OPINION:
Dear Dr. E: As we take time this week to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s influence on our country, I’m curious: What do you believe Reverend King’s most important contribution was to America’s understanding of justice and human rights? — AN ARMCHAIR HISTORIAN FROM ALABAMA
Dear Armchair: The best way for me to answer your question is by a little role-play game.
I want you to pretend that you are a brand-new college student. You have just enrolled in your first semester. You have selected an academic major. You have met all your professors, purchased all your textbooks, reviewed all your syllabi, moved into the dormitory, and started attending all your classes. Your goal of rising to the top 30% of the American population with a university degree is now at hand.
Now, fast forward. It is four years later. You’ve made it. You’ve taken all your tests and passed all your quizzes. You have just completed your last finals week, and now it’s commencement morning, and you’re ready to graduate! The time you have been waiting for has come. The speaker finishes his speech, and all the graduates stand and approach the platform. Your name is called. Your family is in the audience cheering as you walk toward the school’s president, who’s waiting to give you your long-awaited diploma, but as he does so, he leans over and whispers in your ear, “Congratulations! You now have a degree in opinions.”
After four long years of study and countless assignments, not to mention a huge financial investment, this man dares to hand you your sheepskin and say, “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as it works for you. Here is your degree in opinions!”
The absurdity here is obvious. We all know you didn’t go to college to major in “whatever.” On the contrary, you went to college to learn something, and your diploma represents acquiring that knowledge. When it comes down to it on commencement day, your opinion doesn’t matter. The question is, do you now know more about biology and physiology than you did when you started? Have you learned the difference between credits and debits? Can you balance a ledger? Do you understand the ethical assumptions implicit in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence? Do you know the difference between right and wrong?
This may seem like a silly exercise and even a bit absurd, but that’s my point. Everyone knows you can’t pretend to be educated if all you have is an opinion. There are objective facts we all need to know. There are indisputable truths that serve as the foundation for any meaningful education. Getting a degree requires learning such truths, not simply having an opinion. To claim otherwise is foolish and the mark of a rather uneducated person.
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But here’s the critical point I want you to understand: Nearly all of today’s establishment elites believe there are no moral absolutes. How many times have you heard our cultural talking heads respond to someone with whom they disagree by saying, “Well, that’s just your opinion?” Our media and government intelligentsia have actually bought this lie. Our county is currently led by men and women who thoughtlessly parrot the mantra that morality is a construct and not a precept. “Truth is really not true, you know. Everything is relative. It’s all a matter of opinion.”
So, what does this all have to do with MLK?
A reporter once asked Reverend King why he believed it was right to break the law of the land in his effort to promote civil rights and social justice. In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he answered the question.
“How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two kinds of laws: just laws … and unjust laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
And what is a just law? Dr. King’s answer: “A just law squares with the moral law or the law of God.”
Reverend King understood that opinions can be self-centered and cruel. On the other hand, he knew that the “moral law of God” was the only foundation for measuring right and wrong. Dr. King’s most significant contribution to our nation’s march for justice was that he understood opinions are inevitably clouded by selfishness and deception and that good and evil – the pure and profane – are defined by God and not the whims of sinful man.
If you are seeking guidance in today’s changing world, Higher Ground is there for you. Everett Piper, a Ph.D. and a former university president and radio host, takes your questions in his weekly ’Ask Dr. E’ column. If you have moral or ethical questions for which you’d like an answer, please email askeverett@washingtontimes.com and he may include it in a future column.
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