Satyagraha – Cultural Psychology

Martin Luther King Jr. – Quotes on Peace and War

Quotes are organized into thematic sections titled Urgency, Vision, Love of Enemies, Nonviolence, and Psychology and Culture.

Most of the quotes come from these speeches:

Paul’s Letter to American Christians (November 1956)
Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
I Have a Dream (August 1963)
Nobel Lecture (December 1964)
Beyond Vietnam (April 1967)
A Christmas Sermon on Peace (December 1967)
The Drum Major Instinct (February 1968)
Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution (March 1968)

Urgency

In his own Nobel Prize speech, president Obama expressed the view that we’re stuck with war and there’s nothing we can do about it. Contrast that with the statements of Martin Luther King, who believed that destiny is ours to choose.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy…. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”, 28 August 1963, steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”, 28 August 1963, steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

God grant that we will be participants in this newness and this magnificent development. If we will but do it, we will bring about a new day of justice and brotherhood and peace.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 10 December 1964, Oslo

So man’s proneness to engage in war is still a fact. But wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good. If we assume that life is worth living and that man has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964, Oslo

Here also we have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as imperative and urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to racial injustice.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964, Oslo

At Oslo I suggested that the philosophy and strategy of non-violence become immediately a subject for study and serious experimentation in every field of human conflict, including relations between nations. This was not, I believe, an unrealistic suggestion. World peace through non-violent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Non-violence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.

Racial injustice around the world. Poverty. War. When man solves these three great problems he will have squared his moral progress with his scientific progress. And more importantly, he will have learned the practical art of living in harmony.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Dreams Of Brighter Tomorrows”, Ebony, March 1965, p. 35.

A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read “Vietnam.” It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that “America will be” are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

One of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

The time is always ripe to do right.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

In Bombay more than a million people sleep on the sidewalks every night. In Calcutta more than six hundred thousand sleep on the sidewalks every night. They have no beds to sleep in; they have no houses to go in. How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of India’s population of more than five hundred million people, some four hundred and eighty million make an annual income of less than ninety dollars a year. And most of them have never seen a doctor or a dentist.

As I noticed these things, something within me cried out, “Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?” And an answer came: “Oh no!” Because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and every other nation.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

And this can happen to America, the richest nation in the world—and nothing’s wrong with that—this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

We read one day, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” But if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.

We are coming to ask America to be true to the huge promissory note that it signed years ago.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

I want to say one other challenge that we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. President Kennedy said on one occasion, “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” The world must hear this. I pray God that America will hear this before it is too late, because today we’re fighting a war.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

Vision

Vision is not the same as wishful thinking or sentimental fantasy. Vision is the ability to see truths etched in the human heart and soul.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”, 28 August 1963, steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”, 28 August 1963, steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 10 December 1964, Oslo

So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man’s creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a “peace race”. If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964, Oslo

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. [Sustained applause]
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?

There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “We ain’t goin’ study war no more.” This is the challenge facing modern man.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

Love of Enemies

As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Paul’s Letter to American Christians”, 4 November 1956, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Paul’s Letter to American Christians”, 4 November 1956, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Paul’s Letter to American Christians”, 4 November 1956, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing. And we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn’t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words,
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Isn’t it true that through our Western powers we have perpetuated colonialism and imperialism? And all of these things must be taken under consideration as we look at Russia. We must face the fact that the rhythmic beat of the deep rumblings of discontent from Asia and Africa is at bottom a revolt against the imperialism and colonialism perpetuated by Western civilization all these many years. The success of communism in the world today is due to the failure of democracy to live up to the noble ideals and principles inherent in its system.

And this is what Jesus means when he said: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” [Matthew 7:3]  Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: “How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?”
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and every time you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

So somehow the isness of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal oughtness that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls “the image of God,” you begin to love him in spite of….  No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never slough off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it…. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

The Greek language comes out with another word for love. It is the word agape. And agape is more than eros; agape is more than philia; agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God loves him. And he might be the worst person you’ve ever seen.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemy.” This is the way to do it. When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Now for the few moments left, let us move from the practical how to the theoretical why. It’s not only necessary to know how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. [tapping on pulpit] It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

I would rather die than hate you.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

So, too, with Hanoi. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

We must realize so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” in Strength to Love (1958)

Nonviolence

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”, 28 August 1963, steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 10 December 1964, Oslo

I would like to suggest that modern man really go all out to study the meaning of nonviolence, its philosophy and its strategy.

