The Arc of the Moral Universe and the Arc of History
Unitarian minister Theodore Parker was a leader of the abolitionist movement in Boston. In an 1854 address, titled “The Magnet and the Iron,” he made the following assertion:
“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. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
On March 31, 1968, just four days before his death, Martin Luther King Jr. incorporated Parker’s language in a hopeful sermon at Washington’s National Cathedral: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
As a high school senior, I heard King’s statement as an article of a faith that I shared. I believed we were moving toward a more perfect union in the U.S. and a more equitable and peaceful world. We just had to keep the faith and work hard to achieve those goals.
I’m now in my 70s and I think of that statement more critically. I wonder about King’s intent. Did he state it as a matter of faith, in ultimate deliverance from injustice? Is it an expression of an optimistic personality? A view of history? Or counter-factual pastoral counseling? And how long is the arc? As economist John Maynard Keynes said about long-range forecasts, “in the long run we are all dead.”
Political developments in the 1850’s did little to convince abolitionists that redemption was near. The 1856 election of slavery accommodationist James Buchanan as president was a crushing blow. Three years later Parker joined four other Bostonians to fund John Brown’s attack on the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry.
A decade earlier than Parker’s magnet and iron, another Boston abolitionist, James Russell Lowell, published his epic poem, “The Present Crisis.”1 It contains the often quoted stanza —
Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness ‘twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, —
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Lowell seems to offer a recognition that there is no end of history, no omega point where we achieve a lasting peaceful kingdom or holy commonwealth. Then, the promise of a future shaped by sacrifice and suffering in a process we can’t understand or forecast. And God keeping watch above his own – means what? It does not suggest divine intervention in history. Is this about divine approval for right action, regardless of the outcome?
Non-attachment
Many spiritual teachers, famous or within the shadow, advise us not to expect perfectibility of the world. Buddha preached life is suffering, and the cause of our suffering is attachment. Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world. Mystics of every tradition seem to agree that there is a reality that transcends Lowell’s “death grapple in the darkness.”
I once viewed with great skepticism the idea of non-attachment. It sounded to me like quietism, a focus on one’s internal state and a supposed divine connection while retreating from unsettling action in the world. I would envision navel gazing at an expensive retreat at Big Sur or an ashram where people chant a lot and don’t bother themselves with the news. In Confessions of a Guilty Bystander Trappist monk Thomas Merton expressed such skepticism about his own monastic life of prayer within a world that is burning.
But I have learned non-attachment doesn’t mean passive acceptance of injustice, no necessary retreat from the world.
Here is an apparent paradox. I believe we act most effectively for justice when we thoughtfully develop the strategies and tactics we consider most likely to produce positive results – and yet remain unattached to the outcomes.
It helps to recognize that our formula for achieving justice is always incomplete – there are too many factors beyond our awareness or control to ensure the success of any efforts.
One reason that elections are so stressful, and results can be so painful is that there is a definitive measure of winning and losing. But sometimes “there’s no success like failure; and failure’s no success at all.” Our candidates may win and subsequently fail us. Defeat at the polls may mobilize us to think more broadly about ways to pursue justice beyond the ballot box. We can never be completely sure what is good news and what is bad news.
Being non-attached while purposeful can preserve us from despair when our best efforts don’t lead to measurable success. We can take comfort in the possibility that we are planting seeds that will bear some fruit that we won’t be around to recognize.
As to the arc of the moral universe, Parker and King seemed to suggest that the arc bending toward justice means an eventual outcome of justice. I don’t think historical evidence supports that suggestion. I think, instead, we must distinguish between the arc of the moral universe and the arc of history.
The Moral Universe
What comprises the moral universe? People or opinions? The application of natural law? The opinions of society, or of members of a community? Or the opinions of moral members of the community? Is it the living communion of saints? And what bends?
In Parker’s case, would the arc of the moral universe bend towards justice only when slavery ended, or as more people came to believe slavery is wrong and must be ended?
What good is the arc of the moral universe if it doesn’t produce justice? Does it matter if individuals, communities, or religious congregations arrive at a more enlightened moral understanding and yet fail to act effectively to produce justice? Is movement in the moral universe important only because it seems to be a necessary condition for achieving justice in the world?
We may as well ask, what is the point of individual virtue, or sanctity. Is the spiritual development of the person or the community a desirable end in itself?
We seek justice to make a full life available to everyone. A full life includes compassionate action and attempts to change oppressive policies, practices, and institutions. Joyful activists are not just a means to an end; they embody the desired outcome.
I think it is of great importance to know and demonstrate the joy that comes from right action. We cannot control the outcomes, but we can generate loving kindness in our resistance to injustice and we can delight in the bonds we build with those who accompany us in our efforts.
1 This poem inspired the title for The Crisis, founded in 1910 as the official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
James Hannon is a psychotherapist in Massachusetts where he accompanies adolescents and adults recovering from addictions and mood disorders and seeking meaningful and joyful lives. His work has appeared in Blue Lake Review, Cold Mountain Review, Pensive, Psaltery and Lyre, and other journals and in Gathered: Contemporary Quaker Poets. His second poetry collection, To My Children at Christmas, was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.
Amethyst Review 