Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself! 

By Park Nahm-sheik 

As phrased above, the headline here is commonly known as the golden rule or the great commandment. What it says in plain English is: Treat me nice, and I’ll treat you nice. The original biblical version of this commandment (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39; Luke 10:27; Mark 12:31) is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Put this way, it sure sounds quite a bit more exalted, doesn’t it?  

In the name of peace on earth and goodwill to all creation, including humans, it is obligatory for us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Loving our neighbors as ourselves is arguably the royal road to a global neighborhood of brotherly love, where we can all afford to indulge in the bright, warm sun of calm, peace, and justice. Viewed from this perspective, the golden rule sheds plenty of light on what our interpersonal engagement in day-to-day life should ideally be like.  

Don’t you be surprised if I tell you that the Gwangju International Center already has set itself up as a forerunner of a global Philadelphia right here in Gwangju-Chonnam. The home base of multicultural activism the Center has put together for the region is ready to serve as a model for other localities in Korea as well as elsewhere in the rest of Asia and the Pacific. The Center can take due pride in having midwifed the birth of a flourishing intercultural movement on Korean soil. The region is by now widely recognized as the cradle of intercultural activism in Korea. With the Center getting its back, Gwangju-Chonnam has set in place a beautiful conglomerate of diverse cultures and ethnicities. As such, it offers a convenient template for other would-be intercultural communities both within and without Korea.  

As near neighbors go, nature happens to be as near as near can possibly be. Further, it is also quite dear to our heart. Which means that it deserves at least as much care and attention as does any of our human neighbors. And the best way to treat nature is to leave it utterly alone. Interfering or tampering with nature in any way at all is a no-no, amounting to a crime against nature, just as much as a hate crime or ethnic cleansing or genocide is a heinous crime against humanity.  

Let’s always keep it in mind at this juncture that we earthlings are not here in this world as anything like the lord of all creation. Us humans are anything but masters or conquerors vis-à-vis nature. Indeed, our status is a rather humble one as mere helpers and protectors for everything and everyone we are companions to. Far be it from us to be greedy seekers of worldly power and wealth, either monopolistic or oligopolistic.  

We need to take a cold-eyed view of the world as being out there, not as an object to be conquered, subjugated, deprived, and/or privatized. Rather, it arguably is out there as what needs to be lovingly cared for and fairly shared with all others, be they animate or not. For that matter, we may as well make the case that neither does outer space itself exist for humankind alone to conquer and exploit. The moon and Mars and all other heavenly bodies in the vast night skies are to be left utterly untouched and untainted. They all should be treated with respect and dignity as entities totally free of any terrestrial manipulation or governance.  

In the global Philadelphia we aspire to dwell in, we will all be equal partners. There, the least of our brothers and sisters will be treated with the same regard, love, and decency as everybody else. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the basic building block for the construction of this brotherly neighborhood of the world, which is our holy grail. This idealistic global village is thought to nestle in the embrace of nature itself.  

That’s a paradise on earth, where us mere mortals all can imbibe the elixir cum nectar of heavenly love and peace. Where else or how else can we ever experience the amazing grace of pure love? What’s so out of this world about this kind of beautiful love is that it’s much more blessed to give than to receive. Loving always comes with much bigger dividends than being loved here in this wonderland of love. Like muck or riches, love stinks in a heap but, spread abroad, makes everything and everyone around so much more divine and awesome and so much more wondrous.  

Given this marvelous elixir of love, shouldn’t we begin working straight toward a global community of love, peace, and justice for generations to come as well as for ourselves? That way, we would be relegating all worldly tribulations to the dustbin of history. Even as of this writing, though, the world is full of positive alchemic agents for peace, justice, and charity. Among them are Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), Save the Children, Oxfam International, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Good Neighbors, and the International Red Cross. These are some of the major humanitarian organizations already hard at work helping turn the world into a big brotherly neighborhood.  

Quite rightly, the point is often made that no man is an island. Let’s not forget here to thank the innumerable Good Samaritans who cross our paths all through our planetary journey constantly lifting us out of an unending quagmire of poverty and disease.  

In the brotherly-sisterly global village of our dreams, soft power could fortunately get a great deal more done than could hard power. As they say, love rules his kingdom without a sword. The fact is, love is the noblest weapon to conquer with, as is obedience. Nature, for one, is conquered by obeying her. Apparently, subordination can wield far more power than insubordination. And subtlety is often better than force.  

I should now like to close the current story on a positive and optimistic note. I firmly believe that nothing on earth is impossible to a willing heart. Where there is a will, there is a way! Isn’t there? And love will find a way for us somehow or other. Let’s thus keep hoping that things will turn out to be A-okay at the end of the day. Having said that, let’s always try and look on the bright side of things. Whoever laughs last laughs best and laughs longest and laughs loudest, anyway! Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone. (Ella Wheeler Willcox [1850-1919]).  

The Author 

Park Nahm-sheik has a BA in English from Chonnam National University, an MA in linguistics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, U.S.A., and a PhD in applied linguistics from Georgetown University. He is now a Professor Emeritus after a long and illustrious career at Seoul National University as well as President Emeritus of the International Graduate School of English. 

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(Photo: Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash)