Is the Golden Rule Still Relevant?

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I’ve been deliberating the subject of the Golden Rule for a few years now. The sentiment “treat others as you would like to be treated” is a guidepost many of us have grown up with as a somewhat simplistic concept for understanding empathy.

Times have changed, though. Globalization, technological advances, and competition have become undeniable aspects of our everyday existence, and the common assumptions we’ve made about tradition, culture, and gender have had to evolve to meet the changing times.

I’ve worked in mental health and human service-related jobs for my entire professional life and have seen how the old-school interpretation of the Golden Rule appears to be morphing out of necessity as globalization, capitalistic values, and technology have emerged alongside an aging population trying to grapple with the rapidly changing sociopolitical and global landscape. It’s challenging to reconcile a tightly held belief system that has worked for generations and has had its merit. Certainly, some aspects of “do unto others” remain relevant. Others, not so much.

A new and different paradigm?

The Golden Rule may be hard to apply if you’ve never experienced poverty or the deprivation of basic needs based on your race, gender, or geographical location. It may not make sense if you’ve ascribed to traditional relationship norms or felt comfortable in the body you were born with. If our own personal experience becomes the moral compass with which we judge the world around us, we may fail to truly understand the experience of another person or group of people.

Career and executive coach Irina Cozma, Ph.D., writes in a 2022 post for Harvard Business Review: “In our modern workplace, with all our different preferences, cultural backgrounds, professional disciplines, ages, genders, sexual orientations, etc., treating others as you would like to be treated isn’t always the best option. Although it can be helpful to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, doing so can actually lead to making assumptions based on your own perspective—not theirs.” ^₁

Cozma offers the alternative of challenging our assumptions. Asking oneself: Where are these beliefs coming from? What information am I missing? Why do I think my assumptions are true? Are there any alternative explanations or possibilities? Are my assumptions based on my own experiences and understanding of the world, and if so, am I being biased?²She also encourages folks to ask more questions, to listen to others’ perspectives, and to replace the word “or” with “and” to accommodate different perspectives. Employing this mindset can do wonders to help people feel seen, heard, and valued.

But is there still room for old-school values?

In all transparency, I regularly question the impact of globalization, capitalistic values, and technology on the health of the populations I work with. The elderly, those with disabilities and chronic health conditions, those lacking financial resources, and youth trying to navigate their way in a world largely driven by profit, where “to capitalize” upon something, by its nature, means “to take advantage of.”

Working in healthcare, for example, I see folks whose lives have changed in huge ways, beset with astronomical unforeseen healthcare costs and insurance denials. It’s natural to think, “It shouldn’t be this way,” when the only thing standing between illness and wellness is a potentially cost-prohibitive reality or financial burden. It’s these times when I wonder if the Golden Rule should still apply, asking the rhetorical question: How would you feel if this were your loved one, deprived of medical care or necessary services?

I find myself cautioning my teenagers from being harmed by what they see online (driven by profit-driven algorithms). My parents and others in the aging population regularly bemoan the fact that they’re feeling left behind in the tech age, as an individualistic ethic seems to be the norm, and trust feels like a long-lost value from the past. I’m saddened by the emergence of this fundamental lack of trust I feel has wormed its way into our world these days while reminding myself that change is inevitable.

I often ponder if it’s not a bad idea to reassess where we are and where we want to be. Competition has engendered a sentiment that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must somehow be earned, and I’ve been around the block long enough to know that while life isn’t always fair, we’re all just trying our best with what we have.

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I think that it’s important to ascribe to both “old-school” and “new-school” versions of the Golden Rule, understanding that life’s most basic needs—for safety, health, and belonging—can be best understood by looking inward: How would I feel if.... Once we can identify and meet those needs in one another, we’ll be better positioned to take the next step toward seeking authentic understanding about things that are different, challenging, or new.

While all good ideas are constantly evolving, it’s important to incorporate the most basic understanding of human needs before moving on to higher-level ones and to believe that personal, systemic, and generational healing is always possible. We just can’t stop connecting.