Posted By David on March 28, 2009

All truth passes through three stages.
     – First, it is ridiculed.
     –  Second, it is violently opposed.
     –  Third, it is accepted as self-evident.  
                             Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 -1860

I couldn’t help but wonder, on reading the above, what stage the acceptance of the Golden Rule as the core statement of human relationship is at?

There seems to be a growing body of evidence that we are in a period when the Golden Rule is the de facto standard that most people use as their personal “yardstick” for behaviour.

And we need look no further than the current economic situation to see what happens when people put their own interests first and totally ignore their connection to the “other.”

We also don’t need to look very far to find “violent opposition” to the values that flow out of the Golden Rule – personal accountability, compromise, teamwork – in spite of all that’s happened over the last six months, there are still those who cling stubbornly to the idea of “all for one, and that one’s me.”

Self-evident? Not yet perhaps. But not dismissed either.  Lets hope that we, as a group, choose to move forward and not back. For it is together that we can make this a truly Golden Rule world.

Categories: Change, Golden Rule
Tags: accountability, German philosophers, global crisis, Golden Rule, peace, religion, Spirituality