We have experimented with the meaning of nonviolence in our struggle for racial justice in the United States, but now the time has come for man to experiment with nonviolence in all areas of human conflict, and that means nonviolence on an international scale.

Now let me suggest first that if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. Now the judgment of God is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace”, 24 December 1967, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

Now let me say, secondly, that if we are to have peace in the world, men and nations must embrace the nonviolent affirmation that ends and means must cohere.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace”, 24 December 1967, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

You can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace”, 24 December 1967, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

Psychology and Culture

Martin Luther King Jr., fifty years ago, recognized that America and modern culture generally was on a downhill slide. He warned of greater perils ahead unless the trend was reversed. Not only have things, as predicted, deteriorated, but now no public leader will confront the issue of a government and society gone mad. But insanity is an illness, and illnesses can be healed. A renewal of values is still possible. But this must begin with the individual.

You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Paul’s Letter to American Christians”, 4 November 1956, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

You have made tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological development. But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about “improved means to an unimproved end.” How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Paul’s Letter to American Christians”, 4 November 1956, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” [Romans 12:2] Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, “Ye are a colony of heaven.” [Philippians 3:20; For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. NKJV] This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God’s will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Paul’s Letter to American Christians”, 4 November 1956, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.” [Metamorphoses 7:20; “I see and approve better things, but follow worse”.] There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions [Phaedrus 246a ff.]. There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Goethe, “There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.” There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Apostle Paul, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.” [Romans 7:15b; For what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.].

So somehow the isness of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal oughtness that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

… that you want to be integrated with yourself, and the way to be integrated with yourself is be sure that you meet every situation of life with an abounding love. Never hate…
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

There’s another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

… that you want to be integrated with yourself, and the way to be integrated with yourself is be sure that you meet every situation of life with an abounding love. Never hate…
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”, 17 November 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama

Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964, Oslo

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau [Walden, 1854]: “Improved means to an unimproved end”. This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual “lag” must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964, Oslo

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say “We must not wage war.” It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. There is a fascinating little story that is preserved for us in Greek literature about Ulysses and the Sirens. The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist steering toward their island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks, and men forgot home, duty, and honor as they flung themselves into the sea to be embraced by arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be lured by the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his boat, and his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and his crew learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the beautiful singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the music of the Sirens. When Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to the Sirens?
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964, Oslo

Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John (1 John 4:7-8, 12).

Let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His
love is perfected in us.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964, Oslo

The Nobel Peace Prize has given me even deeper personal faith that man will indeed soon rise to the occasion and give new direction to an age drifting rapidly to its doom.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Dreams Of Brighter Tomorrows”, Ebony, March 1965, p. 35.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin [applause], we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”, 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and good will toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don’t have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the very destructive power of modern weapons of warfare eliminates even the possibility that war may any longer serve as a negative good. And so, if we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and so let us this morning explore the conditions for peace.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace”, 24 December 1967, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

It’s one of the strangest things that all the great military geniuses of the world have talked about peace. The conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, were akin in seeking a peaceful world order. If you will read Mein Kampf closely enough, you will discover that Hitler contended that everything he did in Germany was for peace. And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace”, 24 December 1967, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. (Make it plain) And that’s where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one’s personality to become distorted. I guess that’s the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”, 4 February 1968, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

And then the final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct [Glory to God], he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up [Amen].
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”, 4 February 1968, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

Now the other problem is, when you don’t harness the drum major instinct—this uncontrolled aspect of it—is that it leads to snobbish exclusivism.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”, 4 February 1968, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now. (Preach it, preach it) God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war as the war in Vietnam…. And we won’t stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”, 4 February 1968, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. (Amen) The God that I worship has a way of saying, “Don’t play with me.” (Yes) He has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, “Don’t play with me, Israel. Don’t play with me, Babylon. (Yes) Be still and know that I’m God. And if you don’t stop your reckless course, I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power.” (Yes) And that can happen to America. (Yes) Every now and then I go back and read Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And when I come and look at America, I say to myself, the parallels are frightening. And we have perverted the drum major instinct.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”, 4 February 1968, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

“Yes, don’t give up this instinct. It’s a good instinct if you use it right. (Yes) It’s a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. (Amen) I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”, 4 February 1968, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Amen) That’s a new definition of greatness.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”, 4 February 1968, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

