5:30 p.m.
I was looking through some of the MLK stuff- there is a pitch fight over his legacy- one
lead by Cornell West from Harvard- basically- the Marxist- Leninist view of MLK, and the
more liberal/democratic/conservative MLK lead by some family members. I came across this
one that was interesting on issues related to the purpose of education, truth, and
morality- also thought this was a nice quote related to what it means to be a scholar.
“To my mind, education has a two-fold function in society. On the one hand it should
discipline the mind for sustained and persistent speculation. On the other hand it should
integrate human life around central, focusing ideals. It is a tragedy that the latter is
often neglected in our educational system.
Education should equip us with the power to think effectively and objectively. To think is
one of the hardest things in the world, and to think objectively is still harder. Yet this
is the job of education. Education should cause us to rise beyond the horizon of legions
of half truth, prejudices and propaganda. Education should enable us to “weigh and
consider,” to discern the true from the false, the relevant from the irrelevant, and the
real from the
unreal.1<https://kinginstitute.sites.stanford.edu/king-papers/document...
The first function of education, therefore, is to teach man to think intensively. But this
is not the whole of education. If education stops here it can be the most dangerous force
in society. Some of the greatest criminals in society have been men {who) possessed the
power of concentration and reason, but they had no morals. Perhaps the most dangerous
periods in civilization have been those periods when there was no moral foundation in
society.
Education without morals is like a ship without a compass, merely wandering nowhere. It is
not enough to have the power of concentration, but we must have worthy objectives upon
which to concentrate. It is not enough to know truth, but we must love truth and sacrifice
for it.”
Two other points of trivia- his favorite philosopher was the German Philosopher Hegel and
he was named by his father after the German protestant reformer- Martin Luther- not sure
how the German influence on him would be interpreted in today’s climate- perhaps it is why
many in academia currently actually do not like him- and my guess- is there is a large
academic divide on interpreting his intellectual legacy either way...MDB
https://kinginstitute.sites.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/purpose-ed...