Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I would like you to spend some time thinking and writing about connections between his life-work and what you have read and discussed in our class. Here are two guiding questions to your free-write:
What makes humans able to create or accept injustice?
What makes humans able to stand up to injustice?
I would like you to use at least one quote from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and reference two books we have read this year. The documentary on the Milgrim and Zimbardo experiments and our discussion of projection may provide more ideas.
from “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963):
“Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue...I am not afraid of the word ‘tension.’ I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that is was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”
“History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebur has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.”
“Segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn’t segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness?”
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the strive toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace of direct action...who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
What makes humans able to create/accept injustice? In Martin Luther King's letter, he says that those who create injustice are doing it without directly knowing. He says that the "Negro's great stumbling block is… the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace of direct action." Therefore, those who want order and strive to achieve order also create injustice. They do this somewhat subconsciously; it seems as though it is not their goal and that they do it accidentally. This way of thinking shows up in 1984 as well. The Party is the source of injustice in the book, and O'Brien himself says that the goal of the Party is to create and maintain order rather than to punish the citizens. Of course this results in both; they maintain control but they also extremely repress the citizens. With these two sources, it seems that a will to maintain order without caring for justice is what makes a human able to create injustice. In The Crucible, those who believe in witchcraft and hang innocent people are not intentionally creating/accepting injustice, but are rather trying to maintain order and peace. Therefore, the Crucible agrees with MLK and 1984 by saying that injustice is a result of someone/people wanting order. These people who want order are not intentionally trying to create injustice nor are they putting much effort into assuring justice - they seem to not care much one way or the other as long as order is achieved.
ReplyDelete"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” This quote reminds me of 1984 when Winston knows that he doesn't believe in what the party is saying but he doesn't feel a part of the majority and is scared of the conflict that standing up will get him into. It also reminds me of how Nora in a Doll's House was quiet for so long, trying to be happy in her relationship with Torvald even though she wasn't. When people try to avoid conflict they go along with the majority, embracing what the person of authority is telling them even if they don't necessarily believe in what they are being told to do. This quote also made me think of the torture experiment. To avoid conflict the man continued to "shock" the actor even though he knew it was dangerous because he was told to. Sometimes, to avoid conflict or tension as MLK says they go along with the majority even if they don't believe that it is the morally correct thing to do. Though there have been exceptions, I think that most humans have to feel a part of the majority to stand up to injustice. When we feel alone we are a lot less likely to stand up for what we believe in than if we are a part of a group that feels the same way. Though this is how I feel, it kind of contrasts MLK when he says, Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebur has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.” I think that the power of a group goes both ways. Individuals are more likely to go with the opinion of the group whether the opinion of that group be moral or immoral. It is hard to stand up for what you believe when you are not part of the majority or the position of power.
ReplyDelete“History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebur has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.” This quotes reminds me of 1984 and how as a whole the group is more immoral than individuals such as Winston. As a whole, they seen to possess little humanity, but when you look at characters such as Wisnton and Julia you see that individuals still retain thoughts that suggest otherwise. But Winston believes that the best way to fight the group was to keep your internal beliefs and not forget them. However the King believes that he needs to use his thoughts and turn them into words and turn these words into actions. This is what humans do. Does Winston really not possess as much humanity as he believes? Or does he just know that if he did turn his thoughts into actions that he would die and it wouldn’t be worth it? After all what could he accomplish if he were dead? However, Martin Luther King died for his cause, for his beliefs, and for his people and look the impact his individual life had on the larger group or population. So what made MLK able to stand up to injustice when Winston gave up? Well first off, it seems as if the government in 1984 is a little bit more in control and powerful with their totalitarian regime whereas in America, a democracy, had been many reforms and he knew that if it worked in the past then why wouldn’t it work now? MLK also took a chance. Why did he take this chance though? His upbringing, possibly inspiring parents who encouraged him to fight for what he believed in and do it while remaining a pacifist. Winston’s parents played a large role in his ability to retain memory of humanity which he saw as the ultimate weapon. I think that both humanity, which Winston has lost a lot of, and the power of the group or authority figure you are going up against both play a large role in what makes humans able to stand up to injustice. How are humans able to create this injustice? Well when there is a large amount of power involved, a ruler becomes selfish and as long as they are living a happy life they don’t care about the others. This can also be considered human nature. There are so many different opinions between what human nature is and what humanity is. You really could argue for it either way.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get to finish...but this is what I have.
