Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that sometimes laws were unjust. In these cases, King would first attempt negotiating with those who were proponents for the unjust issues or laws. If the negotiations were found to be unsuccessful, King would arrange non violent direct action. Antigone on the other hand, didn’t attempt negotiations, she believed that in certain cases, civil disobedience was necessary, and would do whatever was necessary to do her part of doing what she felt was just. King viewed civil disobedience as an obligation if laws were unjust, especially if the proponents of the unjust laws were not willing to negotiate as well as compromise the laws and situations. King states “You are quite right in calling for negotiation. …show more content…
It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored” (d fjdsafkdsjfklsjf). In this quote King is explaining the idea of direct action and how that when one attempts to negotiate and others do not listen, direct action and civil disobedience is necessary. King describes direct action as a way to bring the issues to the forefront in a manner that the other party must stop and ponder the ideas you are conveying and consider them. King says that direct action causes the issues to no longer be ignored, due to how important they are through the direct action. In this quote you can see that King is very much for the idea of negotiating but realizes that if negotiations are not being heard, direct action and civil disobedience is necessary. King also states “My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for …show more content…
Antigone sought to do what she perceived to be right and just, and had no fear of consequences nor no desire to try to negotiate or protest. Antigone simply did her part of doing what she in her mind felt was right even though it was against what she was strictly forbidden to do. Antigone used these tactics differently from Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. Antigone says to her sister Ismene “To me it’s fine to die performing such a deed” (Antigone 22). The “deed” Antigone is discussing is the deed that was forbidden by Kreon. Antigone truly believes in civil disobedience of directly disobeying in order to fight for justice for her dead brother. Antigone also exclaims “What I shall suffer will be far less dire than dying from an ignoble death” (Antigone 24). To Antigone, honoring the Greek gods, her brother, and her family is more important than following an unjust rule. Antigone believes that dying from the consequences of civil disobedience is far more worth dying for than dying without having ever fought for a cause. When addressing Kreon, Antigone discusses that she in face knew of his proclamation but felt that honoring her brother, and the laws of the Greek gods was more important than standing idle to her brother being unjustly forgotten and watching his life not be honored after his death. She says that death for her punishment was a profit because she was doing
Antigone is the niece of a king and goes against her uncle’s command when he says that Polyneices isn’t allowed to have a soldier’s burial and his body must be left in the desert to rot. Antigone decides to bury him anyway because she values god’s law of burial over her uncle’s rule. Antigone tells her sister “Ismene, I am going to bury him. Will you come?... He is my brother. And he is your brother, too… Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way” (Sophocles 694). Antigone values her brother over her uncle & she believes in god’s law over Creon’s decision. King values equality and common law. He dictates “It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the
the segregationists, resulting in the injury and deaths of many of King’s followers. With these points in mind, King came to the conclusion that the best strategy in gaining the rights of African American was the use of non-violent protest. He believed that violence only “intensifies evil,';
The story of Antigone deals with Antigone’s brother who’s body has been left unburied because of crimes against the state. The sight of her brother being unburied drives Antigone to take action against the state and bury her brother regardless of the consequences. The concept of the Greek afterlife was far more important and sacred than living life itself. Everything they did while they were alive was to please the many gods they worshipped. They built temples for their Gods, made statues to symbolize their Gods, and had a different God to explain things that we now say are an act of mother nature. Antigone percieved her actions to be courageous and valid, and Kreone, the King, percieved them as blasphemous. The entire story focuses on deciding who’s right. The question arises, "Did Antigone take proper action?" Was it right to go against her Uncle Kreon’s wishes and go ahead and bury her brother that was to be left out for the vultures? Would it have been better just to leave the situation how it was? The fact is, Antigone did the right thing. She was acting out of divine influence so to speak. Since divinity and humanity are shown to be colliding forces where divinity out weighs humanity in ancient Greece. Antigone was justified in her actions.
While Antigone’s acts can be seen as “disobedience”, when can an act be seen as justified? Antigone’s values are brought up in the first pages, and as she chooses her path, her conscious also knows that by doing this she will be “guilty of the holiest crime” (Antigone 82). The author also compares the stands between Ismene and her sister, as Ismene sees women as too weak to disobey the laws of the king and “[she] plead[s] compulsion and entreat the dead to pardon”(Antigone 107) in order to convince Antigone that women had neither strength nor voice in society. Thus, even knowing all this, Antigone disobeyed the king’s decree and it is seen burying her brother, even confronting the divine
King urged people to obey laws, but the exception is unjust laws. "...there are two types of laws: just and unjust...One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws," (King). He quotes St. Augustine in saying "an unjust law is no law at all." He goes on to describe a just law as a law that follows moral law and the law of God. He describes an unjust law as out of harmony with moral law, and a human law not rooted in eternal and natural
The purpose of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s was for blacks to achieve rights equal to those of whites. While this was the common goal, there were differences in the methods used to achieve them—the nonviolent and violent approach. People such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated for the use of nonviolence. On the other hand, people such as Stokely Carmichael supported the use of violence to achieve these aforementioned goals. While the ideas behind Carmichael’s interpretation of Black Power—such as unity and self-pride—are essential, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent approach is most effective for the task.
