Compare And Contrast Martin Luther King Jr And Thomas Hobbes

Some people believe that complete freedom will bring chaos to individuals because humans need some sort of leadership, and some believe that freedom brings only opportunities to show how great some people truly are. These two contrasting views on freedom are explained through the philosophical texts and views of Martin Luther King Jr and Thomas Hobbes. Martin Luther King Jr enlightened the entire world with his views in Love, Law and Civil Disobedience and Thomas Hobbes showed the world a new side of political philosophy with his work in Leviathan. In both of these works one can see the contrasting views on freedom and can judge what influenced these views based on the time period that these philosophers lived. The true question of whether or not freedom will benefit the people is whether or not one believes that the masses need some sort of direction. In the 1800 to 1900s, racism and slavery were an immense issue that needed to stop. The prejudice for other races, specifically the African-american’s was so bad that there was segregation and slavery. Martin Luther King Jr was a man that had seen this abomination of what some would call a “free world” and knew that he had to put a stop to this racism. He was a monumental figure in the civil rights movement. One of his influential quotes in Love, Law and Civil Disobedience states “Now we must say that this struggle for …show more content…
The views of Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan are exemplified in his views that obedience is key to human salvation, and that war and violence are merely the cause of the nature of man. The contrasting views on freedom show the difference in philosophy, and the contrasting views of violence and nonviolence show the difference in how to achieve such