I came accross the text of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1964 Nobel Lecture at Oslo, Norway, where he reminded us to not let our moral progress fall behind our progress in science and technology. How fitting a message in light of a recent spate of events where the good that technology contributes to our society has been hijacked by forces of evil. The speech, in relevant part, reads as follows:
Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau: "Improved means to an unimproved end". This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual "lag" must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the "without" of man's nature subjugates the "within", dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.
Tragically, Dr. King did not live to see the the technological advancements that have brought us the instant communication of e-mail and text messaging, the internet of things, hash tags, and re-tweets, but he surely envisioned what could happen if those things fell into the hands of those that seek to use them to do evil. We have spent the better part of the last 25 years developing the technologies that we have come to rely upon for the modern way in which we live, work, and play. The next 25 years may very well be spent adapting to the challenges that the dramatic growth of these technological advancements has presented, legal challenges most assuredly among them. Dr. King was right about so many things, the lag between technological advancement and justice is just one of them.
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