioritization of surface-level social acceptance granted by projected spectators, at the expense of those actually affected, ultimately results in the dehumanization of the present-day groups, causes, and conflicts that the messenger purports to care about. The messenger is able to simulate Care through this rhetoric without taking any steps to enact Care, and in return receives social and fiscal accolades for their empty gesturing.
V. Examples of “Right Side of History” Rhetoric in the Wild
Ayatollah Khamenei’s letter to American college students:
Briahna Joy Gray on X:
Random X finds:
