Beloved community

The concept of a Beloved Community was developed by American pragmatic philosopher Charles Peirce, and further by Hegelian Idealist Josiah Royce.

It was also employed by radical social critic Randolph Bourne and black Civil Rights leader, the Reverend Martin Luther King. It is a vision of what America could be, if love among human beings replaced market relations, racism, exploitation, oppression, and indifference. It may have its roots in the abolitionist movement, especially among the followers of American Transcendentalism, before the Civil War.

On May 20,1842 Lydia Maria Child, for example, argued that unless the U.S. went beyond mere immediate abolition of slavery (which she championed) and instead offered blacks what amounted to the beloved community, abolition might make things worse, not better, “Great political changes may be forced by the pressure of external circumstances, without a corresponding change in the moral sentiment of a nation; but in all such cases, the change is worse than useless, the evil reappears, and usually in a more exaggerated form, however one can chose to make a wrong choice.”