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Can You Reinvent the Golden Rule?
Have you ever said something like “All people need to be treated well”, and then said something harsh to yourself? Why would we exclude ourselves from the list of “All people”? What is this desire to somehow deem ourselves as less valuable than others?
I think there might be some societal issues at play here. Sometimes we hear, “Don’t be arrogant or self centered”, or “You should not think of yourself”.
I think that many of society’s woes come from people not fully valuing themselves. When we don’t value ourselves, we are not going to value others. Because, again if I’m not including myself in the “All people need to be treated well” category, I’m also not going to believe that other people belong in it. This may seem kind of twisted, but I think it works.
How many terrible man-made events in history have occurred that stemmed from someone seeing someone else as less than human? Unfortunately, too many too count. Chances are the person doing the harm did not have a good image of themselves. Right now, I’m thinking of (and I bet you are too) several notable figures of human history that caused horrible atrocities. Later, in our history books we read the biography of these people, and find out that they were absolutely miserable people who hated themselves.
