On Moderation

I was surfing and found Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail", and was rather struck by this passage:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I think that this nicely articulates some of my feelings about what's going on with queer rights movements in the world. Among, for example, Democrats who would sell out queer rights to elect a president.

I think there are several ways, in my own life, where I prefer the "negative peace" that Dr. King refers to, because absence of tension is sooooo seductive. Mostly, I like to think that these don't relate to Really Important Stuff, but I think that it's important to be rigorous about examining these tendencies in myself.

Earworm Hell

Curse you kalmn! I've had "Llama llama duck" running through my brain for too long, now.