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Tuesday 3 May 2011

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "This isn't the way" (A Descending Spiral)


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Downtown Little Rock, Arkansas, with state capitol in the background: photo by Thomas A. O'Halloran, 17 September 1958 (U.S. News & World Report Photograph Collection, Library of Congress)


I’ve said to you on many occasions that 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." 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. 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."

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. 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 sluff 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.

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. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must 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.

The Greek language, as I’ve said so often before, is very powerful at this point. It comes to our aid beautifully in giving us the real meaning and depth of the whole philosophy of love. And I think it is quite apropos at this point, for you see the Greek language has three words for love, interestingly enough. It talks about love as eros. That’s one word for love. Eros is a sort of, aesthetic love. Plato talks about it a great deal in his dialogues, a sort of yearning of the soul for the realm of the gods. And it’s come to us to be a sort of romantic love, though it’s a beautiful love. Everybody has experienced eros in all of its beauty when you find some individual that is attractive to you and that you pour out all of your like and your love on that individual. That is eros, you see, and it’s a powerful, beautiful love that is given to us through all of the beauty of literature; we read about it.

Then the Greek language talks about philia, and that’s another type of love that’s also beautiful. It is a sort of intimate affection between personal friends. And this is the type of love that you have for those persons that you’re friendly with, your intimate friends, or people that you call on the telephone and you go by to have dinner with, and your roommate in college and that type of thing. It’s a sort of reciprocal love. On this level, you like a person because that person likes you. You love on this level, because you are loved. You love on this level, because there’s something about the person you love that is likeable to you. This too is a beautiful love. You can communicate with a person; you have certain things in common; you like to do things together. This is philia.

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.

And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, "Love your enemy." And it’s significant that he does not say, "Like your enemy." Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. 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.

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.

I think I mentioned before that sometime ago my brother and I were driving one evening to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Atlanta. He was driving the car. And for some reason the drivers were very discourteous that night. They didn’t dim their lights; hardly any driver that passed by dimmed his lights. And I remember very vividly, my brother A. D. looked over and in a tone of anger said: "I know what I’m going to do. The next car that comes along here and refuses to dim the lights, I’m going to fail to dim mine and pour them on in all of their power." And I looked at him right quick and said: "Oh no, don’t do that. There’d be too much light on this highway, and it will end up in mutual destruction for all. Somebody got to have some sense on this highway."

Somebody must have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble, isn’t it? That as all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations, having looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights, and they decided to refuse to dim theirs. And Toynbee tells that out of the twenty-two civilizations that have risen up, all but about seven have found themselves in the junkheap of destruction. It is because civilizations fail to have sense enough to dim the lights. And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction. And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history. 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. And you do that by love.

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. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly. 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. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater. And this is why Jesus says hate [recording interrupted]




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Almost-empty hallway at Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas, during the time it was closed to avoid integration: photo by Thomas A. O'Halloran, September 1958 (U.S. News & World Report Photograph Collection, Library of Congress)

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An African-American high school girl being educated via television during the period in which the Little Rock, Arkansas schools were closed to avoid integration: photo by Thomas A. O'Halloran, September 1958 (U.S. News & World Report Photograph Collection, Library of Congress)

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Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, Washington, D.C.: photo by Marion S. Trikosko, 26 March 1964 (U.S. News & World Report Photograph Collection, Library of Congress)

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Men gathered on a street in Amman, Jordan: photo by Thomas A. O'Halloran, July 1958 (U.S. News & World Report Photograph Collection, Library of Congress)



Images of Osama bin Laden are displayed for sale at a market in Quetta, 2 May 2011
: photo by Naseer Ahmed/Reuters




The compound within which Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed burns after it was attacked in Abbottabad, Pakistan: still image from mobile phone video, 2 May 2011 (Stringer/Reuters)

Martin Luther King, Jr.: from Loving Your Enemies, a sermon preached at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, 17 November 1957

18 comments:

TC said...

