Radical Love
This is an excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech given in 1963 at Western Michigan University. The topic of the speech is "Social Justice and the Emerging Age." This stuff is incredibly powerful.
I would like to say just a few words about this philosophy and method of nonviolence since it constitutes such a prominent place in our whole struggle. I am still convinced that nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. There is power and real power in this method. First it has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses. It weakens his morale and at the same time it works on his conscience. He just doesn't know how to handle it. If he doesn't beat you, wonderful. If he sets out to beat you, you develop the quiet courage of accepting blows without retaliating. If he doesn't put you in jail, wonderful. Nobody with any sense loves to go jail. If he puts you in jail, you go in that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. Even if he tries to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that some things are so precious, that there are some things so dear, some things so eternally worthful, that they are worth dying for. If an individual has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live. When one discovers this, there is power in this method. It disarms the opponent, and he just doesn't know how to deal with it. I've seen this so many times in our struggle in the south. I've seen the opponents as they sought to block the advance of the nonviolent movement and whenever sporadic outbreaks of violence took place, they were very happy. They were not happy when there was an absolute commitment to nonviolence because they don't quite know how to handle nonviolence. It has this power. It has this way of disarming the opponent.
There is another thing about this method that is very important. It give the individual a method of struggling for moral ends through moral means. One of the great debates of history has been over the whole question of ends and means. There have been those individuals from Greek philosophy right on down to Machiavelli right on up to the present day who argue that the end justifies the means. I think this is one of the great weaknesses of communism. Right here, the argument that it doesn't matter about the means. Any method is justifiable in as much as it brings about the end of the goal of the classless society. This is where the nonviolent movement would break with communism or any other system that argues that the end justifies the means because in the long run of history the end is pre-existing in the means. The means represent the ideal in the making and the end in process. It is a wonderful thing to have a method of struggle that says you can use moral means to gain moral ends.
For there is another thing about this philosophy that says you can stand before an unjust system and resist it with all your might and yet maintain an attitude of active good will toward the perpetrators of that unjust system. So it goes on to say that the ethic of love can stand at the center of the nonviolent movement. Now when I talk about love at this point, people always have questions to raise. They begin to say, what do you mean, love those who are bombing your home and those who are oppressing you and using any method to keep you in the state of injustice, the state of slavery. How in the world can you love such people? Well let me rush on to say that when I speak of love, I'm not talking about emotional bosh. I think in so many instances, this whole idea is misunderstood. It is absurd to urge oppressed people to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. I'm not talking about an affectionate emotion at this point. I think the Greek language comes to our rescue at this point, there are three words in the Greek language for love.
There is the word "eros." Eros is a sort of aesthetic love, a yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine. Plato used to talk about it a great deal in his dialogues. It has come to us to be a sort of romantic love. So we all know about eros. We have experienced it and read it in all of the beauties of literature. In a sense, Edgar Allen Poe was talking about eros when he talked about his beautiful Annabel Lee with a love surrounded by the halo of eternity. In a sense Shakespeare was talking about eros when he said "Love is not love which alters when an alteration finds or bends with the removal to remove. It is an ever fixed mark which looks on tempest and is never shaken. It is a star to every wandering bark." You know, I can remember that because I have quote it to my wife every now and then. That's eros.
The Greek language talks about "philia" which is the sort of intimate affection between personal friends. This is a significant love and on this level, you love people that you like, people that you have dealings with, people that are friends. This is friendship.
Then the Greek language comes out with the word, "agape." Agape is more than romantic or aesthetic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is creative, understanding, redemptive good will for all men. It is an overflowing love that seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that this is the love of God operating in the human heart. When one rises to love on this level, he loves every man. He rises to the point of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. I believe that this is the kind of love that can carry us through this period of transition. This is what we've tried to teach through this nonviolent discipline.
So in many instances, we have been able to stand before the most violent opponents and say in substance, we will meet your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because non-cooperation with evil is just as much moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Threaten our children and bomb our homes and our churches and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hours and drag us out on some wayside road and beat us and leave us half-dead, and as difficult as that is, we will still love you. But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory. This is a nonviolent message. It has brought about many amazing changes. It has brought about integration at lunch counters in more than 350 cities in the South since the sit-in movement of 1960. It has brought an end, almost, to segregation in public transportation all over the south since the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and 6, the nonviolent freedom rides in 1961, and many changes are still taking place.
