“I Have a Dream”

The public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington, D.C., for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963.

At the time, he called for an end to racism in the United States and for civil and economic rights.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s granddaughter also has a dream. The 9-year-old Yolanda King disclosed her desire at the “March for Our Lives” rally.

Thousands of protesters (they claim close to a million) filled the streets of Washington, D.C., calling for action on gun control and school safety reform.

“My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream that enough is enough, and that this should be a gun-free world. Period.”

As an introduction, why is this important?

Let’s break it down using Darwin.

Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.

The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits.

Like any new concept or theory; it is associated with controversy and generally takes time to evolve.

Think Facebook.

People still call the social platform “new”. Yet it has reached over a billion people using the service and has been successful for well over a decade now.

Some claim the presence of a “cultural lag”.

The lag is where cultures and societies take time to catch up with ideas. That doesn’t mean just the process and thought, but the technological advances behind them as well.

This ‘lag’ can be due to location or economy or sheer unwillingness.

What social media has allowed, is an ability to gaze or peer into others lives, to see how they react, behave and conduct their own.

There is no better scenario to see this lag than the evolution from Martin Luther King’s speech in 1963 to now, using his granddaughter to highlight…

Martin Luther King’s granddaughter is nine. She has grown up with video, social media, and technologies far beyond what her grandfather even though possible.

In theory we believe we have changed the world. And yet,

1. We have a long way to go
2. We have most certainly changed the world in a technological context
3. We could presume the cultural lag therefore sits with the older generation and its own adoption or adaptation of both modern society thinking from its own youth, and the technologies of today. Or we could look to how our older generations are coping and adapting quite well
4. We could realise the way things have always been, is no longer viable in this current environment.

So, have we really evolved?

Or will it take time.

30 years time.

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