The full transcription of this sermon may be found here.

ACravan said...

I really look forward to reading this. The events of the last couple of days have (to put it mildly) disquieted me. I've found some solace at least hearing from others (some of them quite unexpected communications) who also feel this way. Some of this stuff I can't figure out at all, except to think that things are much worse than I had imagined and to be able to mentally confirm that I have very little influence and no control over anything and that I'm really, really out of step with a lot of the things most people seem to feel. Curtis

manik sharma said...

tom,
so here it is...as curtis says..although we are farther away from the scene of all commotion and suspect analysis..we can't help but put ourselves into context of things...person with a cellphone can capture the scenes but the country's govt can't even locate the scene..Of all history that is being dug up after his rather "edited" demise..this has caught my eye..i think the word myth itself in the current scenario which seems more to have to been created rather than happened is a gimmick in itself...do catch the last point..Arsenal.."gunners"...myth or no myth..that makes you smile.

Barry Taylor said...

Tom - It's a good moment, sitting in front of the TV news across the ocean from you, to be reminded that there are other Americas that speak a different language to the one I'm hearing from Times Square. I didn't know until I read your post, but I needed to hear that incomparable voice again just now.

Ed Baker said...

that empty school hall;way in Little Rock has a date on it 1958

Heck, I was going to Stuart Junior High School 4 blocks down fro Union station when under Eisenhower the schools integrated and it was not 1958 it was 1953 (maybe '52) at least here in D.C. it was 5-6 years earlier that 1958...

about 1/2 of the white kids marched around the school for three days...

the worst racists at the school then were a very vocal group of white women "teachers"

the home ec teacher refused to teach 'colored' girls
and quit
lots of fights and self-segregation

Ed Baker said...

here it is ! It was 1954...
and Browne was down the street and the white junior high that is not named is/was (and it is still there)
Stuart Junior High

http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/school-integration/washdc/backgnd.html

now that entire area has all the way up to 9 th street N.E. has been gentrified
and they now call it Capitol Hill
pretty much all white now.

TC said...

Curtis, to be out of step with feelings of those who display an insatiable wish to inflict and celebrate death is to be in step with life; but right now it is also to feel alone and lonsesome and to be wondering about many things.


Manik, I did and always do assume anything we hear in the media about historical events and movements is, as you suggest, edited; in fact, multiply edited; so that we are left with no choice but to continue the process by doubting the veracity of almost everything, if not indeed absolutely everything, we hear. After all, Disinformation is now as central to political conduct in the world stage as Torture, so that our modern, progressive technological epoch takes on more resemblance every day to Jacobean drama, with its implausibility and its convulsive displays of blood.


Ed, Brown v Board of Education came in '54. Faubus had Arkansas dragging its heels on this for years. He ordered out the National Guard to enforce segration in the schools in '57. '57-'58 became the Lost Year for Central High School. In '58 the battle turned in favour of civilization.


Barry, thank heavens there are in some covert quarters on the social margins here other tongues spoken, but very quietly these days; and any such attempt at rational discourse is quickly overwhelmed by the languages of dimly motivated allpurpose aggression and lust for vengeance of a generalized and unselective sort that would include among its targets of choice anyone or anything that is not understood. And that's a pretty large category, in fact.

In the Martin Luther King address one can hear the eloquence and courage and hopefulness and dignity of another and entirely different sort of epoch.

As for those Times Square celebration scenes, the drunken brazen triumphalism, sickmaking -- one felt the onset of the recoil even in the first burstings of Party Time in the dawn's early light.

Ed Baker said...

D.C. was 4 + years ahead of everywhere else re: integration
and
you must remember D.C. is a "southern" town

just look at the washingtyon redskins.... the very last team to sign a black football player
I forget his name a great college player .. the redskins immediately traded him and he died so they hired Bobby Mitchell

I think the first guy s name was Evans

anyway it s all history now and
as you can see there is no longer any racism

-at least not towards any pretty, light-skinned,
educated blacks...

