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We have been taught at a young age to be obedient to the people that give us the rules. We are taught to follow those rules, and if we disobey those rules we shall be punished. Near the beginning of Dr. King's letter, he mentioned the word, wait. He quotes, “'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity, This 'Wait!' has almost always meant 'Never.' . . 'justice too long delayed is justice denied'” (745). Martin Luther King and Stanley Milgram are correct in saying that there is a certain point that humans need to disobey to do good instead of evil.
In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail, King discusses the injustice that was being done to the colored people. He writes on how action needed to be taken for this to change. King tried to state the point on how equal rights cannot be changed with people obeying laws; he believes that breaking certain unjust laws will help bring equal rights. Exactly when do you know when to break a law? How do you know if a law is just or unjust? There is a difference in a just and unjust law. King says, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code this is out of harmony with the moral law” (746). What King is trying to say is that a law that does good to people is a just law, while a law that only hurts people, is an unjust law.
King admitted to having a certain disappointment with the white moderates. The moderates agreed with everything King believed in, but they disagreed with the direct action methods he was taking on. The moderates act of obedience is what King tries to explain throughout the whole letter. This is a certain example on how people would rather stay in a “comfort zone” ins...
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...en to us, but it means that somehow we have to stick to what we believe in, no matter how insane it might be. People may have to walk away from dangerous situations such as in Milgrams experiment, or you could most likely have to fight hard like in Martin Luther King Jr's situation. We cannot sit and wait for something to happen because, if we wait, it may never happen and we lose our chance to fix something and make it right.
Works Cited
King Luther, Martin. “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” The Blaire Reader. Exploring Contemporary Issues 6th Ed. Eds. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell, Upper Saddle River, NJ Prentice Hall 2008. 741-756. Print.
Milgram, Stanley. “The Perils of Obedience.” The Blair Reader. Exploring Contemporary Issues 6th Ed. Eds. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell, Upper Saddle River, NJ Prentice Hall 2008. 764-776. Print.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail brings up the idea of acting in a just or unjust manner. In this letter, he’s saying that it’s moral for one to break a law if they feel it is an unjust one. He stated that any law that’s degrading a person should be considered unjust. Even though the technical reason for his arrest was just, since he was parading without a permit, it was an unjust action because it was used to maintain segregation in Birmingham. Since the reasoning for his arrest was unjust, he said that it’s okay to take action against it.
Martin Luther King Junior's letter from a Birmingham Jail was an expression of his encouragement for protest against tradition and established laws and a justification for his actions. King, a leader of a civil-rights group that supported protest against traditional views, encouraged protesting against tradition and established laws that are unjust. In his letter from Birmingham Jail King states: "It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's anti-religious laws." This excerpt shows that King encourages protest because in some situations he deems it necessary, be it in Hitler's Germany, a Communist country, or any situation in which injustices are occurring. In the last sentence of the excerpt King openly admits that he would protest against established laws or traditions. King was against the traditional views and unjust laws, which discriminated against him and his fellow people.
Dr. Martin Luther King addressed many topics in, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. He answered all the issues that were aimed towards him in a very skillful and well thought out manner. These issues came from, “A Call For Unity”, which was a letter published by eight local clergymen expressing their feelings about what Dr. King was doing. One concern in particular that King did an outstanding job of confronting was that of the clergymen’s anxiety about him breaking the law. King addresses the question of, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” by clarifying that there are just and unjust laws. He also goes on to explain the difference between the two, the effect of unjust laws on the people that they are aimed towards, as
... questioning the virtue of vapid judgment, and the merit and efficaciousness of abeyance. This paper has specifically examined his reaction to accusations of civil disobedience, extremism, and admonitions favoring quietism, and the impact his retaliations had on the goal of equality in America. While misrepresentation turns out to be the opposition’s most formidable tool, history, logic and rhetoric serve as King’s strongest allies, allowing him to turn the tenuous arguments of his critics into a formidable bulwark. The letter’s greatest impact on the audience is King’s disambiguation of fact and myth. The fact that his letter was widely publicized proved invaluable to the cause as well. But beyond this, King’s rhetoric allows no room for opposition, only for defense, leaving those in disharmony with his words on the side of immorality, injustice, and villainy.
