Don't Do Unto Others

            Anyone who has spent a large amount of time on the internet has, at one point or another, run into the trolls. Some are harmless jokers, some are pranksters who sometimes go a little too far and some are just bullies looking for someone to pick on.

            In most cases (the exception being some – not all – of the bullies), these people don’t actually intend malice – in fact, in my experience a lot of them don’t even know they are doing any harm! These are just people finding ways to entertain themselves and, unfortunately, people are hurt as a by-product.

            On occasion, these trolls are confronted about what they are doing. Their response is generally the same: they are exercising their right to free speech. They feel that being asked to stop imposes upon their own freedom.

            In a blog post earlier this year, I touched on the fact that true freedom can’t exist because, as part of a society of free people, having freedom comes with responsibilities. The biggest of which is to respect other people’s freedom.

            I recently came up with an excellent way of illustrating this point. As a general rule, people are legally permitted to defend themselves if they are attacked. In other words, if a person walks up to you and throws a punch, they are essentially giving you permission to hit them back.

            Technically that person is allowed to throw that punch – after all, having freedom means they’re free to do what they like. But it is also your freedom, as well as theirs, to not be punched. By violating your freedom through choosing to punch you, they are at the same time violating their own freedom by inviting you to punch them back.

            Therefore, the way I see it, by exercising their freedom, they are infringing upon their own.

            The same goes for words, spoken or on the internet, or any form of communication for that matter. Any time someone says something hurtful or offensive, they are infringing upon the very freedom they are trying to express.

            There’s a very old phrase used to explain this idea: “Do unto others as you would have done to you.” Very often it is interpreted as, “Do unto others what they done did to you”, better known as, “An eye for an eye.” The problem is that this just leads to a never-ending cycle. Think of kids having a poking war in a car, each one poking the other because they were poked first. Strange to think that adults behave that way – and countries, for that matter.

            So, next time you run across one of those cyber-bullies (perhaps the ones in real life, too), just laugh to yourself in the knowledge that with each nasty thing they say, all they are doing is undermining their own freedom, giving them a paradoxical existence. Then feel free to ignore them and move on because, as a paradox, they can’t possibly exist and are therefore not worth listening to.

            I'm thinking we could also change that “Do unto others” phrase into one more readily understandable. I'm in favour of “Don’t do to someone what you don’t want them to do to you because if everyone respects everyone else you never have to worry about getting hurt.” Okay, so it’s a bit of a mouthful, but it gets right to the point and doesn't leave much room for misinterpretation. Plus, in a few generations we’ll be able to say “Don’t do to someone” and the person doing the doing will instantly stop just so they won’t have to hear the rest of the saying.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.