ReplyDeleteHumans are able to accept injustice when so long as one person, or even a group of people, successfully overpower them. If strong people can set out a blueprint, that must be followed, for them on how to live then they almost feel as if their doubts are overshadowed. As if all culpability for their actions suddenly shifts to the person controlling them because, naturally, humans question whether or not what they are doing is morally sound and potential consequences; we almost live in fear of what may happen to us instead of what we actually know will.
Humans accept injustice if it does not directly affect themselves for the time being. If they do something about it, then it would cause revolts and consequences that would in turn affect them. People create injustice because they are insecure about the level of power they have and are worried that another group could potentially conquer them. To beat this other group to the punch, they start to repress them and create injustice so they have more power over them so they feel less insecure. What makes people able to stand up injustice is the want for more power. Someone will become tired of being at the bottom of the food chain of power or influence so they start a revolt against the injustice of it all. Some of these people will then settle for equality, but some will go farther and want to repress other groups so they can experience power. An example of a middle group in “Handmaid’s Tale” that wants to stay neutral to avoid conflict and consequences is people like Nick and some of the handmaids. The generals and their wives like the power they have and will not give it up easily and do everything they can to keep that power.
ReplyDeleteWe as humans accept injustice because we prefer “a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace of direct action”. Change is scary to many people, you don’t know what’s going to happen when a simple part of your reality goes away or is replaced, and this causes a breakdown of our morals, instead being replaced by ideas of self-preservation. However, as MLK says, “groups are more immoral than individuals.” An extremist group like the KKK is driven onwards because everyone else around them is being driven on. People at a football game are driven to extreme measures that they wouldn’t resort too on a 1-1 level, but carry out because they feel like they have to follow the will of the crowd. However, the group mentality is not always bad. Groups are not inherently immoral, they are simply different. In the same way that the atrocities committed by the KKK are driven on by a group mentality, so is the will for good. Shy, soft-spoken people can become true believers of a cause as they move towards justice, being driven on by the ideas of a better future or a better tomorrow. We saw this with the efforts to end segregation, the efforts to end wars, the protests in the middle east, against unjust laws and rulers. The group mentality does not inherently provide evil means, it simply provides a change in a humans mind. Some people are able to stand up to injustice alone and face it down without batting an eye, and some are required to, like Nora from A Doll’s House. While others need to be driven on by those around them moving forward, like the Proles from 1984 will need to do in order to create a future without Big Brother and INGSOC.
ReplyDeleteCreating injustice almost always has to do with creating power for oneself in exchange for the pain of others. Slavery began because it was a cheaper method of work than hiring workers. People want to have power and they put the rights of other people at stake if they have to. There is a big difference between creating and accepting injustice in terms of reason. People who create injustice are usually willingly doing so to empower themselves. People who accept injustice are not always conscious that it is even an injustice because they are taught to believe so. For example, some people who were pro-segregation believed that oh, of course blacks didn’t have the same rights as whites because they were somehow less human. “Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebur has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.” – This has to do with how the group mentality causes people to accept ideas without thinking. However, sometimes people are conscious that there is an injustice but do not stand up to it anyway because they somehow believe that it is a “just injustice”. This is an example of doublethink: people consciously hold two conflicting beliefs while believing both to be true. Humans are able to stand up to injustice when they overcome the group mentality and aren’t worried about being discriminated themselves. This could mean that either they won’t actually be discriminated against, or they are secure enough to be above this discrimination. Security with one’s self allows one to stand up to injustice. Crucible – Group attacks on witches because it is accepted, but people like Proctor realize that it is wrong and take the moral high ground.
ReplyDelete"Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebur has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.”
