This is one of my favorite Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sermons. Here he lays out the rationale for non-violent defiance. He beautifully articulates why we must not demonize the enemy but instead see an element of good in them that can produce more good. Hate begets hate, even if you hate someone for a so-called good reason. On the other hand love is redeeming and has a power of unifying unlike other forces.
Jesus, one of the biggest influences on the Reverend, said:
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?
Publican here being Tax Collector
And on Dailykos, where we’ve obviously chose a side, I think MLK day is a good day to reflect on some of MLK’s words from "Loving your enemies" to understand how to value those who differ from you.
Step 1: He first suggests we analyze ourselves.
You might not be perfect either, which will help you understand that there are imperfections in others. He uses democracy to illustrate this, however, he suggests you do it individually as well.
Democracy is the greatest form of government to my mind that man has ever conceived, but the weakness is that we have never touched it. Isn’t it true that we have often taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes?
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.
Step 2: Since we are made up of good and bad, try to also find some of the good in those you consider bad.
Within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good.
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 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."
Step 3: Do not aim to defeat the individual who is a mixture of good and bad, but only aim to defeat the system that is bad.
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.
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.
So why is this plan better than others?
Love is creative while hate destroys both the hated and the one who hates and increases the spread of hatred in our community and world.
If I hit you and I hit someone else and that person hits someone else . . .
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.
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.
So instead be loving
Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.
Then he summarizes his movement with these thoughts
History unfortunately leaves some people oppressed and some people oppressors. And there are three ways that individuals who are oppressed can deal with their oppression. One of them is to rise up against their oppressors with physical violence and corroding hatred... Violence creates many more social problems than it solves...unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. Violence isn’t the way.
Another way is to acquiesce and to give in, to resign yourself to the oppression. Some people do that. They discover the difficulties of the wilderness moving into the promised land, and they would rather go back to the despots of Egypt because it’s difficult to get in the promised land. And so they resign themselves to the fate of oppression; they somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that too isn’t the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way. Jesus discovered that.
So perhaps some thoughts from MLK to take in future interactions with people who have a different view. Sometimes this is corrupted into a generic ‘hate the sin not the sinner’ type of slogan that can be used to pretend you’re not attacking a person but actions always speak louder than words in these cases and you know if you’re being true to yourself.