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Comment by ralusek | Hacker News Reader

That's because ideas shouldn't be bundled together just because a person said them. The I Have A Dream speech is famous precisely because it is the most important/widely agreed upon of his ideas: evaluate individuals according to their own character independently of whatever collective you might otherwise assume characteristics of. That's a good idea. People like that idea.

We don't talk about King's socialism as much, because what he said in that arena wasn't particularly revolutionary, and many people don't find socialism to be compelling (myself included). Hence, remembering ideas.

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> That's because ideas shouldn't be bundled together just because a person said them.

I think the exact opposite. I think if you’re cherry picking pieces of thought from a figure and ignoring the bits you don’t like then you’re just using them as a prop.

There is of course some complexity when someone changes over the lifetime and renounces early beliefs. But that isn’t the case here, we’re talking about people ignoring a large chunk of a celebrated man’s work because it makes them uncomfortable. I don’t think you can actually do that, and I think it does him and his legacy a great disservice to even try.

> We don't talk about King's socialism as much … and many people don't find socialism to be compelling (myself included).

Thank you for proving my point.

> Hence, remembering ideas.

What, so the rest of what he said wasn’t ideas? Or that the rest of them have less value because someone said so? If so, who decides which ideas are the real ones to be remembered? You? Me? Our political chattering classes?

Here’s the thing, powerful people and instituons have long had a use for editing and celebrating dead radicals as a way to reinforce their legitimacy while also signaling that Those Times are Now Gone. You see the exact same behavior out of the July Monarchy in their rewriting the history of the three glorious days (see Mike Duncan for more). For King it is extremely convenient to make his story the story of official segregation and legal discrimination and nothing more. That neat narrative of “first segregation, then MLK made it all better, end story” only works if you ignore the rest of his work on war and poverty. Because if that is brought into the light then his work looks only half done, rather than done and finished.

> I think the exact opposite. I think if you’re cherry picking pieces of thought from a figure and ignoring the bits you don’t like then you’re just using them as a prop.

I'm not using anybody as a prop, nor am I ignoring anything. If you want to talk about King's positions regarding socialism, I'll tell you why I disagree with them. If you want to talk about his position regarding color-blindness, I'll tell you why I think it's the single most important notion to arise from the civil rights movement.

This doesn't "prove your point" that I'm somehow erasing the other positions he held or using him as a prop, I simply don't agree with all of his positions. You seem to be of the opinion that there is some sort of contradiction inherent in that, whereas the position of color-blindness actually has nothing to do with socialism. In fact, the most prominent advocates of socialism today specifically advocate AGAINST color-blindness.

> What, so the rest of what he said wasn’t ideas? Or that the rest of them have less value because someone said so? If so, who decides which ideas are the real ones to be remembered? You? Me? Our political chattering classes?

This is an absolutely ridiculous statement. Of course the rest of what he said were ideas, the point is that arguments/positions aren't bundled together arbitrarily simply because you would like them to be. If I say "the sky appears blue, I think it has something to do with the way light is scattered through the atmosphere, and that probably means there is a god," hopefully you understand that I've actually made 3 arguments, 2 of which you might agree with. Agreeing that the sky appears blue doesn't mean you have to agree that there is a god. Regarding which have more or less value...you're free to venerate whichever ideas of Dr. King you'd like to, nobody is stopping you. There is no political chattering classes demanding that you do anything regarding which positions of his you found compelling.

> You seem to be of the opinion that there is some sort of contradiction inherent in that, whereas the position of color-blindness actually has nothing to do with socialism.

Please point where I said that. I think you made that up out of whole cloth.

> Of course the rest of what he said were ideas, the point is that arguments/positions aren't bundled together arbitrarily simply because you would like them to be.

They’re bundled together because they’re all part of one man’s body of work. Specifically the body of work for a man whose holiday were commemorating today. So yes, everything he said and did is bundled together when we are discussing him, and if we cherry pick what he said and did when we’re discussing his work, then we’re not being honest to him and history. Literally my entire point is that his legacy and quotes are cherry picked in a suspicious way when we discuss him.

