Reflection on american dreams, values ......

[Warrior of Light]

A MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY REFLECTION ON

AMERICAN DREAMS, VALUES, AND WAY OF LIFE

 

 

 

 

By Seán Sheehan

 

This week we celebrate the life and work of Martin

Luther King, Jr. It's a week that would have seen

the civil rights hero celebrate his 76th birthday.

It's also one of the few holiday weekends that

Madison Avenue has yet to brazenly co-opt. Now

while I can't say I'd be too surprised to see an ad

for a 'King Day Blowout sale: white Hummers, black

Hummers, same low price,' I do find it appropriate

that ad shills seem to be steering clear of one of

the 20th century's great opponents of extreme

materialism.

 

"Now hold on," you might be saying, "I thought Dr.

King stood up to racial inequality and military

aggression?" You'd be right, of course, but Dr.

King actually spoke of three intertwined problems --

racism, militarism, and materialism -- that needed

to be overcome if his beloved United States was to

fulfill the promise of the American Dream.

 

The promise of the original American Dream was

rooted in core American values such as freedom,

security, justice, and opportunity. It held that

everyone should have access to pursue a good life.

Unfortunately, in the second half of the twentieth

century these central values began to be corrupted

and replaced by more materialistic priorities. Dr.

King saw this corruption, recognized the disconnect

between "enough for all" and "excess for some," and

spoke out. In his 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech,

King attested:

 

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right

side of the world revolution, we as a nation must

undergo a radical revolution of values. We must

rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented

society to a person-oriented society. When machines

and computers, profit motives and property rights

are considered more important than people, the

giant triplets of racism, materialism, and

militarism are incapable of being conquered."

 

This speech was not unique. Others referred to "the

triple evils of racism, extreme materialism, and

militarism." Interestingly, he also sometimes spoke

of "poverty, racism, and militarism" in the same

way. King's interchangeable use of "materialism"

and "poverty" is telling -- he clearly understood

that we live in a world of finite natural resources

and he obviously supported Gandhi's principle that

there is "enough for everyone's need but not for

everyone's greed." Were King alive to celebrate his

75th birthday, one can imagine that he might tout

the findings of researchers at the University of

British Columbia that we would need the resources

of four additional planets for everyone on earth to

live the lifestyle of the average North American.

 

OUR VALUES OR OUR STUFF?

 

King recognized that the increasingly materialistic

version of the American Dream was growing

incompatible with such the original dream's core

values. The conflict was particularly pronounced

when citizens in developing countries aspired

toward these American values only to have U.S.

political and corporate leaders thwart their

aspirations out of fear that it would raise the

cost of cheap consumer imports. King saw this as a

wholesale betrayal of the core values upon which

our nation was founded.

 

He once lamented: "It is a sad fact that, because

of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism,

and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the

Western nations that initiated so much of the

revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now

become the arch anti-revolutionaries."

 

Unfortunately, the change King observed in the

1960s has only become more entrenched in subsequent

decades. At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de

Janeiro, the first President Bush staunchly

defended and defined America by its "more is

better" obsession when he declared to the world:

"The American way of life is not negotiable."

 

 

WHAT WE DO MATTERS

 

While he tackled issues of overwhelming proportion,

Dr. King's legacy is all about empowerment. Much

of his call to action simply involves reminding

people how powerful we really are, both as citizens

and as consumers. When overcoming racism,

materialism, and militarism seems hopelessly

idealistic, King reminds us that we are citizens of

the United States, and that "America, the richest

and most powerful nation in the world, can well

lead the way in this revolution of values."

 

When Madison Avenue tells us we're too small to

make a difference, King reminds us that individual

Americans together, even financially poor black

Americans, have a tremendous amount of consumer

power. In his "I've Been to the Mountaintop"

speech, King calls, "[Let us] Always anchor our

external direct action with the power of economic

withdrawal. Now, we are poor people, individually,

we are poor when you compare us with white society

in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget

that collectively, that means all of us together,

collectively we are richer than all the nations in

the world, with the exception of nine."

 

My organization, the Center for a New American

Dream, firmly agrees with Dr. King's assessment

that what we do matters. We work to pool citizen

power through our Step by Step program and consumer

power through our Conscious Consumer and

Institutional Procurement programs. Together we

push for products that have good value, are safe

for the environment, and promote the well-being of

the people at the other end of the production line.

 

 

THE DREAM LIVES ON

 

It goes without saying that Dr. King's messages are

entirely relevant four decades later. The good

news is that many world leaders are seizing upon

his teachings and working to make a difference.

For example, President Lula of Brazil reiterated

King's connections in a speech to the United

Nations this past September, stating: "Peace,

security, development, and social justice are

indivisible."

 

Even the president of the World Bank, James

Wolfensohn, echoes an understanding of King when he

states: 'We have a situation where 20% of the

world's population have 80% of the wealth, and the

other 80% has just 20%. If that's a situation that

leads to instability, then we are saying that that

instability will convey itself through migration,

through wars within countries and through crime and

terrorism.'

 

More and more leaders are recognizing the conflict

between core values and a 'more is better' way of

life and they're asking which is more important,

what really matters. As Wolfensohn's quote

demonstrates, some leaders are realizing that 'more

is better' does not provide happiness or security,

its not sustainable and, for most of the world, it

will never be attainable. We need a new dream. We

need a return to our core values.

 

 

 

 

source