The Golden Rule, in some form or another, exists in many cultures, religions, and ethical codes. While the specific form varies from culture to culture and belief system to belief system, the basic idea is: treat other people the way you want to be treated.
At first glance, treating other people the way you want to be treated seems to be a sensible maxim for congenial social living. Upon closer inspection, however, assuming that the preferences of others are the same as your own can be recognised as the problem rather than the solution to cohesive group functioning.
In some ways, we seem to have an intuitive appreciation of the problems with the current form of the Golden Rule. When I offer to serve people coffee, for example, I do not treat them the way I like to be treated. I like my coffee dished up as a double-shot espresso so, if treating people the way I like to be treated was the key to satisfying interpersonal relationships, I would, without needing to ask, provide other people with a double-shot espresso at the time that I wanted to partake of the pleasures of this pungent and bitter sweet flavour.
Typically, however, when people offer coffee to others, they first ask these other people, how they wish to be treated. In other words, they ask the recipients of their coffee providing gesture about their own personal preferences regarding the delivery of the coffee. If one of my colleagues prefers his coffee served up as a skinny decaf latte while another prefers hers to be an Affogato, I don’t make any attempt to persuade them that they are making wrong choices. Curiously, neither do I wonder if I have travelled down an incorrect coffee selection path and if, perhaps, I should adopt my companions’ ways of thinking.
Perceptual Control Theory (PCT; Powers, 2005; www.pctweb.org) explains how we function according to our own internal desires, dreams, wants, goals, attitudes, beliefs, and motivations. The fact that we all have subjective specifications for preferred states of the world is constant but what these stipulations are varies from individual to individual. PCT suggests an improved version of the Golden Rule:
Treat other people the way they want to be treated (Robertson & Powers, 1990).
We are designed to conduct ourselves according to our own, not other people’s, standards and inclinations.
If we are going to solve some of societies’ most intractable problems we need to be more considerate, respectful, and accommodating of each other’s different goals and preferences. Successful social living arises when individuals are able to achieve their own desired states of being without limiting, preventing, or otherwise interfering with other people from doing the same thing.
In my book Control in the Classroom (Carey, 2012) I describe some general principles of curriculum delivery for every classroom and school based on the idea of treating people the way they want to be treated.
In Australia generally, and particularly in remote Australia where I live, there are long-standing disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on a range of different factors. A significant stumbling block in achieving sustainable improvements for Indigenous Australians seems to be that, generally, most of the current solutions to their problems are developed from the perspective of non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australians’ ideas and opinions are often not sought and not heard by policy makers and planners.
Similarly, people experiencing severe psychological distress who are identified as having mental health problems often object to being forced to conform to the views and solutions of the clinicians who provide treatment to them.
Social groups will never experience lasting harmony when one section of the group is required to comply with the preferences of another section of the group.
Treat other people the way they want to be treated. The secret to successful partnerships, families, schools, clubs, communities, and societies is as simple and as complex as that.
References
Carey, T. A. (2012). Control in the classroom: An adventure in learning and achievement. Hayward, CA: Living Control Systems Publications.
Powers, W. T. (2005). Behavior: The control of perception (2nd ed.). New Canaan, CT: Benchmark.
Robertson, R. J., & Powers, W. T. (Eds.). (1990). Introduction to modern psychology: The control-theory view. New Canaan, CT: Benchmark.