Golden Rule.
Whatever violent crime you commit against another person, will be committed against you in turn....but you never know when.
Artwork by Rey Velasquez Sagcal.
CW: mentions of rape, abuse, intimate partner violence.
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Whatever violent crime you commit against another person, will be committed against you in turn....but you never know when.
That’s the premise of my new short story, “Golden Rule.”
I’ve had such a good time collaborating with the folks at Issues in Science and Technology this past spring—especially Ed Finn, who was a crack editor on a tough subject matter, and pushed me to come to a logical conclusion I wouldn’t have on my own. (The team at ASU are building an incredible stable of short fiction that delves into the consequences of new technologies—they’ve also published stories by Indrapramit Das and Annalee Newitz, among others—so do follow them.)
The “new technology” in my story is a new theory of punishment. In a future where society seeks to phase out prisons, Golden Rule is a pilot program of non-carceral remedy. I thought of it because of reading A New Ireland: How Europe’s Most Conservative Country Became Its Most Liberal by Niall O’Dowd—and in particular its chapters on the horrific systemic abuse in Ireland’s religious institutions. Would these priests and teachers have abused these children if they knew they’d someday be abused in the same way?, I wondered. And then I wanted to write a story that explored that question in a step-by-step way, as realistically as I could.
I will say, there are some places I didn’t want to go. So I chose a crime that I could stomach replicating; or rather, describe replicating, and one that had no moral grey area and a fundamentally unrepentant offender. There was still plenty of moral territory to explore. To wit, our protagonist is Robin Taft, one of the people recruited—from among former victims—to become a minister of Golden Rule; that is, to carry out punishments. Only former victims can become ministers. But they don’t punish their own perpetrators, only others’.
You see where it might get interesting.
As I wrote, I kept thinking of Mona Eltahaway’s famous appearance on Australian national television, which has since been scrubbed from the network. It’s always incredible to me how proposing commensurate remedy for the rape epidemic is a cause for outrage, but the rape epidemic itself is not. My story is an attempt to grapple with that.
So go give “Golden Rule” a read, and also the fantastic response essay “The Purpose of Punishment,” by ASU School of Law attorney Randy McDonald. And finally, if you’d like to hear me talk more about all of the above, I’m going LIVE to discuss the story with Managing Editor Jason Lloyd on Friday! Go here to join the conversation at 12 noon ET.
Much love and more soon,
Monica