During the first year of my life in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. published a book titled Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? - sadly a profoundly relevant question for today. In the last chapter of that book titled “The World House,” King called on all of us to work together to eradicate the evils of racism, poverty, and war. In that chapter, he wrote these words:
This is the great new problem of [hu]mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu—a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.
MLK Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, p. 177.
King recognized that if we are ever going to be able to live together in peace, we must address the triple evils of racism, poverty, and militarism; and in a nuclear age, King recognized that it is especially urgent that we commit ourselves to the philosophy of non-violence, a philosophy that is not to be confused with being passive, but rather involves active nonviolent resistance to injustice in our world. We cannot afford to continue to rely on violence in our relations in a world of nuclear weapons, which pose an existential threat to all of humanity. We have to move beyond nationalism and militarism to a world house vision.
In a world with enough nuclear weapons to destroy all of humanity many times over, unless we address the evils of racism, economic injustice, militarism, ecological degradation, and fanatical religion that are the underlying causes of conflict, we will never be safe from the threat of the nuclear annihilation. Eventually the hatred generated by violence in all of its forms will overcome the fear of mutually assured destruction that has kept humanity from using nuclear weapons again since the United States so tragically dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago.
We may not be able to abolish nuclear weapons, but we absolutely must overcome our hatred of one another and our violence toward one another that make it more likely that these evil weapons will be used again in the future.
Religious fanaticism in all of its forms is one of the biggest threats to the survival of humanity. It is a threat multiplier.
The more that people believe that God is for their group and against others, for their religion and against other religions, for their nation and against other nations, for their race and against other races; for their sexual orientation and gender identity and against those of others, the more likely they are to use mass violence against them. The more that religious fanatics gain positions of political power throughout the world, the more likely humanity will destroy itself and take a large amount of other than human life along with it.
It is terrifying that fundamentalist Christian nationalists many of whom believe the world as we know it will end in their lifetime have signifcant influence concerning the use of our nuclear arsenal. Persons who believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and who believe the world as we know it will end in their lifetime cannot be trusted with the authority to make decisions about the well-being of both human and other than human life, and they certainly should be nowhere near the nuclear codes.
It is fiercely urgent to recognize that the biggest threat to the world right now is American fascism. Unless we remove American fascism from power, any chance to sustain humanity on this planet is at risk. Everything we care about: peace, climate justice, economic justice, social justice, true religious freedom, diversity, equity, and inclusion - everything we care about is under threat from the American fascism that is currently in control of all three branches of government in the United States. Resisting American fascism must be our first priority. We no longer have to pose the question “What would it be like if fascists had access to nuclear weapons?” as a thought experiment. We are now living that reality in real time.
At the very least, we need 11 million people in the United States to commit to a general strike, unless we are okay with the United States being a fascist theocratic state with nuclear weapons. And we have to see like Martin Luther King saw in 1967 that we are facing what he called “the fierce urgency of now,” and it is with King’s words that I will close:
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time…. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late”… We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation.
MLK Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, pp. 202-203.
The world house vision sees clearly that the path away from nuclear war is the path towards just and beloved community, and the path will only be possible if we defeat American fascism. There is such a thing as being too late, and we are perilously close to being there in the fierce urgency of now.