Not only that, it has put us in a position of appearing to the world as an arrogant nation. And here we are ten thousand miles away from home fighting for the so-called freedom of the Vietnamese people when we have not even put our own house in order.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

The judgment of God is upon us today. And we could go right down the line and see that something must be done—and something must be done quickly. We have alienated ourselves from other nations so we end up morally and politically isolated in the world.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”, 31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

The Obsolescence of War and its Implications for Countering Terrorism

A point emphasized in several Nobel Peace Prize Lectures of the 1950´s and 60´s (e.g., those of Albert Schweitzer and Martin Luther King Jr) is the obsolescence of war.  It was noted that modern technology had produced weapons of awesome power.  This meant we had no choice but to evolve beyond war, because, with such weapons, the prospect of war was no longer thinkable — too much harm would be done.  For those too young to remember, this was a widely held view in the years following the development of nuclear weapons.

However this reasoning does not just apply to nuclear weapons.  As the 9/11 attacks illustrate, technology had made it  possible to easily inflict massive harm in other ways.  A few extremists were able to get control of huge jets and fly them into buildings, killing thousands.  It could have been even worse.  The jets could have been flown into nuclear reactor power plants, potentially producing much greater devastation and loss of life.  Other realistic scenarios we must contend with are use of biological weapons on civilians, attacks to the electrical power infrastructure, poisoning of water supplies, or even things like computer viruses.  Any of these could be used by a few terrorists or a small country to inflict great harm.  Coupled with the continued threat of nuclear proliferation, the potential threats are so many, and so easily accessible, that, we are more vulnerable than ever.

Fifty years ago,  the consensus was that our only choice was to evolve ourselves — by dint of sheer will, if necessary — out of the mentality that begets war and violence.  If that was so then, how much more true it is now.  Further, the very fact that people are not saying such things today is itself extremely serious and revealing.  It means we are collectively less wise and more confused than people were then.  In this atmosphere of confusion, desperation, and loss of vision, people are even more likely to lapse in their judgment and make use of such weapons.

This pertains directly to the US involvement in Afghanistan, and the stance of modern governments towards terrorism.  Yes, terrorism is a terrible thing, and we must be prepared to work with intense dedication to prevent terrorist attacks.  But in today’s technologically advanced world we must ask more than ever:  can terrorism be effectively prevented by pre-emptive aggression or a just war?   And yet, not only is the US now falling back on the notion of a just war, one is astonished to see that no public officials are questioning it.

Even if the war in Afghanistan is ‘just’ – and there is genuine doubt as to that – two other questions must also be asked.  First, is the war winnable?  Events so far would suggest that it is not.  We are not countering a conventional army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers.  The nature of terrorism in the age of modern technology is precisely that a group of dedicated extremists, few in number and extremely mobile, may hold at bay even a great military superpower.  We cannot spend $1 trillion retaliating every time there is a terrorist attack — especially if the retaliation is ineffective.

Second, we must ask: does a large military response to terrorism cause more harm than potential good by affirming the principle of aggression as a way to solve problems?

Third, we should ask why governments are so chronically unable to work for peace pro-actively.

Fourth, what has happened to the moral and ethical fabric of society?  Fifty years ago the view expressed by socially-minded intellectuals was that the moral evolution of humankind was not keeping pace with technological progress.  But at least there was a sense of there being some progress.   Now there is considerable evidence (and one need only turn on television any given evening to confirm this) that we are going rapidly going backwards.

We cannot lay blame on President Obama so much as on the failure of the intellectual community to question the continued dominance of war as a strategy for countering terrorism.

Cultural Attention Deficit Disorder and the ‘Cup of Stupor’

For several months I’ve been thinking about making a post on what could be called ‘cultural deficit disorder’.

Lately it seems that people in the US — I’m talking about the people I see around town ever day, not just who you see on television or read about in newspapers — are suffering from widespread malaise, confusion, worry.  At times it seems like a complete loss of focus — disorientation.

IF you’ve ever visited some really devastated area — a war zone or ghetto somewhere — you might have seen the kind of thing I mean.  People acquire a general loss of focus.  They just walk around dazed.  This even shows in the expression of their face and eyes. I’ve seen this sometimes in poorer areas of the US, but what’s strange now is that one finds it increasingly everywhere.

