This is about non-violence and courage, but also alternate viewpoints. This is an essay built on a story and a great man of peace.

The problem with having a radical opinion is that you are instantly held to a high and impossible standard. People who sheepishly follow the status quo are not held to such a standard, indeed they are often free to exhibit ugly and cruel behavior. But if you have a differing opinion you must be impeccable in your moral standards, in your speech and in your actions. For even the slightest fault will be picked apart and used as a weapon against you.

I wonder if those in charge who do this, who act so unmentionably unkind to the minority, I wonder how well they would hold up to criticism. I suspect they relish being the majority and having the safety of standards because they are too weak to be an individual.

Bravery is not measured by being held comfortable in the bosom of conformity. Bravery is not measured by your strength. Bravery can never be had by the purchase of a gun.

So the bravest man of the 20th century was not a soldier, or politician, or warmonger, the bravest was the good reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..

This is why. The turmoil of the American south in the late 1950's and early 1960's was a dangerous mix of fear and resentment. The people who wished to keep segregation and the supremacy of white people over blacks were at a heightened state, a vicious group poised on the brink. Understand that many of these people were disappointed by their lives, they had one solid consolation and that was in the belief that black people were inferior. Secretly they feared this was not true, that even a 'lowly nigger' might in fact be as good or better than they were. So to be told that this was true, to have this fear made public, to have all their weaknesses and foibles thrust forward and made tangible to the nation; this put them on edge.

So now these people, disappointed by life, hollow and immoral, were suddenly being forced to defend the indefensible. They were already abusive, living with the assumption you are superior always creates abuse. Kindness stems from compassion, not smugness. Here in this explosive mix came a man and a movement based on that missing compassion, and with a stated policy of peaceful resistance. Take these cowardly little men, their hate boiling over, and then add an enemy who will not fight back and the result is inevitable. Indeed a coward will always affect a false bravery when presented with the opportunity. Worse, a coward will often be fighting his own self doubt and years of suppression, and when he strikes out he explodes, reveling in dealing out the worst sort of pain and human degradation possible.

And here comes Dr. King. Martin knew, he understood. He was intimately acquainted with the concept that being peaceable would only make people more likely to hurl violence his way. People who reject anger and hate always attract the backlash of the cruelest element of society, pacifists must bear the great brunt of those base emotions. And yet he went, Martin and the enlightened few against the seething tide of the ugly masses.

This is bravery, believing in a cause and no matter how high the hurdle, no matter what the danger, to walk in and face the foe. But not with a clenched fist and an army of men, but simply with truth and an open hand. Dr. King knew he would suffer, knew that he was tempting fate, knew that his enemy was a vicious coward waiting for the moment to strike a target that could not hurt them back. Dr. King marched and changed society and history not with tanks and bombs but with a message of peace and understanding. And thats what made Martin the bravest man of the 20th century.

This is what you must embrace to change the world, you must welcome pacifism and love as the driving force in your life. If you have a message, and you want to improve the conditions of society, you must NEVER do so with a weapon. Because the moment you use violence, you and your beliefs become soiled and as weak as the oppressive system you seek to change. The moment you cheapen your actions with violence, is the moment you lose the ability and even the right to affect a positive outcome.

Pacifism is derided and hated. But only because the way of peace and non violence is about understanding, equality and love; and most people simply cannot open themselves up beyond a shallow world wrapped in self-superiority and bigotry.