Armed Truth

This week, a friend of mine posted this quote on Facebook from Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality...I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word..." (10 December 1964)

On first glance, I found the quote interesting and encouraging. But something just doesn't feel quite right about it. Of course, the general idea is easy enough, that "good" should be trusted to ultimately win over "bad." But the expression "unarmed truth" is what troubles me.

Can there be such a thing as unarmed truth? Maybe in theoretical terms, but in real life, truth requires interpretation and understanding. Truth is not really it's own thing. It requires delivery by some party, and acceptance by another party. The problem is that utterances described as "truth" are actually delivered by multiple conflicting parties, and then accepted or at least heard by multiple other conflicting parties. So even though no injury is intended, in real life, truth is armed. As someone clever once said, the truth hurts. As some other dude said, the truth is like a double-edged sword.

I don't see the opponent to Martin Luther King Jr's hope being a starless midnight darkness and despair, rather I see the opponent being the natural human difficulty of attaining a uniformed acceptance of "truth."