🎭 Culture Sep 8, 2026 · David Galef

Rules of Reciprocity

The American Scholar
American Scholar magazine
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Back when I used to teach undergraduate composition, I would spring this in-class essay assignment on my students:

Do unto others as they do unto you.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
What’s the difference?

Most students wrote that the first law—giving as good as you got—described a less considerate way of treating others than the second. Those who’d read a fair amount traced the first law back to the Code of Hammurabi or the Old Testament directive of an eye for an eye, a to

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