When MLK was taken in to custody, he was charged with “parading without a permit”(King), which really means he was doing wrong because it was a parade against segregation. He was holding a peaceful protest on behalf of the people who did not have a voice for themselves, and he was going to stop at nothing to be heard. MLK, while in jail, was receiving criticizing letters from all over about his protest, he never responded to them until he came across one. Eight Alabama clergymen entitled, “A Call For Unity”, which explained that he should be fighting in courts only and not on the street, wrote the letter. When King writes back that taking direct action is the only way to achieve the true civil rights even if it goes against what is morally right.
Martin Luther King guilts the clergymen for the first time when he brings up their moral wrongness. King says that he has a “moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” (4). He summarizes why laws are just or unjust by stating, “A just law is a man-made code that
On the morning of June 27 of a recent year, the 300 villagers of an American village prepare for the annual lottery in a mood of excitement. The horrible tradition of the lottery is so old that some of its ritual has been forgotten and some has been changed. Its basic purpose is entirely unremembered, but residents are present to take part in it. The children in the village created a “great pile of stones” in one corner of the stoning square. The civic-minded Mr. Summers has been sworn in and then he hands a piece of paper to the head of each family. When it is discovered the Hutchinson family has drawn the marked slip, each member of the family Bill, Tessie, and the children is given another slip. Silence prevails as suspense hovers over the proceedings. After helplessly protesting the unfairness of the first drawing, Tessie finds that she holds the marked slip.
According to Martin Luther King Jr., “There are two types of laws: there are just and there are unjust laws” (King 293). During his time as civil rights leader, he advocated civil disobedience to fight the unjust laws against African-Americans in America. For instance, there was no punishment for the beatings imposed upon African-Americans or for the burning of their houses despite their blatant violent, criminal, and immoral demeanor. Yet, an African-American could be sentenced to jail for a passive disagreement with a white person such as not wanting to give up their seat to a white passenger on a public bus. Although these unjust laws have been righted, Americans still face other unjust laws in the twenty-first century.
The tone set by Dr. King in the part of the letter where he describes “pent-up resentments and latent frustrations,” and where he recognizes the “vital urge” being suppressed, is very passionate. His passion shines through loud and clear. The way Dr. King feels is, in fact, quite clear throughout the entire letter, yet the overriding sense of reason and logic that anyone can relate to is ever apparent. As he describes the unrest he finds in his community, the community as a whole really; he explains that he did not encourage them to “get rid of your [their] discontent” he instead encouraged them to, “make prayer pilgrimages to city hall;… go on freedom rides,… and try to understand why he [they] must do so”; these quotes from the letter point out the ways Dr....
The first example of the morality issue Dr. King raises is a just law, verses an unjust law. In his essay Dr King describes to his readers the difference between the two. “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law." Here Doctor King is defending his belief that there is a moral issue in some laws. He defends his statement by giving an example of Germany during the Nazi rule. King discusses what Hit...
...d must end. Likewise, he uses ethos by using Socrates’ philosophy to justify the unjust of racism. Also, he uses pathos to convey guilt, so the clergymen can understand exactly what the African American community is going through. Using logos to justify his argument, Dr.King uses inductive reasoning through the word “wait” to show the African Americans have been waiting for many years. The purpose of Dr. King‘s letter is to persuade the clergymen that segregation laws are unjust. As a result, the impact of the African Americans waiting for over three centuries for justice is causing them to be impatient and create tension throughout the society.
In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the theme of the story is dramatically illustrated by Jackson’s unique tone. Once a year the villagers gather together in the central square for the lottery. The villagers await the arrival of Mr. Summers and the black box. Within the black box are folded slips of paper, one piece having a black dot on it. All the villagers then draw a piece of paper out of the box. Whoever gets the paper with the black dot wins. Tessie Hutchinson wins the lottery! Everyone then closes in on her and stones her to death. Tessie Hutchinson believes it is not fair because she was picked. The villagers do not know why the lottery continues to exist. All they know is that it is a tradition they are not willing to abandon. In “The Lottery,” Jackson portrays three main themes including tradition, treason, and violence.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E. Gardner. Boston: New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2013. 242-249. Print.
Though conformity is a humane feeling, many examples of conformity going wrong can be found throughout history. For example, multiple Germans conformed to follow Nazism and prosecuted millions of innocent Jews. Southern whites conformed to segregate thousands of African-Americans. By looking at multiple sources of literature, one can see conformity becomes unacceptable when innocent people are hurt and/or killed and affects the way one thinks or acts.
of the book. Eds. James H. Pickering and Jeffery D. Hoeper. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1027-28. Mullen, Edward J. & Co.