Simplifying Dr. King?

Here's a Yahoo article (not the greatest) on a topic many of us have seen bandied about—has MLK been simplified and pasteurized, and if so, is that a problem?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080120/ap_on_re_us/mlk_legacy

As a former history graduate student*, I hate simplification. I think everyone should know everything about everything. If you don't, you should be beaten.

But I'm bothered by the idea that we can't usefully simplify. Certainly MLK was a complex guy. So was Washington or Lincoln. But is it really wrong to identify and emphasize their most important contributions?

*Well, sort-of. Classics, but I TAed history courses too.

King has been made an Icon, as we do with all leaders. His personal life was no model of Christian behavior -- not that I am going to throw the first stone -- but otherwise, he was unexceptionable. His political views were, or were in the process of becoming, pretty much orthodox left-Liberal, like Jesse Jackson's, and would probably have done so even had he not been influenced by hard Left advisors.

I don't see anything much of interest here. Does anyone know something else unusual about him? Was he a closet libertarian or something?

Simplify Me When I'm Dead

Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.

As the processes of earth
strip off the colour of the skin:
take the brown hair and blue eye

and leave me simpler than at birth,
when hairless I came howling in
as the moon entered the cold sky.

Of my skeleton perhaps,
so stripped, a learned man will say
"He was of such a type and intelligence," no more.

Thus when in a year collapse
particular memories, you may
deduce, from the long pain I bore

the opinions I held, who was my foe
and what I left, even my appearance
but incidents will be no guide.

Time's wrong-way telescope will show
a minute man ten years hence
and by distance simplified.

Through that lens see if I seem
substance or nothing: of the world
deserving mention or charitable oblivion,

not by momentary spleen
or love into decision hurled,
leisurely arrive at an opinion.

Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.

Keith Douglas 1920-1944

Thank you. I really appreciated reading that poem.

Dr. King's political actions were evolving in response to the conditions he observed. There were, at that time, many black leaders who were considerably more radical and others who were considerably more conservative. As a card carrying member of the Civil Rights Movement (Friends of SNCC), I remember history to be a bit more complicated than labels suggest. Dr. King was first and foremost a minister in the Christian church. He listened to many advisors including the humble and ignorant.

I think I join Tim in wanting a more complete picture of Dr. King; however, of greater concern to me is that this day dedicated to him is primarily a three day weekend for most people and nothing is done or thought to remember the good messages Dr. King preached.

>2 Doug1943:

If you look at MLK and see a certain political opinion developing in a certain way, but otherwise an uninteresting guy, you've missed something. The primary difference between you, me and Dr. King is not ideological—although such differences surely exist—but in just what the three of us have done with our lives.

Well, sure. King led a movement. You have built an amazing website. I have done nothing comparable (although I did serve my time in the Southern Civil Rights movement). I did try to overthrow the government, but had no success.

I think a much more interesting personality, and an admirable one too, was Malcolm X, the first domestic victim of Islamic terror.

Sometimes I cannot tell when you are throwing stones just to see the ripples, Doug.

MLK was extraordinary on many counts. As a preacher, I wish I was a tenth as good as he was. (I happen to appreciate that stuff.) Malcolm X was also a good preacher, but he could not hold a candle to MLK.

MLK took a struggling civil rights movment, and made it viable, potent, effective...however you want to call it. He took from the obscure struggle in the South to a national movement. Would that any national moral figure have that kind of influence. (I lived in the South in the 60s, and while I was just a kid, I could see extraordinary changes taking place.)

MLK's commitment to non-violence was pretty extraordinary. But he was not a pushover. (Read his letter from the Birmingham jail.)

Finally, I would hardly call The Nation of Islam, under Elijah Mohammed an Islamic organization. The problem I have with Malcolm was he kept choosing the wrong things to get involved with. King's life was an example of firm adherence to principle in the face of great oppostion and adversity. His changes over time represented a broadening of his basic principles, a willingness to see how complicated the situation really was, and to take his commitments into new territories.

Malcolm X's life is an example of growth over time, with a fair amount of "how could I have been so stupid" thrown in fairly regularly.

As a spiritual figure, Malcolm X is noteworthy.

As a political and spiritual figure, Martin Luther King is noteworthy.

Nicely put, Arctic-Stranger. Your assessments jibe with my sense of the history.

As a conservative, I am hardened to fashionable historical debunking of our great leaders of the past -- indeed, of our entire past.

