A brief start: Redefining the Golden Rule

I just want to start off with something very simple.  If you ask someone what the golden rule is, you frequently hear something that equates to reciprocity.


This would be a good rule to follow for someone within the same culture and context, but surely we of the 21st century, belonging to a myriad of these cultures and contexts, realize that even such a general rule does not have all the answers.  The golden rule is not something so simple as tit for tat.
To use a very, very simple example: If I was served a juicy ribeye steak, I would think consider this to be a marvelous gesture. If I invited a vegetarian over for dinner, would I therefore offer a ribeye?
This may seem so cut and dry, but surely a host has mistakenly cooked a steak for a vegetarian.
What is one to do in this scenario?  This crash of multiple microcosms: One person has conflicting role of being a chef and a host.  Another has found that the roles being a guest and being a vegetarian have come in conflict.
They could both feel insulted.  They could feel they have injuries against each other that deserve reparation.  But reparations paid for sleights do not change history or correct, but merely appease.
Or they can look at things another way.  Rather than view these things as injury or insult, they can seek understand the motivations of the other's behavior.  The host was merely trying to serve the best food to his or her knowledge.  The guest cannot accept the host's gift because he or she cannot consume meat.  In such a light, these minor things are not sleights, but misunderstandings.  Misunderstandings can be clarified, and what would have been reparations proposed by another party are instead synergistic solutions built by both parties. With better understanding, better relationships can be built.
I posit then that the golden rule is in fact empathy, or to understand another.


In the course of this blog, we will surely encounter subcultures we are not familiar with. When I (or other people) write these posts, I have a targeted audience in mind.  I write with the vocabulary and the language of that audience.  But the audience I net is a little harder to predict.  I can try my best to anticipate this, but when someone outside of my targeted audience reads this, they can see things in a different context from what I intended.  Surely some may also voice their disagreement. In any of these cases, I thank you for taking the time to read my views, and I hope I can learn much from understanding your unique perspectives.