I would like to say just a few words about this philosophy and method of nonviolence since it constitutes such a prominent place in our whole struggle. I am still convinced that nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. There is power and real power in this method. First it has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses. It weakens his morale and at the same time it works on his conscience. He just doesn't know how to handle it. If he doesn't beat you, wonderful. If he sets out to beat you, you develop the quiet courage of accepting blows without retaliating. If he doesn't put you in jail, wonderful. Nobody with any sense loves to go jail. If he puts you in jail, you go in that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. Even if he tries to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that some things are so precious, that there are some things so dear, some things so eternally worthful, that they are worth dying for. If an individual has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live. When one discovers this, there is power in this method. It disarms the opponent, and he just doesn't know how to deal with it. I've seen this so many times in our struggle in the south. I've seen the opponents as they sought to block the advance of the nonviolent movement and whenever sporadic outbreaks of violence took place, they were very happy. They were not happy when there was an absolute commitment to nonviolence because they don't quite know how to handle nonviolence. It has this power. It has this way of disarming the opponent.
There is another thing about this method that is very important. It give the individual a method of struggling for moral ends through moral means. One of the great debates of history has been over the whole question of ends and means. There have been those individuals from Greek philosophy right on down to Machiavelli right on up to the present day who argue that the end justifies the means. I think this is one of the great weaknesses of communism. Right here, the argument that it doesn't matter about the means. Any method is justifiable in as much as it brings about the end of the goal of the classless society. This is where the nonviolent movement would break with communism or any other system that argues that the end justifies the means because in the long run of history the end is pre-existing in the means. The means represent the ideal in the making and the end in process. It is a wonderful thing to have a method of struggle that says you can use moral means to gain moral ends.
For there is another thing about this philosophy that says you can stand before an unjust system and resist it with all your might and yet maintain an attitude of active good will toward the perpetrators of that unjust system. So it goes on to say that the ethic of love can stand at the center of the nonviolent movement. Now when I talk about love at this point, people always have questions to raise. They begin to say, what do you mean, love those who are bombing your home and those who are oppressing you and using any method to keep you in the state of injustice, the state of slavery. How in the world can you love such people? Well let me rush on to say that when I speak of love, I'm not talking about emotional bosh. I think in so many instances, this whole idea is misunderstood. It is absurd to urge oppressed people to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. I'm not talking about an affectionate emotion at this point. I think the Greek language comes to our rescue at this point, there are three words in the Greek language for love.
There is the word "eros." Eros is a sort of aesthetic love, a yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine. Plato used to talk about it a great deal in his dialogues. It has come to us to be a sort of romantic love. So we all know about eros. We have experienced it and read it in all of the beauties of literature. In a sense, Edgar Allen Poe was talking about eros when he talked about his beautiful Annabel Lee with a love surrounded by the halo of eternity. In a sense Shakespeare was talking about eros when he said "Love is not love which alters when an alteration finds or bends with the removal to remove. It is an ever fixed mark which looks on tempest and is never shaken. It is a star to every wandering bark." You know, I can remember that because I have quote it to my wife every now and then. That's eros.
The Greek language talks about "philia" which is the sort of intimate affection between personal friends. This is a significant love and on this level, you love people that you like, people that you have dealings with, people that are friends. This is friendship.
Then the Greek language comes out with the word, "agape." Agape is more than romantic or aesthetic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is creative, understanding, redemptive good will for all men. It is an overflowing love that seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that this is the love of God operating in the human heart. When one rises to love on this level, he loves every man. He rises to the point of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. I believe that this is the kind of love that can carry us through this period of transition. This is what we've tried to teach through this nonviolent discipline.
So in many instances, we have been able to stand before the most violent opponents and say in substance, we will meet your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because non-cooperation with evil is just as much moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Threaten our children and bomb our homes and our churches and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hours and drag us out on some wayside road and beat us and leave us half-dead, and as difficult as that is, we will still love you. But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory. This is a nonviolent message. It has brought about many amazing changes. It has brought about integration at lunch counters in more than 350 cities in the South since the sit-in movement of 1960. It has brought an end, almost, to segregation in public transportation all over the south since the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and 6, the nonviolent freedom rides in 1961, and many changes are still taking place.
posted by jcw at
10:18 PM
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