MLK on Maladjustment

A profound excerpt from a speech Martin Luther King gave in 1961. It's not quite the same as hearing him speak it, but still powerful.... I fear that I have become "well adjusted" to the "economic conditions" he mentions.

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Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word; it is the word "maladjusted". Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life.

But I say to you, my friends, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all people of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize...

I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination.

I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry.

I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.

I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self-defeating effects of physical violence.

But in a day when guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer the choice between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.