Golden - and other - rules

It is usually a good general rule of thumb, rooted in the words of Christ - sometimes even called the Golden Rule - that we should do to other as as we wish them to do to ourselves - although George Bernard Shaw meant that "you should not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you, as their tastes may not be the same".
And you do not have to read many formative stories for kids to see that it may be excessive simplification - as soon as you have seen the rabbit treat the cat with carrots and in turn be invited to eat fish, you find that the Golden Rule can not stand alone by itself.

Image courtesy of pixabay / DasWortgewand

But then I recently encountered a quote by British literary theorist Terry Eagleton:

Genuine equality means not treating everyone the same, but attending equally to everyone's different needs.

- which could be considered to be an appropriate trade-off between Shaw and the Golden Rule.
Eagleton may be said to have a point here - the only problem is that it's so easy to use the Golden Rule. If you have to pay equal attention to the needs of other people, it requires that you actually understand the needs of others. But if we consider it carefully, then we quickly come to realize that it's worth the effort.
(Translated from Gyldne - og andre - regler)