A recent by-line on CNN news, displayed while callers were interviewed about the recent Senate healthcare debate, ran “Is the government dysfunctional?”  That’s a valid question — but an even more appropriate one would read, “Is American society dysfunctional?”   If the government is out of control, isn’t the real problem is that we, as citizens, have let that happen?

The idea of a society becoming dysfunction is scarcely new.  Read these verses from the Old Testament (Book of Isaiah, Chapter 51:17-18):

Awake, awake!
To your feet, Jerusalem!
You who from the Lord’s hand have drunk
the cup of his wrath.
The chalice of stupor
you have drained to the dregs.
She has not one to guide her
of all the sons she has borne,
not one to take her by the hand
of all the sons she has reared.

Would I be the first person to suggest that drinking from the “chalice of stupor” seems like a pretty good analogy for what’s going on in the country lately?  Christians and Jews would regard these verses as divinely inspired, but even an agnostic or atheist should take them seriously.  Even if one views the Bible as “literature”, it should be obvious that literature — especially something that’s stood the test of time — reveals a lot about human nature.

Let us broach this subject, however, briefly, psychologically, suggesting that the US has recently been, figuratively speaking, drinking from the “cup of stupor”.  Considering this it seems evident that we have fallen slack as a society in our pursuit of virtue and higher aims.  We have not only failed to produce a society of peace and prosperity, we have stopped trying to do so.  To the extent that we are organized at all (which seems considerably in doubt), we have rallied our energies around the two themes of (1) war, and (2) the economy.   An exaggerated emphasis on these two things is not far removed from being a society directed by fear and greed, respectively.

Many modern Americans have fallen away from their Christian or Jewish heritage.  Increasingly people espouse, if not outright atheism and agnosticism, a vague, watered-down kind of religion — so watered down, so lacking in solid discipline, that it no longer resembles traditional religion. The prevailing view seems to be that “old fashioned” religion is obsolete.  Further hurting things is that those who most visibly support “traditional” religious values do so in a way so that wins far more opponents than converts.  In short, we have one visible faction in society disregarding traditional values, and another group making these values look unattractive.

The truth, of course, is that there is a middle ground.  We must look beyond the polarizing statements of fundamentalists to discover the genuine, meaningful, insightful, relevant, and even beautiful elements of traditional religions.   The prudent person neither accepts nor rejects religious doctrines uncritically.  Rather, he or she examines them, tests them experientially, and seeks to gain whatever is  possible from the collective wisdom of preceding generations.

Now the concept of “sin” is a case in point.  The word ‘sin’ carries a lot of connotations, many of which are inconsistent with how people see things today.  Maybe that’s appropriate and realistic — that is, maybe “sin” as a word has indeed acquired a lot of inappropriate and obsolete connotations.  But that doesn’t make the entire concept irrelevant.  A good intellectual looks beyond the surface of things and immediate emotional reactions.  Could it just be that when our ancestors came up with the concept of sin they were onto something?

I suspect so.  Indeed, while we might not like to call it “sin”, certainly the idea of “wrong” is evident in virtually all religions and, moreover, modern theories of psychology.  Even Freudianism includes the principle of sin, though expressed in different terms.   At its most basic level, sin, in a psychological sense, corresponds to some flaw or habit which prevents or obstructs natural happiness, mental health, and self-actualization.

I’m going to end this post here, despite the feeling that its somewhat incomplete.  My sense is that readers will either see or not see what I’m getting at, and to say much more won’t much change or inform the view of either group.  The main point is that, if the United States (and, for that matter, other countries) wants to stop drinking from the ‘cup of stupor’, we need to examine ourselves.  Have things like greed, fear, and egoism taken over our culture?  And if so, what can be done about it?

Letter to US Senator Barbara Boxer

December 24, 2009

Dear Senator Boxer,

Please be apprised that, I, as a US citizen, do not exclude the possibility of forgiving Osama bin Laden for the terrorist attacks of 9/11, or of some form of general diplomatic discussions. I believe many Americans feel likewise. Neither will I hesitate to mention that ‘forgiveness of enemies’ is a central ethical principle of Christianity.

I therefore wish that the US government not proceed unquestioningly under the assumption that all or even most citizens are intent on revenge, or see no possibility of peaceful resolution of current conflicts.

