M.L. King, Jr. & Socrates

Both Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr. died at the hands of injustice. Socrates refused to escape his unjust prison sentence and chose instead to drink poison in order to demonstrate his conviction that even if men choose to disobey social laws because of their conscience, they must be prepared out of moral duty to accept the penalty society has imposed for disobeying the law. Without such a make-up, society would become lawless and chaotic, "Although one may violate the laws of the land in order to satisfy the demands of his conscience, he has the moral obligation to accept the penalty for the violation of those laws that is imposed by the state. To do otherwise would mean a repudiation of the system of law and order that makes living in a civilized society possible" (Crito 1). Socrates, like Christ, never actually wrote anything but developed a strong following of supporters. One of them, Plato, wrote and it is through his works that we get our modern perspective of Socrates. He is portrayed as a man who, at all costs, followed the voice he heard commanding him to do what was right, a voice he believed to have been God. By following this voice, Socrates' actions were what was right, regardless of any consequences to his own person.

In a quite similar way, Martin Luther King, Jr. also died from in an unjust manner at the hands of an assassin's bullets. However, he died in reality because he

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inly no one believing in the good of the whole and collective harmony would have pulled the trigger aimed at Martin Luther King, Jr. However, both men did choose to disobey laws they found unjust and both were willing to die for it because they had absolute moral conviction and courage that their actions were more just and better for the whole of humanity than the laws they chose to disobey. Socrates believed that when the leaders of society make laws that are unjust then it is impossible to persuade members of society to follow such non-virtuous dictates, "But if the government itself is a chaos and an absurdity, if it rules without helping, and commands without leading � how can we persuade the individual, in such a state, to obey the laws and confine his self-seeking within the circle of the total good?" (Durant 8). Certainly, the recent actions of Republicans seem to mirror this description of chaos and absurdity. King, Jr. rejected Marxism because of its materialism and erosion of individual freedom, yet he also understood capitalism as a system was also materialistic and capable of individual injustices. Socrates was not as directed at changing the laws for social justice as was King, Jr., but they both knew that by in

Category: People - M