Maladjustment II

IN 1967, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the American Psychological Association.  Among his remarks are included the following:

I am sure that we will recognize that there are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we should never be adjusted.  There are some things concerning which we must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of good will.  Men and women should be as maladjusted as. . . .Thomas Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery, could scratch across the pages of history, words lifted to cosmic proportions, 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.  That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.  And that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' And through such creative maladjustment, we may be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man, into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

Go with the flow, people say.  Get used to it, don't rock the boat, accept things the way they are.

I think not.  We need 'creative maladjustment' to be a norm in our interactions with the world.  How can change for the better be precipitated if we don't rock the boat a little.  Let's go out and rock our world today.