Nor do I simply take it for granted that bin Laden and Al-Queda are inherently ‘evil’ and hold positions inherently and irrevocably inimical, hostile, and dangerous to the welfare of the citizens of the United States.

Further, I perceive a tendency of the government to actively shape — though perhaps unintentionally — public opinion in the direction of revenge and violence. The president’s recent remarks on Afghanistan, for example, nowhere seem to acknowledge that many Americans are hesitant about continued military involvement in Afghanistan. In effect, a false consensus on this issue is presented to the American public. The government is not making a sincere attempt to determine the true sentiments and beliefs of the people.

Indeed, if we are concerned about the events 9/11, should not our first priority be to take better care of the survivors and their families? Imagine how much more we could help these people were even a small fraction of the $1 trillion spent on Iraq and Afghanistan devoted to assisting them.

That we do not do so calls into question the sincerity of our expressed motives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sincerely yours,

John S. Uebersax PhD

The 1964 Nobel Peace Prize speech of Martin Luther King Jr. shows how far our public leaders have strayed.

As I write, the US Senate is deliberating a radical, sweeping healthcare bill that threatens to undermine American democracy, and would turn the country into a European-styled socialist state.

This is happening, moreover, without due deliberation and  full consideration of alternatives or implications, and worst of all without the consent of the American public.

This further comes on the heels of several other massive government spending programs — all intended, it would appear, to further entrench the debilitating and dehumanizing status quo economic system.

We are witnessing the emergence to unprecedented proportions of a new form of social evil. Dimly understood, we do not even have a name for it yet; terms like “globalization” and “new world order” come as near as any.

At its essence, this new movement constitutes a subordination of the human being and a suppression of the human heart and spirit.

A most pernicious aspect of this social evil is that it works to destroy the very human ability to think clearly and wisely. It creates, first of all, a continual state of anxiety and turbulence, such that people are unable to focus their thoughts on anything more than briefly. Second, it produces fear — which both supports the anxiety, and ensures that whatever coherent thought is possible is directed towards issues of self-protection and selfish security. Third, this new system has undermined our true values, replacing them, Orwellian-like, with substitute, false values and principles.

In a way, I hope the Senate proceeds to pass this legislation, because that will finally force Americans to wake up, realize what’s going on, and to take action.

The principles of Freedom and Truth are too deeply ingrained in the spirit of the American people for them to be forgotten, or for them to not ultimately prevail. We have temporarily lost sight of these principles, but they have remained nonetheless. They are etched in our history, our literature and art, and in the shared myths that define us.

This spirit is reflected in the Constitution; in the writings of the founding fathers, in Jefferson and the great Madison; in the works of Emerson and Thoreau; the poetry of Walt Whitman; in the Gettysburg Address; in the paintings of Bierstadt; and in the compositions of Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, where music perhaps speaks more eloquently and irrefutably than words.

Call to mind that famous painting of the founding fathers praying at the First Continental Congress — the delegates with heads bowed and on their knees in prayer. Whether this scene is literally accurate perhaps we do not know. But it is certain that the founding fathers were men of prayer, and that they prayed earnestly and fervently for God’s blessing on their enterprise. We do not doubt that God would grant such prayers, that He would forget them now –  or believe He would abandon us now, when the world needs more than ever that a nation of free men and women “shall no perish from the earth.”

For myself, I draw new inspiration from the words of that great American visionary Martin Luther King Jr, arguably the last public-figure representative of the tradition outlined above.

In 1964, Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize.  His eloquent, impassioned words on that occasion are a stark contrast to the unfortunate Nobel speech of President Obama delivered 45 years later. The latter is a grim reminder of how far our leaders and culture have declined. But the spirit that guided Dr. King is still us still, as are his words.

Here, then, are selections from his Nobel speeches of 1964. Let them remind us of what true public leadership consists of and of our own noblest hopes and aspirations:

From the Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech of Martin Luther King Jr, December 10, 1964

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.

From the Nobel Lecture of Martin Luther King Jr, December 11, 1964

The plight of modern man:

Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau [Walden, 52]: “Improved means to an unimproved end”. This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual “lag” must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul.

Against the fallacy of “peace through war”:

So man’s proneness to engage in war is still a fact. But wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good. If we assume that life is worth living and that man has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war.

The imperative to end war:

Here also we have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as imperative and urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to racial injustice.

