Changing the Rules
Do unto others as you would have them do to you vs. Do unto others as they want to be treated
Despite the impression given by this Substack’s name, I am merely a Christian-curious person, not dedicated to any faith but exploring, reading, learning and thinking. G.K. Chesterton is leading me an interesting direction, and I’m happy to let him do so; what appears to be serendipity is in fact something else entirely. Chesterton is not canonized yet but I can imagine him looking down and, with good nature and humor, putting things in front of me that I cannot ignore. Not hunting me, as Paul Kingsnorth has described his conversion to Christianity as being hunted by God; but instead Gilbert is, as a good friend, sending me cosmic memes to break my understanding of The Way Things Are.
For example. I’m reading my way through the Gospels for the first time and have reached Luke, which is beautifully poetic and literary. However this verse, Luke 6:31, had me bark out a literal “laugh out loud.” After reading I paced around the house for a few minutes, chuckling with a bit of an unhinged mind.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
Why did this trigger such mirth? Not the statement itself, which is excellent and right and kind. No. It is because when I was a child being raised within the radical Left we were given the faith of Secular Humanism, rejecting the Christianity of my parents and forebears, for we needed not the old, sexist ways of the Western faiths but no, no, we could live by a completely secular morality without God or prophets or Messiahs and ground ourselves in a simple rule from which all morality of the Left would grow: Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
But, some will say, all religions have some version of the Golden Rule. True. But this particular formulation, the exact words in this New International Version Bible that I am reading, are the very ones we were taught as little secular Leftists. Only now do I realize that those same secularists just lifted this one phrase from their church childhoods, chucked the rest, and pretended it was a genius invention of their rebellious, idealistic Boomer generation.
For those Christians reading this, yes, I know I’m late to the party. Here in late middle age I have just learned of this passage from Scripture and its place in Western Civilization. Forgive me Frodo. I was...delayed.
As secular Leftist children we (we being me and my sister and most of the rest of urban-raised, Yankee states Generation X) were kept away from Christianity like you keep a toddler away from a hot stove. Openly Christian people were looked upon as threatening, probably ultra-conservative and anti-abortion, anti-women, anti-gay, Creationists, anti-sex (not that we knew why that was important as kids), anti-science, anti...everything I suppose. Classmates who were churchgoers were viewed with a mixture of fear and pity, strange little weirdos dragged to church by their ignorant parents. Talking with a Christian, adult or child, was a conversation in a minefield. They might say something...conservative! Or you might say something they may agree with and then invite you to church! How do you politely say no? Better to avoid altogether. At best they were all Ned Flanders. Nice people, good intentions, but strange and annoying. At worst you were talking to a Billy Graham clone who was going to grab you by the skull and force-baptize you with a can of Tab.
And if you were a child who expressed even the slightest interest in Christianity—NO NO NO NO! Put it down! Put the Jesus down. Put it down! Now! You don’t want that. BAD! BAD! BAD! You don’t need it, put it down. We have a Jesus at home! (Jesus at home being a pile of Gloria Steinem books or a subscription to Mother Jones magazine).
But also somewhere in this secular Leftist upbringing of the 1970s and 1980s I was baptized as a Lutheran...which is a story for another day.
So. There it is then. A stolen idea re-packaged as a Leftist original, the roots conveniently cut off so that the young ‘uns could not be tempted to step into one of those accursed churches and commune with God and eternity directly. What God, what eternity? Now that I have learned of this hypocris- ahem irony, this is yet another nail in the coffin of my Leftist beliefs which has been rotting and staggering zombie-like since at least 2020 (2016? 2004? forever?) but really was never a healthy creature full of vigor, though I could not see the bolts in the neck of this ideological Frankenstein’s creature while living within the very skin.
Is secular humanism really that bad? Well no. The adherents mean well. Many of the them have trauma either real or imagined from Christianity but also feel a need for some sort of moral code. To borrow the line from The Big Lebowski, at least it was an ethos. And for those of us who were kids, we just knew what we were allowed to know like kids raised in any faith. And Do unto others as you would have them do to you is a good moral base. It teaches that other people exist outside your own needs, and they are to be respected and valued like you respect and value yourself. Not a bad way to live.
What the secular humanists did not realize is that without a definitive tradition (name a secular humanist text, a catechism?) the rules drift and fade, and if they are not definitive, then they are malleable. If they are malleable, then they can be subverted.
