Bronze, Silver, Gold...Platinum?
Can we do better than the best?
July, 2024
What if the Olympics created the platinum medal, and made it superior to the gold? Rather than an objective winner, this would be given to the athlete who thinks they are most deserving of the highest possible honor. Would that really be better than gold? Do prior gold medals represent something defective? Or would the "platinum medal" be a step backwards? Why claim something radically different from the Olympics' intended meaning?
Modern westerners increasingly claim "abuse" if others don't applaud everything they do. Yet established culture, morality, ethics, and society disagree. Therefore, everything that wasn't thought of in the last twenty seconds is dismissed as terrible and wrong. It all must change. Along those lines, some want to replace the Golden Rule with the "platinum rule." The Golden Rule is contained in this month's spotlight verse, Matthew 7:12, which says: "whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them."
Well-meaning attempts are one thing. But those ardently pushing a platinum rule claim it's a better maxim: "treat others the way they want to be treated." But that's either self-defeating, redundant, or even absurd and harmful: a back door for relativism.
The Golden Rule is the ultimate standard of human ethics. It can't be improved upon for at least two reasons. First, the Golden Rule already implies what the so-called "platinum rule" claims to add: consideration of the other person's perspective. The NASB, in fact, uses the phrasing "…treat people the same way you want them to treat you." Second, the Golden Rule doesn't submit a person's morality to something arbitrary; it's anchored to their sense of right and wrong. In context, the command is based in God's nature and His will. It's instructions from the One who designed humanity in the first place.
The "straw man" logical fallacy occurs when attacking an easier, incorrect version instead of the real thing. This is what happens when someone interprets the Golden Rule as, "whatever physical thing you wish another person would do to you, do exactly that, in the same way, to them." The platinum rule is just the latest rephrasing of the same mistake. When understood, the Golden Rule is both supreme and stated in the most efficient terms.
The Golden Rule is already self-correcting and self-analyzing. Do we want others to consider our preferences and desires? Or do we want them to force their preferences and desires on us? Would we want someone to spare us pain by giving us what we need even if it's not what we want? Clearly the platinum rule attempts to add something which is already part of the Golden Rule. Failure to consider the experiences, perspectives, desires, and goals of the other person means not following the Golden Rule. It requires humility and altruism to truly treat others as we'd want to be treated.
Even more importantly, the Golden Rule is tied directly to the nature of God. In Matthew, the Golden Rule is introduced after the remark that God knows how to give good things to His children (Matthew 7:11). It's the summary of the instructions given in the Old Testament (Matthew 7:12). The commands to love God with our entire being, and others as ourselves, are said to be the foundation of that same source (Matthew 22:37–40). In Luke, the same command is tied to mirroring God's mercy (Luke 6:31, 36).
The understood and applied Golden Rule means we should judge based on our inner sense of morality, as well as the unchanging nature of God. If we know something is immoral, hurtful, or otherwise not "good," then we're not obligated to do it. What sane parent would live by the rule "treat your children the way they want to be treated?" Some things children want are not good—for themselves or others. Loving parents do what is best, as they'd want to be done for them, not whatever fits the whims of the moment.
In contrast to Matthew 7:12, the platinum rule is dangerous. Rather than establishing moral choices according to a person's sense of right and wrong, the platinum rule anchors morality in someone else's preferences. Would it be moral to do something you think is immoral, because that's what someone else would prefer? Such would contradict the entire concept of ethics (Romans 14:23).
What if a person wants to be treated in some absurd way? Maybe they want others to kneel and bow when speaking to them? What if they want you to treat them as an object of desire? Or to have all consequences removed, no matter what they say or do? What if what they want is overtly harmful to them? Or grossly disruptive to other people? If the ultimate moral principle is "treat others as they want to be treated," there's no way to get out of such requests. Of course, a sensible person might dispute that—saying one needs to use common sense—but then why aren't they doing that for the Golden Rule?
There are reasons for everything, of course. The platinum rule scratches the itch of "I want to get my way," or "the world needs to affirm me." In other words, "if you're not 'treating' me the way I want you to, you're doing wrong, even if what I want is misguided or wrong." This follows the same ideology as "living your truth" and related ideas. It suggests that we have a right not merely to be tolerated, but to be affirmed and enabled in all things.
The Golden Rule commands us to love others and work for their good—defined by the ultimate source of goodness—as diligently as we'd strive for ourselves. The best interpretations of the "platinum rule" clumsily repeat something assumed in the Golden Rule. The worst create an absurd and self-defeating approach.
The Olympics already have a top benchmark: the person who "wins" the event according to the established rules. Criterion based on the desires of each competitor is pointless. There can be no greater moral standard than what's expressed in the Bible's Golden Rule.
-- Editor