Antigone believes in the gods’ authority above all else. She believes in the rituals that satisfy the gods, and that it does not matter who or what the person was prior to his or her death, but that “Hades will still expect his rituals” (563). She appears to believe that one person’s successes or failings in honoring the gods affects everyone, not just those in question, which explains her actions. In valuing the gods’ authority over humanity’s, Antigone completely rejects Kreon’s authority as a king:
When one reads Antigone with King’s idea of civil disobedience in mind, Ismene can no longer be seen as the model sister and citizen she was meant to be portrayed as. Rather, she is the passive acceptor of injustice which, as Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, is the worst kind of evil. While attempting to discourage Antigone from acting against Kreon’s law, Ismene states, “No, we must obey, even this, even if something could hurt more” (Sophocles 76-77). Here, Ismene clearly shows she values peace and order above justice. She is willing to sit back and let the unjust law against her brother remain, no matter how much it hurts, in order to avoid the punishment and chaos that may result from breaking Kreon’s
The legacy of Dr. King propelled America into a new realm of individual liberty by introducing the peaceful protest. Dr. King’s principle indicated that violence was not an option; peace was the way to lawfully achieve their rights. He even had young followers vow that they would act in an ethical way to justify their cause for equality. This positively impacted Dr. King's contribution to history because it continued to remind citizens of America to peacefully protest their government if it is unjust. Additionally, King often told his followers that their actions would be judged, not only now, but even by future generations. This helped ease racial tensions and continued to remind his followers to act peacefully. In doing so, protesters were able to think and justify their actions before they proceeded which paved the way for future generations of America. Furthermore, Dr. King's legacy is remembered as remarkable because he made America embrace this new form of protest. He suggested reality and love rather than anger. Overall, Dr. King's principle of nonviolent protest made his legacy quite noticeable and inspiring
The gods' laws come before mortal laws in Antigone's point-of-view, which is how I believe also. In death, you will answer to your god and no man will have control of your fate in the world that lies hereafter. Therefore by obeying the gods, hopefully, will result in a happy afterlife, which are what most people strive for in ancient times and now. If man does not honor you for noble efforts, your gods' will. Antigone's act was honorable. She stood up to the highest of powers so she could honor her brother, knowing the consequence would be death. Most likely she figured there is only a certain amount man can do to you, so she might as well stand up for not only her family and beliefs, but her gods as well (lines 377-389).
King believed that the problem with violence as a means of pursuing freedom is that revolutionaries must often employ means that threaten to subvert it therefore is illegitimate, and as Hanna Arendt states in On Revolution, “Violence has no intrinsic value, and on the human scale of relative values, will always lie beneath the human needs and interests that is serves.” Albert Camus states “Violence can only be an extreme limit which combats another form of violence, as, for example, in the case of insurrection” Both Arendt and Camus agree with King that Violence, although justifiable in extreme cases, can never be legitimate. King sought to legitimize the Civil Rights Movement by exhorting and adhering to a philosophy of non-violence grounded in morals and human ethics.
In Antigone, Antigone goes through Martin Luther King Jr.’s steps for a nonviolent campaign and it becomes violent and deadly. Antigone successfully goes through each step of the nonviolent campaign proving that Creon’s edict was unjust and unlawful. In the end, Creon truly finds out how senseless his edict was, when he was left alone as the King of Thebes without a wife, a son, or a daughter-in-law to be.
Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.’s essay “Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience” has two main features. The first feature of King’s essay is a call for action; action to bring about change. The second feature, the more easily viewed feature of this essay is a call for a specific type of action to bring about a specific type of change. The change King wishes to bring about is a peace and equality brought about through non-violent actions.
In King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” he expresses his feelings about the Clergymen, who called him “unwise and untimely”, disapproving his acts of protest. “We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom.” (King 43) King believes that if the African Americans keep fighting for their rights by participating in peaceful protests, then the freedom that should be all over America will actually be spread across America. After the Civil War, not everyone was equal, especially in the South where blacks were classified as “separate but equal.” There were many laws in place in the South that restricted the African Americans from doing the things that they were allowed to do which made them separate but equal, restraints were put on them and when they tried to fight back with their peaceful protests they were hit with violence. Additionally in King’s letter he states, “Is it true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather ‘nonviolently’ in public. But for what purpose?”(King 45) The idea of this sentence is that the discipline the police are using is violent, unjust and immoral. In King’s past he constantly was spreading the acts of nonviolence and encouraging people to stand up for themselves, but when he saw that violence was handling non-violence. Considering King’s letter into the question, if protest is an act of patriotism, it is an act of patriotism because patriotism is loyalty to their country while getting all their rights and King and his followers were fighting to get their rights. It wasn’t rebellious because the people fighting we’re fighting for patriotism and a just
In Antigone, written by Sophocles, the protagonist, Antigone, and the antagonist, King Creon put their obedience to opposing laws. Throughout the drama, there is a struggle between the gods’ laws vs. man's law. Antigone believes in the gods’ law. She says, “I know I please where I must please the most” (Sophocles 487). King Creon says to his son, Haemon, “Anarchy – show me a greater crime in all the earth” (Sophocles 502). King Creon believes that man’s laws hold a higher priority than the law of the gods (Sophocles 502). There is tension between Antigone and King Creon because of their opposing opinions.