I recently attended a public reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Worl House. I had never read or heard this essay, speach or what ever you'd like to call it. Needless to say that man had "it", below is segment from his essay. Read it. If you dig it I've put a link where you can download the entire .pdf
Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of
spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals and religion. The external is that complex of
devices, techniques, mechanisms and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem
today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the
means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can
be summarized in that suggestive phrase of Thoreau: “Improved means to an unimproved end.”
This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem, confronting modern man.
Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul.
When the external of man’s nature subjugates the internal, dark storm clouds begin to form.
Western civilization is particularly vulnerable at this moment, for our material abundance has
brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit. An Asian writer has portrayed our
dilemma in candid terms:
You call your thousand material devices “labor-saving machinery,” yet you are forever
“busy.” With the multiplying of your machinery you grow increasingly fatigued,
anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more; and wherever you are
you want to go somewhere else…your devices are neither time-saving nor soul-saving
machinery. They are so many sharp spurs which urge you on to invent more machinery
and to do more business.
This tells us something about our civilization that cannot be cast aside as a prejudiced charge
by an Eastern thinker who is jealous of Western prosperity. We cannot escape the indictment.
This does not mean that we must turn back the clock of scientific progress. No one can
overlook the wonders that science has wrought for our lives. The automobile will not abdicate in
favor of the horse and buggy, or the train in favor of the stagecoach, or the tractor in favor of the
hand plow, or the scientific method in favor of ignorance and superstition. But our moral and
spiritual “lag” must be redeemed. When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with
guided missiles and misguided men. When we foolishly minimize the internal of our lives and
maximize the external, we sign the warrant for our own day of doom.
Our hope for creative living in this world house that we have inherited lies in our ability to
re-establish the moral ends of our lives in personal character and social justice. Without this
spiritual and moral reawakening we shall destroy ourselves in the misuse of our own
instruments.
Pretty amazing!
here is the whole thing
