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Comment by jjmorrison | Hacker News Reader

He's right. Mobs don't do good in the world, no matter if you agree with their position or not.

"Hate can't fight hate, only love can do that"

Somehow we all think we're better at this than MLK was. No matter your beliefs, shame and hate won't help teach a different way.

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Tell me more about how Dr. King wouldn't have used collective action as a catalyst for change.

Are you trying to compare MLK's rousing and elegant speeches with the nastiness that gets sent over Twitter by these mobs?

I'm just following the OPs line of reasoning.

Dr King would have, and always did use love. Not hate.

Collective action is not hate, and change doesn't require hate. Mobs today act out of anger and hate. And that creates more anger and more hate.

It's hard to love people that you perceive as evil - but wow is it ever powerful when you do. Daryl Davis is such a great example of this as another user pointed out.

I'm pretty sure the mobs in question consider themselves "fair" and "tolerant". It's just framing oneself as the good side that stands against the evil "intolerants" hereby justifying the means in one's eyes.

MLK's approach of "love" (the carrot) also wouldn't have worked without Malcolm X and the Black Panthers' threat of violence (the stick).

Contemporaries certainly did not consider MLK's actions to be "rousing and elegant". He was cast as a rabble-rouser and a complainer by the establishment and called responsible for property damage done during the civil rights protests.

It is only in retrospect that MLK has been adopted by the establishment as the "good" protestor and his voice has been twisted to support a "colorblindness" that he never supported.

While the mainstream narrative on MLK is grossly distorted, I think the narrative you’re boosting is a trope, and also has distortions. In the mainstream MLK is the most revered American hero, and in truth there were years in which he may have had less popular support than Donald Trump. However, he was not completely without establishment support. The entire establishment did not always cast him as a rabble-rouser and complainer. He was certainly cast as the “good” protestor in the media on several occasions.

He was routinely invited to meet with American leaders (Nixon, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ). Several of these meetings were in the White House. Foreign leaders met with him. He won the Nobel prize. He was on the cover of Time magazine twice. He was an eminent person during his life.

Here’s two newspaper snippets in contradiction with your idea that contemporaries didn’t consider his speeches rousing and elegant.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20989079/editorial-on-martin...

https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/topics/MLK/washdream.p...

This newspaper article says “Lyndon Johnson recognized that Martin Luther King possesses a certain mysticism of a crusader who can touch the emotional well springs of people and inspire them to demonstrate in a non-violent way.”

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/53577271/article-discussing-...

His funeral was attended by at least a dozen dignitaries

https://www.britannica.com/story/attendees-of-martin-luther-...

This idea is great when you are dealing with people who are earnest but misled, for instance Daryl Davis who has had great success getting people to leave the KKK.

But many actors are not misled, just actively trying to do harm either for the sake of it, or for personal gain or because they are insane. No amount of love is going to get through to people like that. Think Hitler, Trump, Pol Pot, Putin, Marjorie Green, etc

Sometimes you have to fight back

It's really a beautifully simple and true statement. Hate simply cannot fight hate. Maybe some people are not meant to change in this lifetime. But if anything can help them, it's love. I really believe that. There should be consequences to actions if we want to incentive certain behaviors in society. But consequences don't require hate or even anger.

Hitler may not have been destined to change. But what Daryl Davis does is show these people love. And if you've changed the lives of 200 KKK members - believe me, you've seen it all. You'd be hard press to cherry pick only the nice 200 KKK members.

Quite funny to see all posts about love being transformational going ignored. What's the better option? Well-thought out arguments? These people will piss on your discourse and rile up the mob against you with their own sins! They lie and cheat, and get away with too - with corruption and threats. They will opt to burn everything down, and they sometimes can, than submit to justice.

We all know the kind of people. Paradoxially these emotional black holes of human beings seek love and recognition.

The silent acceptance from the populace of such behaviour speaks volumes.

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