West discussed how living an examined life is uncomfortable and difficult as it involves confronting personal and historical prejudice, but that the alternatives complacency, indifference, silence are far more harmful. King didn't want to be adjusted to injustice. He said that the hypocrisy in America's beginnings in which the democracy-promoting founding fathers were also slave owners must be confronted and discussed in order to affect positive change today. A member of the audience asked West how social justice for all people might be achieved in today's society. He acknowledged there are no pat answers.
Democracy is an ongoing process.
The right to liberty, free speech and free association is dangerous that's why it's rare. Each experience is fragile. King was willing to die for a democratic ideal. He quoted famed Russian playwright and physician Anton Chekhov to illustrate the idea of democracy as an evolution a process toward which each small step is a hard-won victory. Neither was King.