fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, October 8, 1st period]

"I trust that all of you survived your weekend with your relatives mostly intact," Anakin said, sweeping into the room precisely on time. "Today we talk about something called the Golden Rule, a concept which unites many separate religions on this planet," he said, leaning against his desk and stared around the classroom. "It sounds altruistic: 'do unto others as you would have done unto you', but there's a couple of logical flaws in it. What if you don't mind getting poked in the stomach? Does it follow that you could wander around aimlessly poking people? What if you don't see what's wrong with stealing? Or killing? Or hating entire groups of people on principle? If the practical application is supposed to be you randomly help people because they could be good, wouldn't the opposite be that you could randomly harm people because they might be evil?"

He shrugged. "I suppose the Golden Rule could be broken down to 'be nice to people, and they'll be nice to you' but out here in the real world, we all know it doesn't exactly work like that, and the concept could also be reinterpreted as 'it doesn't bother me, so why does it bother you?' Is this a case of aiming for an ideal and hoping that it will cause a ripple effect of positive things, or something overly simplistic that taken to its logical extreme renders itself useless? Has seeing it on everything from coffee mugs to tea towels made the very idea of it trite, or does it still have a place in the mind of someone trying to lead an ethical life?"

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Does putting something on a mug make it meaningful or waaaay overused?

"When it's not being twisted, it's still a good sentiment," Bobby had to admit. For all his bitterness towards the actions of specific groups of humans, he did believe in Xavier's Dream after all. "I mean, real life's obviously more complicated than everything being peachy-keen if you're just nice to everyone, but if it gets people to think about the fact that the person next to them is just that, a person, even if they have a, a fish head or something, then that's important."

"Overused. Way overused. It becomes less of a 'my parents raised me to follow that and be respectful of others' and more of a 'I saw this and bought for my boyfriend so he'll stop messing up my shoes' sort of thing."

"Neither," Tara shared quietly. "Something being clichéd d-doesn't make it good or bad, it just means it's a cliché. Maybe the reason it's on mugs is that it is a nice sentiment."

"Maybe the words are overused, so people stop hearing what it's supposed to mean," Francine said slowly. "Or never got it at all. It's not a magic charm that's going to protect you if you follow it. It's just a way to act. It's important to me to treat people with respect. It doesn't mean I'll get it in return."

Ethics [Thursday, October 8, 1st period]

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