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“The Fierce Urgency of Now”: The Ecological Legacy of King’s Social Ethics
- Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics
- The Society of Christian Ethics
- Volume 36, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2016
- pp. 159-172
- 10.1353/sce.2016.0036
- Article
- Additional Information
This essay offers a constructive, ecological extension of Martin Luther King Jr.’s social ethics using a phrase from Henry David Thoreau’s classic, Walden, that King often used: “improved means to an unimproved end.” King argued that this Thoreauvian theme “summarized” modern life; in particular, he employed this idea to address the systemic, interconnected forces of racism, materialism, and militarism. This essay argues that King’s work is fertile ground for the cultivation of an ecological ethic capable of resisting the logic of commodification of the West.