Richard Dawkins recently spoke to this, admitting that perhaps he had gone too far in his atheist attacks on Christianity, and that he considers himself a “cultural Christian.” He lamented the loss of the physical and cultural artifacts, the churches and music, with no consideration of the deep soil from which they sprang. His idea of Christianity is a sort of “museum religion;” just nice buildings, some plaques, a song or two. A veneer of history over a secular society. What he did not suggest is a Christian revival to preserve the meanings. He thinks he can have it both ways.
How well does a tree grow without roots? Religions, through text and ceremony and faith, renew themselves. That passage from Luke has been read and spoken billions of times over millennia. Every reading reinforces its existence, its power and lesson. There is no doubt what the passage says. If anyone forgets, it is there in the Scriptures to be found again.
The Dialectical Faith, “Wokeness,” renews nothing. Quite the opposite; with post-modern degrees in being half-clever and deconstruction, the constant breaking down of anything that exists is seen as sport by the radical Left. If it’s new it is incredible, especially if no one else outside your head has heard of it; if it’s current, it’s ok I guess. If it’s old (that is, more than five years in the past) it must be destroyed. What are you, an Old? Lolz. Do unto others? Ew, that’s the thing my grandparents say. Barf. And so meaning and morality drift on currents of novelty and narcissistic one-upmanship.
Haven’t you heard? The Golden Rule is dead. The new things is the Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they want to be treated . I first came across this mentioned who knows where, probably some Progressive commentary website. I dismissed it as that month’s silliness. But then it popped up on my xBox in Microsoft’s rules of conduct for their online gaming, of all places. So it has gone official and corporate. DEI offices are all in. Not exactly two thousands years of tradition.
Do unto others as they want to be treated. The problems present themselves immediately. Whereas the Golden Rule requires that you think of others, the Platinum Rule asks that you only think of yourself. I want this and everyone else has to do what I say. Treat me as I demand of you.
The impact upon the giver is not included within the rule. What if the person to be treated has a demand that hurts you? “Tell me I’m good no matter what I do.” “Don’t say anything I don’t like.” “Give me this, that, and the other thing and you can’t say no.” “I’m right, don’t tell me otherwise.” “Give me money.” “Give me love.” “Lie to me.”
Theoretically the giver follows the same rule and then can demand in return that everyone meets their needs, becoming the subject of other’s giving. However this does not result in reciprocal empathy, “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes”. Instead we have competing selfishness, with everyone trying to get what they want out of everyone else. And of course what you have you want to keep so everyone tries to give as little as possible, while also taking as much as possible. The result is mistrust and defensiveness, paranoia, and resentment. What a misery.
The current American ideal is that everyone is selfish and should take what they want from everyone else, ethics be damned. But in real life there are those who are inclined to give and those who are inclined to take. The givers learn, usually the hard way, to be weary of the takers. And so they give less even in circumstances when it would do much good. The only way to not lose is not to give; to learn to curb your kindness lest you lose everything. Meanwhile the takers figure out how to get what they want and think nothing of the harm they do. These people are now lauded as winners.
Do unto others as they want to be treated is not an ethical philosophy to improve human society. It is an excuse to be bad.
The Golden Rule explicitly builds empathy. It developed across many cultures to address the very problem that the Platinum Rule encourages—unfettered greed. Social trust is necessary for healthy society. So the Golden Rule says think of others, not only of yourself. Remember that they are like you. We all will have needs at some point. While thinking of yours, think of the others. Why has this idea resurfaced all over the world, throughout time? Because communities and entire civilizations have failed due to greed. And the way to avoid, mitigate or rebuild is through the Golden Rule.
And that’s the difference between the Golden Rule and the Platinum Rule. One has been tested over millennia and proved to be worthy. One was made up in the mid 20th Century at the beginning of the ascendance of materialism. Which would you rather follow?
Oddly, it seems that I have written a sort of Christian apology, and I haven’t set foot in a church to worship since I was seven years old. I wonder where all this is going. Gilbert?
Another problem with the platinum rule is that it can make you an enabler in someone else's delusion. The classic example being someone who thinks themselves as a reincarnated Napoleon but these days there are plenty of other cases thrust upon us. Sure it is generally good manners to treat someone in a way that doesn't insult them, but sometimes you need to be the child explaining that the emperor is butt naked and really doesn't look good in his birthday suit
“The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches” Matthew 13:31-32.
Right prior to this Jesus explains how when the seed of God’s Word is sown on the path , the birds come and snatch away the seed. Richard Dawkins is one of those birds who wants to perch in the branches of the glorious civilization Christendom has built, but wants to snatch away the seed when he sees it being sown anew. In other words, a parasite to the culture of beauty and Truth. You cant have it both ways buddy