Etymology

arc of history

Today it means: The idea that history has a direction or purpose that “bends” (or can be bent) towards some goal. Full definition →

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The story

Popularized by Barack Obama, and based on an older metaphor by abolitionist Theodore Parker, later popularized by Martin Luther King Jr.: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.