Rethinking the "Platinum Rule"

Some time ago, I considered the Platinum Rule versus the Golden Rule.

I'm a little older now and more stuff has happened to me.  Sorry if that older post was a little dualistic, and in retrospect, boring because of it.

In short, what I was getting at with the post was that doing for/to others what you would want done for/to you (gold), is good, but gold is not quite as good as doing for/to others what they would want done to themselves.  In a sense, transferring agency from the doer, where it lies in the golden rule, to the recipient, where it lies in the platinum rule.

In retrospect, this puts a lot of pressure on people to know what they want.  Self-agency can be daunting, especially in times of stress.  The more I gallivant through life, the more and more aware I become of times when people just can't seem to bear self-agency and as a result, can end up actively working against their own best interest.  There is even a psychological syndrome (sorry, name escapes me) that will cause us to prefer to win an argument even though we'd actually be better off losing.

So, I guess we need to keep our self and interpersonal awareness keen to know when to gold 'em and know when to platinum 'em.  (Gosh, I wish that rhymed better!)




PS:  Regarding the use of the word "gallivant" to describe life's journey.  Sometimes, its a gallivant, but sometimes is a plod, while other times its a frolic and occasionally its a slumber.  Right at this particular moment, for example its a bit of a chore (not writing this, but in writing this, not doing what I should be doing, which is where the chore part comes in).  I really just chose "gallivant" because its a word my father used to use when he meant that we were going to go about and do some arrangement of fun things.