I meet a politician; the Golden Rule; one thing leads to another
Political ads have been landing in our mailbox, and today a candidate came to our house. I stepped outside to talk to him.
(Samuel wanted to go outside, but I wouldn’t allow him to. He stared out the window, howled, and made a piteous face. Daniel chugged his milk.)
The candidate wore a U.S. Marine Corps baseball hat. The flyer he gave me didn’t say which party he belonged to, but it named and criticized a certain Republican candidate, so I figured he was a Democrat. He unenthusiastically confirmed this. “I’m running as a Democrat because I was raised as one,” he said, “but I’m against the extremists in both parties who are tearing our country apart.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
R.I.P. Harry J. Gensler, the Jesuit philosopher who wrote a helpful (if expensive) “Golden Rule book for everyone.” You ought to treat others as you’d like to be treated, the Rule says. In most societies, this is regarded as common sense. But is it philosophically defensible? How, exactly, should the Rule be interpreted, formulated, and applied? And what is its place in an overall picture of morality and value? One could do worse than to begin with Gensler’s book.
Incidentally, if you use Amazon to search for books on the Golden Rule, you’ll be led to authors affiliated with the Templeton Foundation. I don’t object to Templeton; but if you click on too many Templeton Golden Rule products, you’ll soon be shown items from Douglas Wilson’s Canon Press, with titles like The Case for Christian Nationalism. Gensler cites examples of Golden Rule reasoning due to Barack Obama and George W. Bush, and concludes that the Rule’s appeal is “bipartisan.” Alas, the Web bots suggest otherwise.
(Samuel wanted to go outside, but I wouldn’t allow him to. He stared out the window, howled, and made a piteous face. Daniel chugged his milk.)
The candidate wore a U.S. Marine Corps baseball hat. The flyer he gave me didn’t say which party he belonged to, but it named and criticized a certain Republican candidate, so I figured he was a Democrat. He unenthusiastically confirmed this. “I’m running as a Democrat because I was raised as one,” he said, “but I’m against the extremists in both parties who are tearing our country apart.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
R.I.P. Harry J. Gensler, the Jesuit philosopher who wrote a helpful (if expensive) “Golden Rule book for everyone.” You ought to treat others as you’d like to be treated, the Rule says. In most societies, this is regarded as common sense. But is it philosophically defensible? How, exactly, should the Rule be interpreted, formulated, and applied? And what is its place in an overall picture of morality and value? One could do worse than to begin with Gensler’s book.
Incidentally, if you use Amazon to search for books on the Golden Rule, you’ll be led to authors affiliated with the Templeton Foundation. I don’t object to Templeton; but if you click on too many Templeton Golden Rule products, you’ll soon be shown items from Douglas Wilson’s Canon Press, with titles like The Case for Christian Nationalism. Gensler cites examples of Golden Rule reasoning due to Barack Obama and George W. Bush, and concludes that the Rule’s appeal is “bipartisan.” Alas, the Web bots suggest otherwise.