ReplyDeleteIn the prison experiment, the students lived as a group that acted out the lives of prisoners and guards. They individually expressed their feelings of guilt and wrongdoings, but the study showed that they were unable to stand up for their morals when in their group. For example, none of the guards stood up for the prisoners when they were being wrongly treated, even though they individually felt the treatment to be unjust. And the prisoners did not stand up for one another when faced with sacrificing one of their luxuries for the sake of another person. The question that is raised with the prisoners, however, is: Why should they sacrifice for another? On a surface level, the idea is to act selflessly in hopes that they would do the same for you, but how can you expect another to take the fall for you when it is a matter of their own well being. Human nature causes oneself to act selfishly to survive. This is the reason that in 1984 people do not question the disappearance of another person, and no one stands up for another. The higher thinking and morals of human nature have been all but obliterated, and the only thing remaining, for the most part, is the primitive human need to survive. In some cases, and possibly more prevalent in the older generations of 1984 society, the feeling of obligation towards doing the right thing still remains ingrained in their thoughts, but the younger generations are no longer taught to care for one another, thus the desire to act out for another person no longer exists. As a whole, the society in 1984 exists as a selfish being with a desire to survive, whereas the individual may feel the need to stand up for another person, but the moral obligation is overridden by the primitive need to survive. In The Crucible, the need for revenge and personal gain is driven by the girl's inability to express their own feelings outside of the group, because being in the group is safer than being the only one with a differing opinion, such as John Proctor.
The creation of injustice might be rooted in desire for power, or fear, or hatred, or something else, or a mix. There are probably other factors contributing. It’s hard to make a general statement about it. Acceptance of injustice might be a product of time, propaganda or other forms of manipulation, or shared feelings with the oppressors, conscious or subconscious. The latter two are more likely to work on those who are not being oppressed themselves. I suppose subjugation could also cause people to accept. “History is the long and tragic story of the fact that the privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.” Is that the only aspect of history? Revolutions, yes. Changes come from people who are dissatisfied with injustice.
ReplyDeleteDeep down I don't think anybody wants injustice. Most people are just doing what they feel needs to be done and often times aren't understanding the full situation. Hardly anyone wants to belittle people just for the fun of it; they usually have a reason that, while it may seem ridiculous to others, makes sense to them in their heads. People who have been wronged learn to accept it in certain ways and defy it in others, and one of the most important people to do this was Martin Luther King Jr. He was jailed dozens of times and no matter what, he always preached for non-violent protestation. In a sense, he accepted his injustice, allowing himself to be thrown in jail without an outward fight and taking the ridicule that came with it. He knew very well that if he violently fought back it wouldn't solve anything, it would only lead to a fight and give the oppressors an excuse to hurt people. He knew non-violence was the only way to get to people, and I believe that we as people know that sometimes we have to take what is thrown at us for a little while because we will come out stronger afterwards. This relates very well to 1984, as the characters are very oppressed and always do what they are told. However, this does not mean that we shouldn't do anything about it internally or after a little while. While King never fought back with violence, he waged war with words and ideas, with the support of the people, and with mass protests. In one of his letters he said "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue." He essentially used his strategy of not fighting back in order to fight back. People can think of ingenious ways to fight back without using violence, and I think the Crucible is a somewhat good example of this although Proctor is a little more violent in his approach
ReplyDelete“History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebur has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.”
ReplyDeleteThis quote explains a lot actually. The reason people create injustice is because that is the nature of humans. “Individuals may see the moral light” tells us that those in injust positions aren’t in tuned to what is right and wrong, just on what they want and need in life, but see it and change; fighting against their instinctual nature. Human nature is the creation of injustice, or maybe the ideal beliefs that human nature is bad creates the idea of injustice; either way it goes, I feel that human nature plays a major role.
People stand up for what is wrong when the “realize” it it wrong. And I put quotations around realize because one can come to a conclusion of right and wrong many ways, through religion, a gut feeling, or through others. What happens after the realization occurs depends on the person. One may speak out about it to a large number of people, and another may need a group of supporters to feel as though the wrong can be made right. I think that if a person feels unsatisfied or even neglected, they will try to rise against injustice.
I think 1984 can be a bad example, and a good one. The proles will never rise against the party because they are satisfied, they can have sex, enjoy music and food and another man’s company without violating the law.