The positive path:

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say “We must not wage war.” It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. There is a fascinating little story that is preserved for us in Greek literature about Ulysses and the Sirens. The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist steering toward their island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks, and men forgot home, duty, and honor as they flung themselves into the sea to be embraced by arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be lured by the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his boat, and his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and his crew learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the beautiful singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the music of the Sirens. When Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to the Sirens?

So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man’s creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a “peace race”. If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.

On Love:

Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John [I John 4:7-8, 12].

Let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His
love is perfected in us.

Rising to the Occasion

Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place.

The Essay, “I, Pencil”:  Why the Government Cannot Run Healthcare

Would you like to read a compelling argument against government-managed healthcare?  It is this found in the simple, charming, famous (but not famous enough) essay by the economist Leonard Read, called “I, Pencil“.

Here is a paragraph to whet your appetite:

I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach.

With some reluctance I refrain from talking more about it — you’ll just have to read the essay yourself:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

Liberals, Conservatives, Joan Baez and the Nation-State

The other night I saw a reprise performance of the recent American Masters episode on the life of folksinger and political activist, Joan Baez.

It was a good program and showed what a remarkable person Joan Baez is.    She walked the walk, even to the point of voluntarily accepting incarceration several times because of her (nonviolent) opposition to the Vietnam War.

But one detail that caught my attention was a brief remark by Joan in a film clip from an early 1970′s protest:  she was  exhorting people to “end the nation-state”.

End the nation-state?  Sounds like a good idea to me — where do I sign up?

And here was Joan Baez, one of most visible “liberals” of the second half of the 20th century, saying something I agree with, even though I am a political libertarian — which most people consider a conservative position.

But there was no mistake.  Joan Baez wanted to end the nation-state.   That was the wish of liberals in the 1960′s (as with John Lennon’s song, “Imagine there’s no countries; it’s easy to do….”).  It seemed obvious to anyone with good sense that governments were the cause of wars, and that governments served generally to suppress what is best in human nature.

To liberals, the government was the problem, not the solution.  The government was causing the war in Viet Nam, and hurting everyone.  Liberals wanted to reduce government power and to end the cultic worship of governments.

But roll things forward 35 years.  Now so-called liberals are supporting massive government-run healthcare.
They’re militant about it, insisting that “poor people have a right to healthcare, and the government
should supply it, whatever the cost.”  This is not only different from the liberalism of the 60′s,  it’s really the complete opposite.

In the 60′s and 70′s, the view was that if governments would get out of the way, people could sort out their own problems.  I can say that for sure, because, at least in the 70′s, I was there marching and singing “give peace a chance.”  People were thinking, “Life is good.  If governments would get out of our lives the natural impulse to enjoy life and to love and help others would manifest itself spontaneously.”

That’s still my view.  If John Lennon were alive today, I’d like to think that would be his view, too. Somehow I just can’t imagine him singing, “Hooray for government!  Let’s give them more power!  Let them pick our pockets and design aversive, government health programs, so we can all stand in line, put up with terrible service, and be at the mercy of arrogant public officials.”  No, that’s not how a working class hero would see things.

So the great irony is that true conservatives and true liberals are on the same side:  both groups want a world which affirms human values, welfare and happiness.  And opposed to these things is an ever expanding “statism” — a vast, inhuman, oppressive machine.

This is a rather important idea, and bears further thought.  Consider how much the media makes of the supposed opposition between “conservatives” and “liberals.”  What if this turned out to be all bunk!  Could it be that human beings are in basic agreement about core values — and in an instinctive aversion to abusive government power?  And could it be that the dominant economic institutions try to invent a false conflict in order to divide and conquer the population?

The world must remain a place where citizens read the comments of political leaders and subject them to common sense analysis. Let us avoid the alternative: a world where we become dulled by the drone of meaningless speeches and the profusion of political nonsense — until we are no longer able to think critically about issues ourselves.

Following are short excerpts from Mr. Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, each followed by my comments.

Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease — the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

Atop his many other accomplishments, it now seems Mr. Obama is an anthropologist, too. Why is he certain that war “appeared with the first man”? Is it possible that early humans were peaceful? Why assume that the human love for peace, deep and untaught, is a recent development, or something less basic to our nature than war?

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.

Well not if we don’t try. But make the effort and we might be surprised.

Why doesn’t the president stand at the podium, the world as his audience, and say, “I present to you, citizens of the world, a bold challenge: let us seek to end war in our lifetimes.” Wouldn’t that be more worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize winner?

