History's promise is not serenity, but possibility

George F. Will, recalling a 1908 racial pogrom in Springfield, Illinois, points out that things today are not as bad as some would think:

Today, Russia's government is despotism leavened by assassination, China will achieve universal emphysema before meaningful universal suffrage, and Americans, in a slough of despond about economic difficulties that have not yet even reached a recession, gloomily embrace an inversion of the Whig Theory of History, which holds, or once did, that progress —  steadily enlarged and ennobled liberty — is the essence of the human story.

So, remember Springfield. The siege of the jail, the rioting, the lynching and mutilating all occurred within walking distance of where, in 2007, Barack Obama announced his presidential candidacy. Whatever you think of his apotheosis, it illustrates history's essential promise, which is not serenity -- that progress is inevitable -- but possibility, which is enough: Things have not always been as they are.

George F. Will, A Long Road Out of Springfield, Washington Post, Sat. Aug. 9, 2008 (emphasis added).