I haven’t been to church since I was in middle school. I’ll lead with that, so there’s at least some bearing on where I’m coming from in this essay.
I was raised Presbyterian by a Dad raised the same, and a Mom who was raised Catholic. They brought us to church on Sundays because their parents brought them to church on Sundays. I sat in the pew in my nice clothes and I listened to sermons from a man in a strange robe who I’d seen play basketball against my Dad before and I was taught all sorts of things about the bible and J.C. and sin and virtue and rocks rolling from caves on Easter and watched as people took money from their pocketbooks and placed it in a shiny gold plate that was passed down the aisles and more than most things, I wondered why.
More than that though, I remember one thing, one lesson that was drilled in longer, louder, and more often than any other until the day I finally stood, accidentally said Bullshit aloud (in fairness, the pastor told the congregation that God spoke to him in a vision and told him we had to double our offerings to those shiny bowls because the church desperately needed a new basketball court…it was God telling him, after all), and walked right out of the building. That thing, was the Golden Rule.
Luke 6:31 says:
“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”
Or, it says something close to that based on which of the 450+ English language translations of the bible you choose to read. Problem is, I don’t think it’s entirely correct, I don’t think it’s a good moral compass, and I don’t think so because I think above all things, it’s incomplete. I know that saying this might make me come across as a bit arrogant, some assumption that I’m smarter than the bible or even the ancient Egyptians who, 2000 years before, had their own version, saying “Do to the doer to make him do,” or the Ancient Chinese, 500 years before, who had Confucius quoted as saying “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.” The Hindus had their version too, 800 years before Jesus, and Judaism too. I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying, maybe it just misses the mark a bit.
If church taught me the Golden Rule, life taught me something more.
The Golden Rule, in my humblest of opinions, assumes sameness. Love, real love, empathetic, compassionistic, humanitarian love, requires curiosity.
I’m not saying the Golden Rule is bad, it’s very not. It aims the same place true compassionate love aims, I just think its sights are a tad off, I think it makes the blanket assumption that everyone else is precisely like you. That they have the same needs, the same communication styles, the same physical boundaries, the same emotional salves to soothe the wounds. Problem is, most often they don’t.
Answer this honestly: Have you ever had someone try to comfort you by saying exactly what would have probably comforted then, but it only made you feel worse? Someone offers you solutions, trying to fix a problem, when all you want is an ear to listen? Someone telling you to “stay positive” because they are a person that needs to hear it, when you’re only seeking permission to actually be sad. What about someone who needs hugs, and you don’t want to be touched? The trouble is, comfort and compassion are not universal things, they are highly personal.
I deal with this with my autism on a daily basis. I see honesty as the highest form of respect, and I give it as a second nature, I don’t even mean to offer it. Others, many others, can perceive this as insensitivity, as overly blunt.
The Golden Rule was wise for its time, and I applaud it for the empathy it encouraged. I think it helps raise moral awareness, and it’s a great starting point, I Just don’t think it’s complete. We cannot treat everyone how we’d like to be treated, because they are not we, we are not they, and we never will be. The Golden Rule assumes we’ve the same needs, the same wounds, the same neurotype. It assumes we come from the same resources, that we share the same culture, the same history, the same bias. Humans, however, are wildly different. Defiantly so. Truth is, treating every single person how you want to be treated only works if everyone else is also you.
Our world is filled with opposites, juxtapositions existing side by side. We’ve a population of introverts and extroverts, we’re surrounded by those who have survived trauma and those who have never been plagued by it. We’ve neurodivergents and neurotypicals, we’ve five different love languages that everyone says they represent. We’re a world of foils, and it is these precise differences that make us beautiful.
SO what then? What is a better Golden Rule if I believe this one is more Bronze Rule than even Silver? What would I say? Perhaps these, and you can choose which sticks:
Do unto others how they’d wish you to do unto them
Treat others how they need to be treated.
Curiosity in kindness over assumption of compassion
Love is listening first
Fact is, most people who hurt in the pursuit of the Golden Rule aren’t meaning to, they are aiming at the right spot. It’s just the target is wrong, it’s just that it’s their target they are aiming at, not those they are trying to help. This isn’t malice, it’s assumption, and it’s a misguiding from the lessons that sought to teach, to preach, to inform.
I always try to simplify here, and so I’ll do so again. What I believe we’re to do, what I believe we’re to aim at, the intent behind the actions we perform that we need to set first. I think this is all we need to do, the only RULE we need to practice:
We can be kind. This is what we can do, we can be truly kind, and not merely nice. We can listen, we can seek true understanding, we can seek individualized care. We can stop trying to do unto others as we’d want done unto us, and instead realize that that can hurt some, that can be impossible for some to achieve, and it could cause more harm than good, as inadvertent as it may be. Kindness is not doing what you’d want done, it’s caring enough to learn what others truly need.
I swapped Presbyterianism for Buddhism long ago, I traded Golden Rules for karma, and I lead with love, and that’s all I know to do. If the Golden Rule assumes a mirror, I think this is the open doorway we should all walk through.
But that’s just me, and I will not ever pretend that works for you.
So tell me.
