It’s a game as old as society itself, I suspect. Society tends to produce winners and losers, and anyone advocating for the losers is painted as a malcontent, someone who is trying to upset the system. You want a fairer distribution of the fruits of our common banding together as humans? You’re calling for class warfare! You’re envious of success, and since you can’t duplicate it, you’re trying to subvert the system and bring down the winners.

Jesus called it back in his own day, as he talked with his disciples and the larger crowd about John the Baptist. “What did you go out into the desert to see?” he asked. “A prophet? Yes, that and more.” But people who went out to see John didn’t much care for the packaging of his message: He was a wild man who lived on his own, wearing a hair shirt and eating locusts and wild honey. It was too severe! Jesus said his message was similar to John’s, and called for a radical re-ordering of society. But Jesus came eating and drinking, and so his message was that of a glutton and a drunkard. Nobody could or should follow him!

It happens down to our very day. Al Gore has talked for years against our wasteful lifestyle and the impact it has on the planet and the climate. It’s a message that has been preached for decades by crunchy-granola types. You know, dirty fucking hippies. But now, here’s Al Gore, dressed in a nice suit with good grooming. But he’s fat! And he travels in a jet! So you don’t have to listen to him when he talks about simpler, less wasteful practices.

Dr. King had a radical message that called for societal change. But if we can put him on a monument, we just have to look up at him and admire him. Or if we can squeeze his entire message down into four words (and the more ethereal, the better), we can ignore all the concrete, practical items he talked about.

Our society has produced some very powerful forces that assiduously look after their own interests. It’s no surprise that these forces co-opt, water down, pull the teeth, neuter, misrepresent, misinterpret, or otherwise neutralize the message and its power of someone like Dr. King. A society that operates more justly for the many will inevitably bring the cheaters down. And they didn’t get where they are by playing nice.