Socrates and the King

Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr. are two renowned personalities in their own times. These two people had expressed their views on society which made great impacts on the people of their time and even of today. Socrates’ views can be seen in the dialogue Crito, while Martin Luther King, Jr.

’s views are on an open letter he made popularly known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In the dialogue Crito, Socrates is situated in jail waiting for his execution. He was accused of polluting the minds of the youth. At the break of dawn, Crito, a friend of Socrates, visited him.Crito went there, actually to help Socrates escape from prison.

But to his surprise, Socrates looked ready for his punishment. Still Crito tried to persuade Socrates to escape but to no avail. He presented him with practical and ethical arguments about an escape but Socrates was able to refute them. The last argument fell on the justice of escaping from prison and evading punishment from the law.

According to Socrates’ arguments, a person who chose to live in a certain society has implicitly agreed to abide by the laws of the society. By doing so, that person is bound to follow and accept laws that govern that society.In his situation, since it was the laws of Athens that imprisoned him, to escape from prison would be an act of disobedience to the laws of the society he had lived for seventy years. Thus, such act is unjust. Also, he argued that if he escaped, he will become an outlaw and will not be ever accepted in other cities.

Also, if he did what Crito is telling him to do, he said that he will be strongly punished in the underworld for the unjust deed (Crito: Plato). In Martin Luther King, Jr. ’s case, he was imprisoned for leading 53 African Americans in a protest rally without permit against the laws of segregation in Birmingham.Succeeding the protest was their arrest and a letter from the clergymen of Alabama calling to the African Americans to stop their protest rallies. As a response, King wrote an open letter to explain the need for the non-violent rallies that they were doing (Summary of the Letter from Birmingham Jail).

In the letter, King differentiated just and unjust laws. According to him, unjust laws are laws that mortify the dignity of people. Such laws are the segregation laws that discriminates African Americans in the society they are living in. King stated that their protest rallies are acts to disobey an unjust segregation laws.He said that by doing so, what they did was only moral. In addition to these, King said that the protest rallies that took place were done to put tension in the peace that was present in the Birmingham society, because this peace was a biased peace against the African Americans (Letter from Birmingham Jail: Analysis 1).

Looking at these two works, Crito and Letter from Birmingham Jail, we can easily see the differences between Socrates’ and Martin Luther King Jr. ’s views about disobeying laws. For Socrates, laws of a society are sacred. And therefore should be followed at all costs.

If punished by the law, one should try to convince the law to let him go or simply accept the punishment. It is the duty of any citizen of any city to abide by the laws of that society. As for King, there are unjust laws, and such laws should be disobeyed for this law to force the society to change it. These differences in views could have come from the differences in the situation of these two personalities. For one thing, Socrates was a content citizen of the city of Athens for seventy years. On the other hand, King was an African American living in the US at a time when discrimination against African Americans was still strong.

And so the status in the society of these two people is different. This could be one factor that caused a difference in views. Even the supposedly crime that these two personalities committed are different. These now, is a major cause in the difference of views about disobeying laws. Socrates’ ways of talking to people had offended the society he was living in. But the crime he was accused of was actually done unintentionally.

In King’s part, he was fighting for the rights of the African Americans. Therefore, the protest rallies that he led without permits were done intentionally for that purpose.It seems that Martin Luther King, Jr. did not have the same opportunities as Socrates to defend his position. Whether Socrates was wrongly punished or not is not quite easy to determine, but in the context of the laws of Athens, he was punishable.

But the laws in Athens at that time did not have any bias to any minority group. However, in the case of King, the laws in Birmingham were leaning against the African Americans. And thus, it is safe to say that the law acted against upon them because they were African Americans.But, I think I will agree with Martin Luther King, Jr. ore.

What he said about just and unjust laws is quite true. Laws in a society are laws made by people for the own good. Sometimes, lawmakers cannot avoid incorporating their views about the people and society around them. In the case of the laws in Birmingham, it was clear that the lawmakers were prejudiced against the African Americans that is why they made those segregation laws.

Laws are supposed to protect the citizens it covers. But the laws of Birmingham were constricting the movements of the African Americans, and giving them inferior rights.It was like a law that allowed the Anglo-Americans to discriminate the African Americans. I agree with King that we should openly and lovingly disobey unjust laws. Because by doing so, one will be able to point out to the society about the injustice of such laws.

If the conscience of the society is awakened, then proper actions will be done in order to change the law, if not eradicate it. Such actions should be done in order to obtain a peace for the members of any society. No one will fell suppressed and discriminated. The right peace and order in a society should be something that accommodates all of its members.