President Obama is participating in the peculiar form of schizophrenia that is modern government. As individuals we know that war is wrong and in almost every case unnecessary. He stands there there telling us something we don’t believe, pretending that he doesn’t know we disbelieve it, and expecting that we’re going to play along.

For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

This is the low point in his speech, and reveals the absurdity or irony his receiving the award. Evil does indeed exist. But the reason war continues as an institution is precisely because people persist in the illusion that whoever opposes them, or simply dislikes them, is not just acting badly, or influenced by evil, but is Evil itself. Obama is here equating al Queda with Evil incarnate. This simplistic, black-or-white thinking is the problem. Hitler, perhaps it could be said, was as close to pure Evil as one can imagine; he institutionalized genocide – an utterly terrible, horrific thing.

But usually things are more complex: Evil – whatever that may be precisely – affects the judgment of basically good people. Evil sets us against one another. Evil is the true enemy. Our human opponents are still God’s children, made in His image and likeness. They are tricked by Evil. So are we.  If we wish to fight our true opponent, Evil, let us end war.

From one point of view, the terrorists seem motivated only by the urge to destroy and hurt. But perhaps their own view is that they are fighting a war against a giant, oppressive, military super-power, by the only means they have available. Of course I don’t condone terrorism – far from it! But I am not unable to see even terrorsts as human beings with positive and negative traits not so different from mine.

What we must beware, as Carl Jung and other psychologists inform us, is the human tendency to project one’s own unacceptable dark side onto others. We fight with our own demons by projecting them on other people. The sign of such projection is when we see or respond to events with greater irrationality than circumstances would warrant. War will continue as long as people and political leaders lack the sophistication to understand this.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can’t aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within. And that’s why helping farmers feed their own people — or nations educate their children and care for the sick — is not mere charity.

Alas, he is here only paying lip service to these principles. Where does he suggest that America will take on these challenges?

Perhaps there is such a thing as a just war, a war of self defense. Perhaps sometimes a war is necessary to achieve peace. But how much more often is peace necessary to achieve peace! The US spends hundreds of billions of dollars trying to gain peace through war. What if we spent even one tenth that amount on tangible gestures of friendship and assistance?

What, for example, is the United States doing to assist Latin America economically or culturally? At least John F. Kennedy (to whom Obama alluded more than once) promised this in his inaugural address. Kennedy didn’t follow up on his promises, but at least he kept the vision of the country pointed in the right direction.

And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more — and that’s the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there’s something irreducible that we all share.

Mr. Obama fails to recognize that religious institutions already demonstrate this moral imagination. I wonder if he has ever heard of the 1967 encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples), or the encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, penned 20 years later by Pope John Paul II. Such works constitute the true state-of-the-art of enlightened people to grapple, in a sincere, loving, and ethical way, with the social needs of the world. The principles by which the human race may proceed on the paths of peace and justice are already outlined, yet arrogant civil officials ignore them.

The one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature.

But this is not true! That this is a common mistake does not excuse Mr. Obama here. If there is indeed one rule at the heart of religion, it is not love of other people, but the love of God!  This is an incredible error on Obama’s part.  (And an illustration of his arrogance, that he considers him an expert in everything — in this case, religion!)

To love other human beings is, in itself, no outstanding virtue. Even bad people love their family and friends. What sets a religious person apart is love of God. From this loves springs a deeper and more meaningful love of other human beings. For one thing, this form of love for others is free from self-interest.

The expressed sentiment of “love for all men” without love for God has no more substance than a Coca Cola commercial. Obama here is repeating the mantra of European Liberalism, which has tried to make a secular religion – one based on human instincts, including a bland appeal to “love for all” – in place of a solid, genuine one based on God.

The purely human form of “love for all” is egoistic. You love those you like, who are nice to you, who benefit you – if only because you feel “warm cuddlies” by helping them. What is needed is the kind of love that that extends to enemies as well as friends.

So there you have it in a nutshell. Mr. Obama seems to fancy himself walking in the shoes of Dr. King. But Dr. King was a Christian; he knew the meaning, importance, and necessity of loving ones enemies. There is not the slightest trace in Obama’s speech of his understanding or believing this principle.

Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.

