America is the land of the free. The country was founded on three basic principles of freedom: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America has been the champion of freedom around the world. In the nation that is the voice of freedom, how far reaching is it and does the ring of freedom sound for every member of the nation? Political emancipation in America has advanced leaps and bounds since the end of the World War II and has come a long way since the Montgomery Bus Boycott as well. It has been some six decades since the boycott and the United States is well underway in the twenty-first century and in recent years, movements like Black Lives Matter have emerged to battle continuing injustice in the nation. Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin
…show more content…
According to rhetoric from King and Sartre, emancipation can be achieved through nonconformity, love and forgiveness, and the comradery of people. History is full of nonconformists. Martin Luther King Jr. argued that Christians, by mandate, should be nonconformists. Existentialists, by nature, are nonconformists. To both groups, conformity prevents the realization of freedom. Yet, in modern culture, conformity is something encouraged by various institutions whether it is through common core or societal pressures to look, act, or think certain ways. There is a need for humans to feel a sense of belonging. That feeling of affiliation is not as possible when one strays from the norm. In response, people conform. Whether one conforms out of habit or fear of exclusion, King and Sartre argue that conformity can threaten personal freedoms. In his book, Strength to Love, King dedicates an entire chapter to nonconformity. At one point, he makes the point that, “Blind conformity makes us so suspicious of an individual who insists on saying what he really believes that we recklessly threaten civil liberties” (King, 15). When nonconformity …show more content…
King and Sartre believe that the world can be made better through interaction, or comradery, between people instead of isolation. King preached universal, dangerous, and excessive altruism, which he defines as “…‘regard for, and devotion to, the interest of others,’” (23). Being neighborly is his key to bettering the world. What characterizes a person as a good neighbor is looking past the external, risking where he stands during a challenge, and going out of his way. King called upon all people to be neighborly because people “…cannot long survive spiritually separated in a world that is geographically together,” (30). Additionally, he claimed that social transformation and freedom may be accomplished through men coming together spiritually. Sartre then believes that an individual’s responsibility is far greater than most believe because it involves all of humanity. A priori, or the lack thereof, defines an individual’s place in the world, which will vary, unlike the necessity for the individual to, “…be in the world, to work in it, to live out his life among others…” (Sartre 42). On page 43 of “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Sartre also claims that very basic point of existentialism is the exposure of the relationship between free commitment and the cultural group that is a result of the freedom of
According to rhetoric from King and Sartre, emancipation can be achieved through nonconformity, love and forgiveness, and the comradery of people. History is full of nonconformists. Martin Luther King Jr. argued that Christians, by mandate, should be nonconformists. Existentialists, by nature, are nonconformists. To both groups, conformity prevents the realization of freedom. Yet, in modern culture, conformity is something encouraged by various institutions whether it is through common core or societal pressures to look, act, or think certain ways. There is a need for humans to feel a sense of belonging. That feeling of affiliation is not as possible when one strays from the norm. In response, people conform. Whether one conforms out of habit or fear of exclusion, King and Sartre argue that conformity can threaten personal freedoms. In his book, Strength to Love, King dedicates an entire chapter to nonconformity. At one point, he makes the point that, “Blind conformity makes us so suspicious of an individual who insists on saying what he really believes that we recklessly threaten civil liberties” (King, 15). When nonconformity …show more content…
King and Sartre believe that the world can be made better through interaction, or comradery, between people instead of isolation. King preached universal, dangerous, and excessive altruism, which he defines as “…‘regard for, and devotion to, the interest of others,’” (23). Being neighborly is his key to bettering the world. What characterizes a person as a good neighbor is looking past the external, risking where he stands during a challenge, and going out of his way. King called upon all people to be neighborly because people “…cannot long survive spiritually separated in a world that is geographically together,” (30). Additionally, he claimed that social transformation and freedom may be accomplished through men coming together spiritually. Sartre then believes that an individual’s responsibility is far greater than most believe because it involves all of humanity. A priori, or the lack thereof, defines an individual’s place in the world, which will vary, unlike the necessity for the individual to, “…be in the world, to work in it, to live out his life among others…” (Sartre 42). On page 43 of “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Sartre also claims that very basic point of existentialism is the exposure of the relationship between free commitment and the cultural group that is a result of the freedom of