Wednesday, January 15, 2020

A Radical Revolution of Values … or, why I have hope even when I tell myself that I don’t really want to….

I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Beyond Vietnam” (1967)


We remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s landmark speech on April 4th, 1967 – exactly one year, to the day, before he was assassinated – for his passionate and principled dissent and excoriation of our country’s misadventures in Vietnam. “Beyond Vietnam” remains one of the most compelling and yet hopeful protests in our country’s history.

But I remember the speech primarily for another reason: because of his prophetic call for a “radical revolution of values” for and in our country, a challenge that we did not take up meaningfully then and that is even more urgent for us today.

I’ve been thinking about this for some time now, but I will acknowledge that the election of Donald J Trump to the highest office in this land and his subsequent and complete demonstration of unfitness for this honor and awesome responsibility have dramatically increased my sense of urgency around exhorting us to consider Dr. King’s challenge and to take it up as our own now and permanently.

We need a radical revolution of values … because what’s happening in our country today shows that we have largely lost our way.…

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

It’s not just that our president is a pathological liar, a boor and inhumane; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens celebrate him for these very reasons. It’s not just that we claim, falsely, to be a Christian nation; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens celebrate elected and societal leaders who demonize the poor in direct contradiction to Christ’s example. It’s not just that we fail to acknowledge the many -isms that continue to plague our country; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens celebrate the disenfranchisement of the similarly situated simply because they consider them The Other. It’s not just that inequality, economic and otherwise, is at an historic high; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens vote against their own economic (et. al.) interests and become dispossessed along with those they think that they’re better than. It’s not just that we’ve become polarized politically, socially and otherwise; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens see this as a good thing even as their own realistic chances at realizing the American Dream evaporate, too.

I want to tell myself that I don’t recognize this bloated, mean-spirited and materially obsessed America, and yet I do. I want to tell myself that it’ll get better if we’re patient, and yet it won’t. I want to tell myself that if I subscribe to the selfishness that has so pervaded our society and just focus on me and mine getting ours we will, and yet we won’t. Don’t get me wrong, all of these things could happen; they are just significantly less likely to as our communal bonds continue to be shredded and our ability to relate to each other and collaborate in mutually beneficial ways ebbs daily.…

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

I want to tell myself that I don’t understand James Baldwin’s famous observation that “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time,” and yet I do. I want to tell myself that as much as the presidency of Barack Obama was a harbinger of hope that it won’t be overshadowed and undone by the studied and purposeful depravity of his successor, and yet it could well be. I want to tell myself that we Baby Boomers will prove to be more faithful and astute stewards of the responsibilities of societal leadership than we considered our parents to be a half-century ago, and yet we won’t.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” 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 the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloodied battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

I want to tell myself that Dr. King was wrong for indicting the US government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” and yet it is (both internationally and domestically) and therefore he isn’t. I want to tell myself that we are more humane in our approach to the opioid crisis than we were when the crack epidemic was a scourge affecting our society because we’ve evolved, and yet we haven’t. I want to tell myself that our constant war-mongering and continued refusal to address the ongoing needs of those damaged by it will be resolved in time, and yet they won’t.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

I want to tell myself that we will awaken from this fog of being lost and right our course, and yet we may not. I want to tell myself that the America that I and my generation are bequeathing to our children is a better one, and it is in some ways, and yet in many and increasing ways it is decidedly not. I want to tell myself that we will avoid our current and clear pattern of mutually assured degradation if not destruction, and yet we very well may not.

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now adopt an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. …

History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.”

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. …

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. … The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. …

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I would like to tell myself that I don’t have hope, because it’s so/too costly, and yet I do. I would like to tell myself that this is a battle for the next generation because I’ve done my fighting, and yet it’s not. I’d like to tell myself that hope isn’t a strategy, and yet in its active form it can be.

I’d like to tell myself that I’m tired and too old to fight the good fight anymore, and yet I’m not. I’d like to tell myself that every time I reflect on the incisive wisdom of Dr. King’s words and the passionate inspiration of his actions I’m not moved and spurred again to action, and yet I am. I’d like to tell myself that this new world, this better world, will be made by a new generation, and yet it doesn’t have to be. I’d like to tell myself that at this stage of my life I should just focus on the relatively short road ahead of me and not worry about the big picture, and yet I can’t. I’d like to tell myself that the remaking of this world is beyond my scope, and yet it isn’t.

It all starts with the revolution of values: first mine, and then yours, and then ours, and then, hopefully, all of ours, too….

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is love.

 - 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NRSV)

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