His speech at this point has degenerated into nonsense. The absurdity of his nomination has led to the absurdity of this speech – it could do nothing else. His vision as expressed here is the opposite of clear-eyed. Nothing he has said has demonstrated the necessity of war. And even if war is necessary, to wage peace – in the form of energetic initiatives aimed at promoting justice and welfare around the world — is much more needed. On this he is silent.

On December 10, in Oslo, Norway, President Obama gave his acceptance speech for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Fox News host Greta van Susteren later asked the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, for his analysis.  The careless transcript of Bolton’s remarks currently found online at several blogs is very rough and filled with errors.  I’ve made and supply below a more accurate transcript, taken directly from the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-H5vG8Q3CM

Greta van Susteren, Fox News:  Good evening, ambassador.

Former US Ambassador to United Nations, John R. Bolton: Good evening.

Greta: So what do you think of the speech?

Bolton:  I thought it was a pretty bad speech.  I thought it was turgid, repetitive.  I thought it was analytically weak, sort of at a high school level.  It’s like he didn’t have any lead in his pencil left after his speeches at the UN and the speech on Afghanistan.  So all in all a pretty surprisingly disappointing performance.

Greta:  What would you have expected him to say?  Because it’s rather awkward for a couple reasons.  Number one is he was nominated just a few days into his presidency and there’s been a lot of controversy over whether or not that he’d achieved — and even he says his accomplishments at this point are slight compared to others who’ve received it.  Secondly, he had just called up more troops to go to Afghanistan.  So it’s a completely awkward situation for the man.

Bolton:  Well, in circumstances like that, one alternative is not to say very much, is to thank the Nobel Committee for the honor of the award and accept it in humility and then sit down. Sometimes when people don’t have much to say, they don’t say very much.  Other people say it four times as long, which seemed to be the way he did it.

Greta:  Why do you think he was awarded this prize.

Bolton: I think that this was a conscious effort by the Nobel Committee, which has been over the years a very highly politicized body, to try and affect the American political environment, to try and send a signal of what they wanted from the Obama presidency.  I think that it’s a big mistake on their part.  I think our own political polls show that.  And I think that it will turn out to be a millstone around the president’s neck, but that’s obviously not the way the Nobel Committee saw it.

Greta:  How do you compare and contrast the speech that he gave about a week or two ago at West Point, the one when he announced to the nation that he was calling up troops.  Because a lot of the same sorts of themes about Al Qaeda and about Evil in the world.  But, still, very different speeches.

Bolton: Well I think you have to look, as I said, back as well to the speeches at the United Nations.  And what was striking was how little new there was in this speech.  But I think it’s important in looking at how Obama addresses national security, not to try and parse his speeches too carefully, not to say, “well I like this paragraph, but I don’t like this paragraph.”  You have to look at the speech whole, just as you have to look at the man behind the speech whole, and I think that’s where he runs into difficulty.

This speech today in Oslo is filled with some of the most amazing misconceptions about everything from human nature to the role of the United States in the world.

Greta: So, I’ll bite.  What are the amazing misconceptions that you say?

Bolton:  Let’s start near the beginning of the speech.  He says, that “We have to acknowledge the hard truth we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.”  Well, no kidding.  You know, homo sapiens is hardwired for violent conflict and we’re not going to eliminate violent conflict until homo sapiens ceases to exist as a separate species.  And the whole notion you could even think about eliminating it, not just in our lifetime but soon thereafter, I think reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature.  And when you start from that kind of position it only gets worse from there.  And I’ve got other examples, too.

Greta:  Go ahead.

Bolton:  Okay, then, just a few paragraphs later, he says, talking about the setting up the role of the United States, which many people said was a positive to the speech, he gets to it by saying that stability after World War II was brought about, quote “Not just treaties and declarations that brought stability, but the fact that the United States helped underwrite global security.”  As if to say it’s the treaties and the declarations that were the centerpiece and that the United States made a small contribution here or there.  In fact, it was the American nuclear capability after World War II and the strength of the military alliances, led and dominated by the United States, that brought stability and defeated the Soviets in the Cold War.  That didn’t seem to make it into this speech.

Greta:  Ambassador, thank you, sir.  Always nice to see you.

Bolton:  Okay, thank you.

Personally, I found the first half of Bolton’s remarks accurate, but the second half strangely peevish.  I think he should have stuck with what he initially said:  that you shouldn’t try to parse Obama’s speeches too closely, but rather should look for what they reveal overall.