The Anti-discrimination Solution

Every wisdom tradition has the solution but no religion nor any culture nor any legal system has been able to implement it: Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Or to restate: Do not do unto another as you would not have done unto you.

And to restate again: Love your neighbor as yourself (where neighbor is defined as everybody you encounter or could possibly encounter, which in this global society is pretty much everybody)

The reason why no religion, culture or government has been able to enforce such a rule is that it is not something that can be coerced without violating its premise.

The principle relies on the acquisition of empathy and responsibility by the individual. I mean by this that one must be able to imagine oneself in the other one's place (empathy) and then be able to respond (response ability) to the other one's pain or joy as if it were their own.

The bad news is that only individuals can implement the solutions to discrimination of all kinds.

The good news is that only individuals can implement the solutions to discrimination of all kinds.

Has no one ever hear of the power of mathematical iteration? Of the exponential growth factor in multiplying 2x2x2x2x2x2 ad infinitum?

Imagine if two neighbors change each others lives with kindness and compassion and then each change another's life and then those two each change one other's life....

Better yet if each person changed the life of three others and those three changed the lives of three more...

How long would it take to change the world?

There was a good movie in America on this principle implemented by a Jr. High School boy. Pay It Forward was the title. Worth seeing if you can get a hold of it. It was based on a novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde and I have it checked out of the library and will be doing a review of it here as soon as I read it.

Meanwhile...Imagine the possibilities.