Reflections on MLK

Martin Luther King Jr. said a lot of things - a LOT of things. The "I Have A Dream Speech" remains the his most enduring words associated to him, but on the day commemorating his legacy it's important to remember that he said many things that are just as important, if not as widely celebrated.

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
Our greatest achievements have almost always come as a result of outsiders breaking exiting paradigms. Whether it was Steve Jobs taking an artists perspective to technology, or Galileo defying Rome to say that Copernicus was right and Earth was not the center of the universe.

"Almost always, the creative, dedicated minority Has made the world better."
Jazz, blue, rock-n-roll, hip hop, punk all had beginnings outside of the mainstream society. As did roots of the Renaissance, Cubism, and Surreal movements in art.

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to broader concerns of humanity."
Isn't this the central lesson of Jesus Christ? It is also 100% contrary to the Randian Objectivism. Yet another reason to reject that line of reason.

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love."
Love, not the romantic type, is what binds us, and what we have in common must trump that which would divide us. Only love can conquer hate King also said.

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism, or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."
You have to live for your family and community. You cannot find purpose only living for yourself.

"A riot at the bottom is the language of the unheard."
This pretty much explains itself. Look in any history book. Look up The Boxer Rebellion. Look up the French Revolution. It's what happens.

"Don't let anyone make you think that God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. I can hear God saying to America 'You are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name.'"
Empires throughout time have proclaimed divine providence. Rome did. England did. Are we really different?

"I speak as a citizen of the world for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
We have to decide to take the correct path for the sake of all. None have the authority to choose for us, and none have the power to force our path, but we are compelled to make the most just choice.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
Government is a tool created by people. It too must be put to work for the betterment of all - from the least the the greatest.

"What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. And justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."
Jimi Hendrix once said “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

My personal favorite: "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits."

Martin Luther King Jr. was a revolutionary man. he understood the revolutionary power of love and hope, and that they must be brought to bear for the betterment of us all, because it they don't the the unheard may turn to the power of hate. The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. is not only that we all be judged by the "content of our character," but that we are bound together as brother and sister under the Creator. We are the community of man and we are here to love each other, and to implement the tools, and ideas we have developed to the betterment of all of us. Among these tools are scientific discovery, technological advance, economic development, and they must work for the betterment of all. To what degree betterment we are free to debate, but one can hardly look at the world today and say the benefits of our advances are widely, and justly shared.

That's not to say we have failed, but that there is much to do, and a great distance to go. That's all to easy to lose on a day we don't get mail.