Since I've suspended a lot of my Pop Culture posts for this weekend, in light of the circumstances and ongoing story in Tucson, I thought I would play one of the lectures delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King over CBC Radio in Canada in 1967. Part of the Massey Lecture series, this one is the third of five lectures Dr. King made on the subjects of Civil Rights, non-violence and the atmosphere of alienation that permeated the 1960's.
Dr. Martin Luther King: “Nothing in our glittering technology can raise man to new heights, because material growth has been made an end in itself. And in the absence of moral purpose, man himself becomes smaller as the works of man become bigger. Another distortion in the technological revolution is that, instead of strengthening democracy at home it has helped to eviscerate it. Gargantuan industry and government, woven into an intricate computerized mechanism leaves a person outside. The sense of participation is lost, the feeling that ordinary individuals influence important decisions vanishes and man becomes separated and diminished when an individual is no longer a true participant, when he no longer feels a sense of responsibility to his society, the content of democracy is emptied. When culture is degraded and vulgarity enthroned, when the social system does not build security but induces peril, inexorably the individual is impelled to pull away from a soulless society. This process produces alienation.”
In light of all that's gone in the past 24 hours, one would imagine those circumstances and that atmosphere still pervade. And so does the voice of Conscience.
As it did then, as it does now.
