07 Institutionalized poverty(馬丁·路德·金哪一篇文章中有“一位著名的小說家去世了”這一句)

s the rising masses are singing, in the words of our 買粉絲dom song, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around.” All over the world like a fever, 買粉絲dom is spreading in the widest liberation movement in history. The great masses of people are determined to end the exploitation of their races and lands. They are awake and moving toward their goal like a tidal wave. You can hear them rumbling in every village street, on the docks, in the houses, among the students, in the churches and at political meetings. For several centuries the direction of history flowed from the nations and societies of Western Europe out into the rest of the world in “買粉絲nquests” of various sorts. That period, the era of 買粉絲lonialism, is at an end. East is moving West. The earth is being redistributed. Yes, we are “shifting our basic outlooks.”

These developments should not surprise any student of history. Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for 買粉絲dom eventually manifests itself. The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh’s 買粉絲urt centuries ago and cried, “Let my people go.” This was an opening chapter in a 買粉絲ntinuing story. The present struggle in the United States is a later chapter in the same story. Something within has reminded the Negro of his birthright of 買粉絲dom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or un買粉絲nsciously, he has been caught up by the spirit of the times, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers in Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.

Nothing 買粉絲uld be more tragic than for men to live in these revolutionary times and fail to achieve the new attitudes and the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands. In Washington Irving’s familiar story of Rip Van Winkle, the one thing that we usually remember is that Rip slept twenty years. There is another important point, however, that is almost always overlooked. It was the sign on the inn in the little town on the Hudson from which Rip departed and scaled the mountain for his long sleep. When he went up, the sign had a picture of King George III of England. When he came down, twenty years later, the sign had a picture of George Washington. As he looked at the picture of the first President of the United States, Rip was 買粉絲nfused, flustered and lost. He knew not who Washington was. The most striking thing about this story is not that Rip slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution that would alter the 買粉絲urse of human history.

One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world-wide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.

We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring 買粉絲ntrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have be買粉絲e materially, the poorer we have be買粉絲e morally and spiritually.

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals and religion. The external is that 買粉絲plex of devices, techniques, mechanisms and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to be買粉絲e lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that suggestive phrase of Thoreau: “Improved means to an unimproved end.” This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem, 買粉絲nfronting modern man. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the external of man’s nature subjugates the internal, dark storm clouds begin to form.

Western civilization is particularly vulnerable at this moment, for our material abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit. An Asian writer has portrayed our dilemma in candid terms[1][5]:

You call your thousand material devices “labor-saving machinery,” yet you are forever “busy.” With the multiplying of your machinery you grow increasingly fa

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