Humans are able to accept and create injustice by following instincts. Could be a problem though since our instincts could come from the environment too. When the environment has it so that black people are ones to be discriminated against, and you aren't black, you are inclined to do what they do, comply with the overall "sane" view, and act like being black is bad, which is unjust. We create injustice in a variety of ways but the black stereotype which lead to the injustice probably comes from projection where the black people manifest a specific part of human nature that we think needs to be suppressed like rebelliousness (to the law), physical strength, etc. The stark contrast in color of skin, and how they talk, may lead us to project a human nature that is directly different than what we strive to be, and we feel that the opposite of us needs to be suppressed. From Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he says
ReplyDelete"groups are more immoral than individuals.”
This idea is apparent when we understand that stereotypes are enforced not by ourselves, because if it was controlled by us individuals, there would be a countless number of people that could recognize through intuition that discrimination against black people is unjust. However, the definition of just and unjust is skewed by the environment, so it leads to bad deeds being deemed good deeds. Humans never lose the ability to critically think and find out how things are truly unjust like recial discrimination, so that makes humans always able to stand up to injustice. However the amount of control an environment has over the people, (using projection as a means of logical reasoning), the more injustice is bound to happen. The way Nora is manipulated by the Father and Husband environment to act like a little girl that listens to men, marries for money, etc. is an example of the environment on the individual, and how Blanche's lust for lavishness is brought upon her by perhaps an imaginary environment including upperclassmen, perhaps Janie's feeling of emptiness without a husband comes from her environment, due to how we see that Janie functions at her best without a man.
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the strive toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace of direct action...who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
ReplyDeleteInjustice is created when one group benefits from it. It is accepted when people are told from a higher source that in some way the injustice is acceptable and when people get used to it. Change is impossible when it seems like there is no chance of it. People give up before they start because they accept the status quo as permanent or as an impossible barrier. In The Crucible, the girls and some of their families benefited from the persecution of "witches." Other people accepted this because they were told that there was a reason for it, and that these people were associated with the devil. The people who stood by and allowed this to happen that were as much of a problem as the persecutors themselves. Part of their reason for standing by was fear that they themselves would be persecuted next. This is another reason they accepted the injustice: it wasn't happening to them, but it could be, and they wanted to keep it that way. People don't want to be associated with the persecuted minority out of fear that they will become part of the minority. However, if they do become part of the minority, it becomes a majority, and if enough people want change, it is possible. It takes an awareness and acknowledgement of the problem to stand up to it, and people must unite, or stand out to make a change. If one person stands up and says what they believe in, they're changing something already because they are acknowledging the problem and not accepting it. In 1984, the people are brainwashed because they are all persecuted. There is no majority or minority, and no one is aware of any problem, so change is impossible. When anyone becomes aware of injustice, they are brainwashed again to conform to the majority. The perceptions of freedom and change is different, and these things cease to exist. The injustice becomes all the people know, and every person accepts it. Justice does not exist, so injustice cannot either. The powers say that everyone must accept the "peace" in their lives, which is really constant conflict, just like MLK's "white moderate," and every person accepts this "peace" and is like this obstacle.
Humans can easily accept injustice when there is an authoritative figure imposing its ideas on society. When there is someone who has control over the people, he can send out his ideas into the world and expect others to simply accept those ideas, whether they are wrong or right. There will be a few choice people who will accept the ideas of a higher power, and then those with less power around them will begin to accept the ideas as well. Some of the people who are of lower class will accept the ideas of higher power, and everyone around them will also begin to accept those ideas because most people honestly prefer to blend in with the crowd, for fear of standing out and having to voice their controversial thoughts. This is similar to what happens in 1984, where people may have rebellious thoughts, but are forced to suppress them due to their fear of being captured by the thought police and tortured by the Party. There are those who dare to rebel on a greater scale than just the mind, like Winston, but their fear of physical pain and consequences overpowers them. Most of the people in 1984 society take on the ideas of everyone else around them, and those ideas center on following the principles of the Party, no matter how wrong they may be.
ReplyDeleteAlthough most humans accept the greater views of society and pay no matter to their own beliefs, some individuals are able to conquer the pressure expelled by those around them and stand up for their own beliefs, like Martin Luther King and those who actively supported him.