The neatest bit of moral insipidity ever conceived is probably the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you want them to treat you.”
First Problem: The Golden Rule is circular. It essentially means that kindness will prevail if people are kind to one another.
Second Problem: Does the Golden Rule help to improve the world by suggesting that other people have the same feelings we do? Experience has taught me that people do not have the same feelings in either intensity or origin as I do, and that the Golden Rule’s appeal to pity is quite useless with people who possess power to harm.
Third Problem: The Golden Rule assumes that all men and women know what they should do to keep their conscience clean; in other words, it assumes that everyone has a receptive, enlightened and sensitive conscience, possibly one that forbids doing anything unpleasant to anyone, criminals and naughty children included. The trouble is that plenty of ignorant people fulfill the Golden Rule while entirely mis-educating their children. In contrast, responsible teachers and parents know that some unpleasant ideas must be communicated to children and they know how to do this without doing undue harm. Unfortunately, few people understand anything about this; the problem is that despite their systemic neglect of their parental duty they fulfill the Golden Rule.
Why must unpleasant ideas be communicated to children? So that they can grow comfortable with reality, which is not entirely pleasant, although the quality of reality is also a reflection of our own education. The unpleasant aspects are like gravity, without which we would float away and with too much of it we would be crushed.
“That which is hateful to you do not do to another … the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study,” said Rabbi Hillel, for he loved to study, but many hate to study, therefore why do you require it of them, you hypocrite! —You joker!
“So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the Law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12 RSV) Oh, this is too good to resist: Didn’t Jesus accept his crucifixion as a good and necessary action? If so, then he must have wished for it, and then he should do it to us. Funny, right? And yet, I’m quite serious. A good atheist poet will know how to redeem the crucifixion as a symbol of a universal necessity.
