Response to Emily's "The Sophists and MLK Jr."

Emily argues that the best rhetoric comes from a need for it - I agree, and I think that Martin Luther King, Jr. would, too. He in fact begins the letter to his "fellow clergymen" by explaining, " since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements..." In other words, Dr. King is extremely unsettled by the fact that his fellow clergymen, men who read the same book and are of the same faith, do not support him in what he feels from the deepest part of him is a very moral and godly endeavor. That passion, that indignation at the wrongness of men who claim to be godly and live otherwise, spurs Dr. King on to write an extremely effective and moving piece from the jail cell that those same people, by way of their inaction, have thrust him into.

So it seems to be that when the tides of change come adversity only causes them to grow bigger - the examples from the Bible that Dr. King uses are excellent ones. Christians were persecuted from the beginning, and continue to be in many places of the world today, yet their faith continues to spread because there is a passion for it, a need to counter the forces opposing them. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while he was imprisoned; he did not have the same mindset of King, of course, but it does stand to be remembered that both documents were extremely effective because of the need for them. The need both authors felt for change gave birth to the rhetorical documents we read today, and they are all the more stronger for the adversity they were conceived under.