Preview

Mlk and Karl Marx Connections

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
442 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Mlk and Karl Marx Connections
The connections with Karl Marx, Martin Luther King Jr., and Henry David Thoreau can be summarized as similar and contradicting. Each individual are similar, because they all have their personal view in regards to human society. However, with their new and unique views entering the human society, not everyone will accept and follow it. Therefore, it causes conflicts and contradiction among the people. To demonstrate these connections, I’ll use specific examples from their works.
They considered similar in having unique personal views. In Letter From a Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Jr. states: “Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” (King par. 3) Than in The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail Thoreau states: “Common good be damned! Give me something magnificently uncommon!” (Lawrence and Lee pg.14) Also in Karl Marx writing it states: “It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness.” (Harkin par. 7) The examples above represent they are similar in having their own beliefs. From King’s justice, Thoreau’s individualism, and Marx’s Marxism it only considere personal beliefs, which have no effect on society unless they take actions.
Also their personal views are considered contradicting issues. When Marx introduce the Marxism idea it was aim to improve human society and to challenge Capitalism. Therefore, Marxists and Capitalists went into numerous conflicts one of the example would be the Chinese revolution. (Harkin par. 9) Also King and his people gain no civil rights with all the non violence protest, because of the unjust laws. In the Letter From a Birmingham Jail King states: “An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself.”(King par. 18) Despite the fact that King in his letter point the unnecessary of unjust law, the government still ignores the issue and continuous to practice unjust laws. In result, King and the government officials have some major

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King Jr. argues the differences between just and unjust laws using the method of comparison.…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. both shared a similar theme in their writing, which was their passion for equality. These two authors both desperately longed for fairness amongst the people of our nation. Though the stories of Thoreau and King were similar, how they went about it differed.…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    King makes notice of the fact that most of the laws being broken at that time were unjust laws. He mentions that people would break unjust laws on purpose as a protest. If you break a just law intentionally, you are just a bad person who wants to break the law. However, if you are breaking an unjust law intentionally, “you must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”, from the words of Dr. King. People would break these laws in order to make a change for the better.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Martin Luther King Jr., born on January 15, 1929, fought for the injustices of his brothers and sisters throughout his life. While being an active activist, Martin Luther King was imprisoned to Birmingham jail due to his participation in a nonviolent demonstration against segregation and discrimination in Alabama. During his sentence, he wrote a letter, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” to counter the criticisms of his actions from the clergymen by claiming that “An unjust law is no law at all”(par. 12), “Injustice everywhere is a threat to justice…

    • 1359 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    King lists numerous reasons to not obey an unjust law. They each speak to his conviction regarding the importance of complete equality between all people.…

    • 387 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    King describes the unjust laws to support how there were injustices in Birmingham, that were used to maintain the status quo. For example, King states “an unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law”, he specifically chose the word moral because the white moderate, or the clergy men are religious figures who identify with the moral code. In addition, he states “an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law” which he uses to describe how it’s naturally wrong, and unreasonable for them to put these laws into place, and it only serves the purpose to help the ones enforcing and creating the laws, helping them maintain the status quo. These unjust laws that are put in place in order…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    King states the ways the protests were handled emphasizing the unfairness of the monitoring. For example, he mentions the angry violent dogs that aggressively bite and attack six unarmed, nonviolent negroes. Secondly, the claim that the supposedly “break” such laws is emphasized by King claiming the reasons for this action. He declares that there are two types of laws. The ones that should be followed and the ones that are to morally wrong that they should not be followed; the just laws and the unjust laws. the segregation laws, for example, are unjust laws.…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kings starts with an idea that there are four basic steps to a nonviolent campaign. “Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist, negotiation, self purification, and direct action (King).” He does a great job in this essay pointing out the problems and determining that injustice very much does exist. King states, while in a jail cell, that the very reason he is…

    • 1822 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Birmingham Jail Thesis

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages

    From a critical viewpoint, King makes a very persuasive argument using logic and emotions to influence the audience that he is in fact right in taking a non-violent action but more so justified from the basic humanity laws. He denies idea that he is supporting some laws while breaking other by making a distinction between just and unjust laws. He talks about the difference between moral and political and just and unjust laws. For example, Parade law that put him in jail is just in letter but unjust when applied to violate constitution. King also justifies breaking laws by citing historical examples of civil disobedience, such as: the Old Testament, Early Christians in Rome, Socrates, Boston Tea Party, Freedom Fighters against Hitler. He then uses emotions to convince his readers that it is the white moderate that are really at fault, conveying the message that he is a victim of circumstance and society. He uses this to lead into the criticism of his extremism. King is really a moderate between two extremes of black action between doing nothing and becoming violent. He cautions that without his movement, the extreme of hating whites will win out and cause more violence. He then shows that he is indeed a pacifistic by recognition and praise of those whites who have helped his cause. King tries to refute the clergyman’s disapproval of the actions that occurred in Birmingham, he tries to redirects praise to the civil rights protestors, and reconstructs a harmonious…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson are considered two of the most influential and moving transcendentalist writers of their time. These two transcendentalist authors celebrated the divine equality of each individual in their work. Their beliefs opposed the trendy materialist views on life and expressed the eagerness for freedom of the individual from fabricated restraints. Both authors thoroughly studied and embraced nature, as well as encouraged individualism and nonconformity.…

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    King says an unjust law is “a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself….difference made legal.”…

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    All three anti-racial activists share similar aspects on the way they view their community, but also have several differences on how they react towards it. From same backgrounds, different time periods, and different places of the United States, they each shared one major quality. They wanted to be heard and stand up for what was right for society through studies, poetry, anti-racial clubs, etc.…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The purpose of both Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is to talk about the injustice law in the society. Thoreau explains how the government is run by the majority “because they are physically the strongest” (941). Thoreau believes a society “in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice” (941). Thoreau suggests to the audience that it is necessary to “resist” the injustice “for the most part” (942). Similarly, King states that “one has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws,” and that “conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” (265). Through non-violence protest, both Thoreau and King are encouraging their audience to take the duty of civil…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were both radical socialists who lived during the industrial revolution. They strongly opposed capitalism, the main economic system. They wrote in their book, the communist manifesto, that capitalism has always led to two groups of people opposing each other. They used examples from different times throughout history to support their theories. Some of these examples included patricians vs plebeians, and lords vs serfs.…

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unjust Laws

    • 1053 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Firstly, one must define what an unjust law is. According to Martin Luther King, an unjust law is “any law that degrades human personality” (King 179). In other words, it is a law that is directed against a certain group of people or is inflicted on a minority. He continues on by stating that “an unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself” (King 179), meaning that any law that causes a person to suffer simply because they do not agree with this majority is an incorrect and unjust law.…

    • 1053 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays