Martin Luther King Jr. // "We’ve left a lot of precious values behind...and if we are to go forward, if we are to make this a better world in which to live, we’ve got to go back... The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this...that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe, just as abiding as the physical laws. I’m not so sure we all believe that. We never doubt that there are physical laws of the universe that we must obey. We never doubt that. And so we just don’t jump out of airplanes or jump off of high buildings...because we unconsciously know that there is a final law of gravitation, and if you disobey it you’ll suffer the consequences... Even if we don’t know it in its Newtonian formulation, we know it intuitively... But I’m not so sure if we know that there are moral laws, just as abiding as the physical law. I’m not so sure about that. I’m not so sure we really believe that there is a law of love in this universe, and that if you disobey it you’ll suffer the consequences... Now, at least two things convince me that we don’t believe that, that we have strayed away from the principle that this is a moral universe. The first thing is that we have adopted in the modern world a sort of a relativistic ethic... Most people can’t stand up for their convictions, because the majority of people might not be doing it... See, everybody’s not doing it, so it must be wrong. And, since everybody is doing it, it must be right... The other thing is that we have adopted a sort of a pragmatic test for right and wrong...whatever works is right. If it works, it’s all right... If you don’t get caught, it’s right. That’s the attitude, isn’t it? Just get by... My friends, that attitude is destroying the soul of our culture. It’s destroying our nation... We’ve got to know the simple disciplines, of being honest and loving and just with all humanity. If we don’t learn it, we will destroy ourselves, by the misuse of our own powers. This universe hinges on moral foundation."