I think we are too focused on behaviour when we think about the golden rule.
can you say more
If we ignore extreme examples that people like to focus on, and examine normal everyday life.
Things are not that bad. They could be worse and they will get worse.
In everyday normal life (ignoring extreme examples) we don’t really know why people do what they do. And we don’t really care why they do what they do.
turtle
In one sense, the golden rule is or can be seen as about mutual reciprocation. But in a deeper sense, it’s about ethical behavior. It isn’t really about expectations of a similar return on that behavior.
It’s simply about treating others ethically and with compassion as we would wish to be treated.
If we take the stance of a return, it can end up becoming an “eye for an eye”.
Not necessarily since we can only control our own behavior. We cannot control that of others.
The flaw in the golden rule is that we don’t always have a clue of what it means to be “loving” to others. Sentimentality is not loving. Another flaw is that we don’t have a clue about what is “real” when it comes to respect and the right treatment of ourselves.
If anyone believed the Golden rule was gods rule, then we should all create God to have a shitty life just like God did to us. But only if God is moral, if god is immoral, we’ll give God a GREAT FUCKING LIFE, just like God did to us.
There was an inaccuracy about the golden rule here… it is tit for tat. Tit for tat just means do what they do to you… so it can mean either reciprocal altruism or eye for an eye, or some variation. Tit for tat doesn’t just mean an eye for an eye.
It is about people who didnt have so.many distractions in life understanding the nature of human psychology. They did this without access to sophisticated equipment that now shows specific brain regions associated with empathy and mirror regions.