Martin Luther King, Jr.: Hypocrite?

There's a story from the Bible -- Daniel Chapter 2, verses 30-35 -- in which a great king has a dream about a beautiful statue with a head made of gold, a chest and arms of silver, abs of brass, legs of iron, and feet made of clay. In the dream, the king is greatly awed by the statue, but out of nowhere, a stone appears and smashes the statue's weak, clay feet into dust, causing the rest of it to collapse and crumble.

This particular story came to my mind recently because I've been thinking a lot about one of the men whose example I've most respected in my life: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. --a deeply religious man who certainly would've known the parable himself. I was thinking of Dr. King not because I myself am religious or because I like statues made from various materials, but because, if you examine his legacy from a logical perspective, you have to come to one ineluctable conclusion: Dr. King may have had a heart of gold, but he had feet of clay. The man was a hypocrite.

Believe me, it's not easy for me to say this. Dr. King was, for a long time, one of my great heroes, along with other staunch advocates of nonviolence like Ghandi and the Dalai Lama. So why do I say that such men didn't practice what they preached? Well, as those of you who read this blog probably know, I'm a big believer in formal logic. A series of syllogisms may help lay out my reasons clearly without raising any more hackles than absolutely need to be raised. I will use Dr. King and his related ideologies as my example, but I don't mean to single him out. He will stand in for all leaders and other advocates of nonviolence who nevertheless support state action.

Logical Analysis

The core syllogism runs as follows:

P: Doctor King advocated nonviolence.
P: Doctor King advocated the passage and enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
C: Doctor King was a hypocrite.

Obviously, the above syllogism is fallacious in and of itself, so we need to add some corollary syllogisms to lay out several assumptions and between-the-lines premises that the above syllogism doesn't explicitly state. First:

P: State action can only be achieved via the use of force.
P: The Civil Rights Act is state action.
C: The Civil Rights Act necessitates the use of force.

Now that's not a fallacious syllogism. And I'm sure my overall argument is starting to take shape now, right? So, before I move on to the next corollary, I want to quickly address the validity of the premises above. I think, as far as the second premise is concerned, no one will debate that the Civil Rights Act (a piece of United States law, for those from outside of the country) is state action; it is a law put in place by the state and enforced by the state's police power. The first premise, however, may engender some debate. Let me attempt to put paid to that debate here, simply by asking a basic question.

In what ways is it possible for the state to act without employing some form of force? I think the inevitable answer is: there are none. In fact, if we examine it honestly, all government action is based on the police power -- there is no action the government can take that does not ultimately trace its origin to, at the very least, the forcible extraction of resources/wealth from some or all of its citizens. If you can think an exception to this rule, I would like to hear it.

Assuming, for now, however, that there are no objections and that we all reach the same conclusions about government -- that all government action is grounded in force (or at the very least in the threat of force) -- we can move on to the next syllogism.

P: The philosophy of nonviolence can be applied to all humans and human institutions equally.
P: The United States government is a human institution.
C: Nonviolence can be applied to the United States government.

This syllogism deals with the notion that the United States, or governments in general, are somehow exempt from the constraints of nonviolence as preached by Dr. King and others like him. It appears to be logical on its face, but we need to evaluate the first premise a bit more fully.

If nonviolence, as a philosophy, extends only to individuals, then nonviolence would not apply to warfare (as warfare is waged between nations or at least societies of people). We know, however, that Dr. King, and certainly men like Ghandi and the Dalai Lama, opposed war in general. Ghandi, in fact, said the following in his "Letter to Every Briton" during World War II:

"I appeal for cessation of hostilities ... because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans. The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as thorough as the Germans ... I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy of the bravest soldiers. I want you to fight Nazism without arms or ... with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them ... I am telling His Excellency the Viceroy that my services are at the disposal of His Majesty's Government, should they consider them of any practical use in advancing the object of my appeal."

As we know, therefore, that war -- an action of governments -- is not condoned under the moral scheme of nonviolence, we can easily deduce that other actions of governments that would use the police or military power (i.e., force) also cannot be condoned.

Dr. King subscribed to the same general principles as Ghandi did -- in fact, the historical record shows that Dr. King was directly influenced by Ghandi's example. King said in a radio address:

"Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation."

So, we know that King believed nonviolence applied equally to government institutions as to individuals and private associations thereof. So it is impossible, then, to reconcile his beliefs in nonviolence with his support for government action that was predicated entirely upon principles of violence! The only conclusion is that Dr. King was a hypocrite. While he may not have made the connection (as most others certainly didn't and still don't) between government action and violence -- making him an unwitting hypocrite, at least -- he was still preaching one thing and then supporting its opposite at the same time.

Corrollaries and Conclusions

Finally, we can extend this argument to the whole host of adherents to nonviolence who advocated government action throughout history. Ghandi replaced the exploitative British Raj, through (mostly) nonviolent means to be sure, but he replaced it with one of the most thoroughly regimented, socialistic, and invasive governments in India's history. This government relied, as all governments must, entirely on the enforcement power of the state to impose rules and laws on the people. And to what did the state recourse in order to enforce the many wealth-redistribution, social equality, and tariff programs it set up immediately after the departure of the Raj? Force.

Likewise, the Dalai Lama was not merely the religious leader of Tibet, but also the leader of the Tibetan government. This government imposed, effectively, a caste society, wherein the religious caste (the monks) were in charge and the rest of the society existed primarily to support them. In order to create such a society and to impose the system of government that organizes it in the "appropriate" way, the Dalai Lama and his associated bureaucracy could only use the mechanisms of the state, which in turn rely on force or the threat of force. It's no surprise, therefore, that one of Tibet's largest prisons, historically, was in the Potala Palace, home and primary place of worship for the Dalai Lama himself.

Beyond specific examples, though, the critical conclusion here is that those who say that state action is a solution to society's problems are really saying that violence is the solution to those problems. Understand, I'm not saying this is good or bad -- I'm not here to evaluate moral questions about whether or not violence is appropriate in various situations -- I'm merely pointing out an ineluctable logical conclusion and the hypocrisy that is attached to it. If you preach any form of nonviolence, you cannot support state action without modifying (and greatly weakening) your position.

There is, by the way, another important conclusion to reach from all of this: pacifism implies anarchism. You cannot be a pacifist and believe in government, because pacifism (at least as it is commonly understood) is a belief that violence is never appropriate, under any circumstances whatsoever. There may well be people who consider themselves pacifist socialists or something of that stripe, but socialism, with its strong belief in the importance and efficiency of government controls, is a philosophy of violence, pure and simple. Again, I'm not judging it upon this ground, but I am saying that it is incompatible with pacifism, a Western version of the philosophy of nonviolence.