If we’re discussing color blindness in the abstract unrelated to MLK, then sure, you’d be right. But we aren’t, and it’s incredibly clear that my original point had everything to do with MLK specifically, not color blindness in the abstract.

> Agreeing that the sky appears blue doesn't mean you have to agree that there is a god.

Please point out where I said that you were obligated to agree with everything thing King said because you agree with him on one thing. I’ll wait.

If your point is that by celebrating him today we're celebrating the entirety of his work, please consider a day like Presidents day. We celebrate Washington's birthday despite him having been a slave owner. If you think that it's impossible to compartmentalize people, so be it.

If you think that the reason we venerate MLK is in part due to his contributions to socialism, and that's what he means to you, so be it. I'm capable of compartmentalizing, and the reason I choose to venerate Dr. King on this day are for his contributions towards moving us towards liberalism and color-blindness. You seem to think that means that I'm "using him as a prop," whereas I simply find him to be an extremely important contribution to the advancement of civil rights, and feel entitled to celebrate that without having to celebrate the entirety of his beliefs.

> If your point is that by celebrating him today we're celebrating the entirety of his work, please consider a day like Presidents day.

It's genuinely really funny that you thought that this would be a rebuttal. Based on this entire conversation, what do you think my opinion about President's Day is? I'll give you two guesses, first doesn't count.

> We celebrate Washington's birthday despite him having been a slave owner. If you think that it's impossible to compartmentalize people, so be it.

I think Washington is an even easier case to argue here than MLK. This isn't a simple case of not agreeing with every aspect of someone's entire body of work. This is a case of a man waxing poetic about freedom and the rights of man while at the same time engaging in crimes against humanity by buying and selling human beings as property. This fact isn't merely inconvenient, it bathes his life's work in a hypocrisy that is impossible to ignore.

Personally I wish we didn't celebrate his birthday. I think in general it's a bad idea to put people on pedestals for a variety of reasons, including if they turn out to be monsters in some ways. For Washington this specifically puts us all in the invidious position of explaining why we're venerating a man who could look another human being in the eyes and then sell them off like property.

> If you think that the reason we venerate MLK is in part due to his contributions to socialism, and that's what he means to you, so be it.

I'm split on whether this is fantastically bad reading comprehension on your part, or a bad faith interpretation of what I've said. It's 50/50 for me. Because at no point did I indicate that MLK even made a contribution to socialism, or even that I thought he was a socialist. All of that is entirely a fabrication on your part, completely unsupported by what I said.

My entire point is that I find it a bit sus that after MLK's death people only ever seem to engage with one very specific aspect of MLK's work and legacy, and it's I think the part that is selected is politically convenient for those in power. That's it. That's my entire point.

> feel entitled to celebrate that without having to celebrate the entirety of his beliefs.

Again, I never said you had to agree with everything that he said. You've made that up to get angry at me about.

> It's genuinely really funny that you thought that this would be a rebuttal

I'm illustrating the examples under which people can be celebrated without celebrating the entirety of their person, understanding full well that you personally find this to be impossible or somehow hypocritical. Gandhi slept with underage girls and was a racist. MLK was cheating on his wife when he was killed. JFK frequently cheated on his wife, and his sister was lobotomized. The example of Presidents day is simply to illustrate that many (most) people are entirely capable of celebrating people as a token of a certain set of beliefs/virtues/behaviors that exists independently the of the whole historical person.

I don't care who you celebrate or why, but you cannot go around inferring that people are somehow ignorant or hypocritical simply for venerating people in a differ manner than you do...particularly when you appear to be in the minority in this regard.

> My entire point is that I find it a bit sus that after MLK's death people only ever seem to engage with one very specific aspect of MLK's work and legacy, and it's I think the part that is selected is politically convenient for those in power. That's it. That's my entire point.

And MY entire point is that this is very often how most people celebrate the legacy of most figures.

That is one sentence from that speech. The speech has many more ideas in it.

This is why I focused on ideas, not speeches.

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