I guess that lying (to ourselves) is what allows (our) society to function

it (lying) is what separates us (man) from the beasts/monsters

Ed Baker said...

Ernie Davis

Ed Baker said...

this was in 1962!

the Redskins drafted Davis and the Browns wanted him
to play with their great black back so the redskins traded Davis and got the old guy Bobby Mitchell who was STILL an amazing ball player

I was at Griffith Stadium when in his first game he ought 4 FOUR amazing touchdown passes s I recall the quarterback was Eddie Labaron

for my money the greatest ever passing/faking qb...

and, I think Lebaron was only about 5' 6" ...

Lebaron took over from Sammy Baugh whose last game I also was there to see.

here is the bio minus the fact that the redskins drafted davis in first round... what a ball-player!

http://www.biography.com/articles/Ernie-Davis-9267805

Ed Baker said...

anddddd without further a-do ... here is

Eddie Labaron !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_LeBaron

I got tears in my eyes !!!! the good one.

Stan Szczesny said...

Tom, thanks for this post. You might enjoy my post on this subject at: http://stansgreatbooksblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/osama-bin-ladenthe-martin-luther-king.html Hope to see you there.

TC said...

Thank you, Stan, for reading and thinking about Dr. King's words. To cite your post:

"On Monday, a quote attributed to Martin Luther King Jr. went viral. The quote says, 'I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.' The first sentence of the quote turned out to be a fake. Now the news is that a woman named Jessica Lovey tweeted the quote and, as she explained in a tweet to her friend this morning, 'Somewhere, my words got mixed with his.'"

In fact, Stan, in the wake of the murder in his bedroom, before his family, of the unarmed Most Wanted Man on Earth, the festive displays of "Vengeance is Mine, saith Uncle Sam" caused those people who remembered Dr. King's words to be cowed, shouted down and drowned out by those who found the words inconvenient.

Dr. King's sermon posted here had a life beyond its original occasion.

The original expression of this essential core of thought came in the 17 November 1957 Montgomery sermon which I have posted above: see this part:

"And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction. And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history. 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. And you do that by love."

He re-cycled bits of this in different contexts over the years.

Each time, the relevance was acute.

The particular version in question in the internet [non] debate:

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Though over the past two days many people who have neither time for nor interest in attentive scholarship have prattled to the contrary, these are indeed the words of Dr. King, in a verbatim transcription of *Where Do We Go From Here?*, an address to the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, delivered in Atlanta on August 16, 1967, and later published in *Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?* (1967), p. 62.

TC said...

And by the by, many repetitions of the above statements, or slight variants of same, were also incorporated into later addresses. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..."

The earliest widely-circulated published version of the address appears in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173: "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. […] The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation." (Martin Luther King, Jr., from *Strength To Love*, 1963)

Elmo St. Rose said...

the races move amongst each
other with ease in Little Rock
these days
and the Little Rock 9 are
cultural heroes...but there are
also heroes that are lesser
known such as the Methodist Women
(white)who also believed and acted
as Christians behind the scenes
at the time.

That being said no one wants their
kids in the public school system
these days
and it's not out of racism. The
education is wanting.

Life is always a little more
complex than black and white

TC said...

Yes, that great grey area in which we all mill about forever... with you on that, Elmo.

Barry Taylor said...

I don't know why it's taken me so long, but here's Francis Bacon on revenge, bang on as he often is, and with a useful reminder of what 'getting even' implies:

REVENGE is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong, putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince’s part to pardon.

[Whole Essay at http://www.authorama.com/essays-of-francis-bacon-5.html]

TC said...

Alas, Barry, so few true princes among the cast of common men (let alone the cast of princes), these latter days.

"Wild justice" of course an oxymoron that makes its point by itself, unaided.

The Bacon phrase much on my mind these past...well, many decades now... is: "Let my death come from Spain" (meaning, of course, that in his day, even by the swiftest of post horses, news of a death in Spain took some forty days to reach England).