Why should we follow the principle that, when applying the Golden Rule, we should act so as to preserve, protect and promote the Golden Rule itself?
Well, if you subscribed to the Rule would you want others to preserve, protect and promote the Rule? Yes? Then you should preserve, protect and promote the Rule yourself.
This follows Publish and be damned as number 16 in a series of posts on the Golden Rule. The first was Any fool can make a rule.
© Stefano Corso 2005
Last time we suggested that someone following the Golden Rule would be faced with the impossible task of trying to please everyone. If so that would seem like a fatal objection to the Rule, whatever Confucius or Jesus might say.
This follows The miller, his son and the donkey as number 15 in a series of posts on the Golden Rule. The first was Any fool can make a rule. Next is More equal than others?
But perhaps again we are interpreting the Rule in a narrower way than the Rule itself would require.
If you are in the neighbourhood the Museum der Dinge (‘Museum of Things’) in Kreuzberg, Berlin is well worth a visit. It boasts a huge and articulately presented collection of everyday objects of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The earliest Dinge I saw were from the First World War, but my pictures here are of what seem to be art deco artefacts from the Weimar period, plus a few rather more spooky memorabilia from a bit later.
© Chris Lawrence 2018.
Mother with her dead son
In the Neue Wache (‘New Guardhouse’) in Berlin is a copy of a small sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz. It stands beneath a circular open skylight, or oculus, which exposes it to the elements.
Kollwitz made the original in the late 1930s as a memorial to her son Peter who was killed in the First World War. In 1993 Chancellor Helmut Kohl commissioned sculptor Harald Haacke to make a considerably enlarged copy which was installed at the centre of the ‘Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Victims of War and Tyranny’ at the reopened Neue Wache.
© Chris Lawrence 2018.
Arrested French Resistance fighters, 1944
Last time we suggested that value pluralism1 should only pose a problem for the Golden Rule if we apply the Rule simplistically, which the Rule itself should steer us away from. We will now consider another aspect which, ironically, could imply the Golden Rule might often be impossible to obey in practice, and particularly when we need it most.
This follows Value pluralism and the Golden Rule as number 14 in a series of posts on the Golden Rule. The first was Any fool can make a rule. Next is Publish and be damned.
How does the Golden Rule fare in an interconnected world made up of multicultural communities?
This follows Two big ideas as number 13 in a series of posts on the Golden Rule. The first was Any fool can make a rule. Next one is The miller, his son and the donkey.
This follows Ifs and buts as number 12 in a series of posts on the Golden Rule. The first was Any fool can make a rule. Next one is Value pluralism and the Golden Rule.
We will now recap where we have got up to with our two big ideas.