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves! George Washington wanted to "exterminate" the Indians! Abraham Lincoln wanted to deport all freed Blacks.

Inevitably, this has led me to be suspicious when I see the Left piously praising someone whom they admire.

Being exposed to all the other debunking has given me the habit of looking at such figures with a jaundiced eye. Were they really so perfect, so saintly?

But since I hate it when my heroes are undermined by the Left, I shall do under others and not go into King's other side.

Coming from a virtually 100% white childhood on Canadian army bases, I remember being astonished by all I saw and heard about the US civil rights movement. The image of dogs menacing people remains vivid. We pestered our parents with questions, I can tell you!

Now, as a mixed-race adoptive family living in the US, we are very grateful to Dr. King.

>3 joehutcheon: Thanks for poem "Simplify Me When I am Dead". With my families' elders dwindling to a few, I've been scrambling to collect reminisces and id people in old photos. Info decreases exponentially with each generation back, especially for the women, who rarely left a public mark by which to be simplified...

King was a philanderer, and possibly copied material for his dissertation.

So?

The fact is, we want our national figures to be saints. This is a peculiar American fetish, which stems from our puritan past. Bush may be brain dead, but by god, he is a moral man! (Carter, the closet thing he have to a saint in public office, ironically does not get a free ride on his moral turpitude.)

Jefferson not only owned slaves, it looks like he slept with them. I still like the Declaration of Indepedence. Lincoln was racist, just not a cruel racist. I still think he is the best president we have ever had.

Historians like Zinn do not tear down cultural icons. They humanize them, and take away our pretenses of pride, where even the best of us have much more room for humility.

Historians like Zinn do not tear down cultural icons. They humanize them, and take away our pretenses of pride, where even the best of us have much more room for humility.

Historians like Zinn have no problem letting facts get in the way of pushing an agenda. Though I admit they get a +1 for being forthright in saying that this is in fact what they're doing, they get a -1,000,000 or so for the act of doing it.

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/barzinn.htm

You've made the astounding comment that objectivity and scholarship in the media and elsewhere is not only "harmful and misleading, it's not desirable."

I've said two things about it. One, that it's not possible. Two, it's not desirable. It's not possible because all history is a selection out of an infinite number of facts. As soon as you begin to select, you select according to what you think is important. Therefore it is already not objective. It's already biased in the direction of whatever you, as the selector of this information, think people should know. So it's really not possible. Of course, some people claim to be objective. The worst thing is to claim to be objective. Of course you can't be. Historians should say what their values are, what they care about, what their background is, and let you know what is important to them so that young people and everybody who reads history are warned in advance that they should never count on any one source, but should go to many sources. So it's not possible to be objective, and it's not desirable if it were possible. We should have history that does reflect points of view and values, in other words, history that is not objective. We should have history that enhances human values, humane values, values of brotherhood, sisterhood, peace, justice and equality. The closest I can get to it is the values enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Equality, the right of all people to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those are values that historians should actively promulgate in writing history. In doing that they needn't distort or omit important things. But it does mean if they have those values in mind, that they will emphasize those things in history which will bring up a new generation of people who read history books and who will care about treating other people equally, about doing away with war, about justice in every form.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner purports to be an unofficial analysis of happiness by country. Iceland has the happiest population, followed closely by several of the Scandinavian states. The US is the least happy first world country.

I have not read this book yet, but have heard a few of Mr. Weiner's book tour interviews.

The gist of his book is twofold from what I can pick up: the more active in the community the community is, the happier its people. This refers to the kind of society we had in the fifties, before TV and fear took over our lives. Children went out and stayed out for hours without fear. People met on porches and lawns to discuss their lives. Many people had others over for dinner and games. Social interaction was very great. The other factor was money.

Money to a certain point can help foster a sense of happiness by relieving money oriented stress. But, after the level of money provides for the basics, it tends to become a factor in stress, in the number of hours worked, of competition with the neighbors, and a constant dissatisfaction with the social stratum to whom one belongs. For the most part, the more money a person has, the less happy they are.

I don't know if this book treats the very wealthy or not, but for us mid to upper mid we, here in America, are pretty unhappy and our woes appear to be related to money, not life.

Wealth does not automatically breed happiness. In fact it would appear that this look at happiness confirms Christ's words about wealth, needles and camels, and entrance into the kingdom of Heaven. The wealthier you are, the less likely you will enter bliss.

I volunteer to help unhappy wealthy people become more happy by performing the selfless act of "sin-eating" , with respect to their filthy lucre.