There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a large segment of people in that society who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that that have nothing to lose. People who have stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the risks of societal disconnect and disenfranchisement.
Martin Luther King, Jr. emphasizes the importance of social inclusion and engagement, suggesting that when individuals feel alienated and lack a sense of ownership or responsibility towards their society, they may resort to destructive behaviors rather than protective ones. This underscores the need for creating a community where everyone feels valued and invested in the collective well-being.
In practice
During a lecture on social equity, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of inclusive policies.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
...logical validity is not a guarantee of truth.
Mom said, "His spirit is there," and that made me really angry. I told her, "Dad didn't have a spirit! He had cells!" "His memory is there." "His memory is here," I said, pointing at my head. "Dad had a spirit," she said, like she was rewinding a bit in our conversation. I told her, "He had cells, and now they're on rooftops, and in the river, and in the lungs of millions of people around New York, who breathe him every time they speak!
It seems entirely possible to me that horrible things can be going on without us becoming horrible people.
We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.
Things were somehow so good that they were in danger of becoming very bad because what is fully mature is very close to rotting
The only attitude (the only politics--judicial, medical, pedagogical and so forth) I would absolutely condemn is one which, directly or indirectly, cuts off the possibility of an essentially interminable questioning, that is, an effective and thus transforming questioning.
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