Having read the post IS IT OK TO BE HOMOPHOBIC? , I saw some comments on tolerance. Tolerance to me is being able to look at someone or something and tolerate it without becoming it. You may not agree with something at all, but if you are truly tolerant, you can accept it and leave it alone. But can people really be tolerant?
Your sig says it best.
The Southern Poverty Law Center thinks so:
http://www.splcenter.org/splc.html
http://www.splcenter.org/teachingtolerance/tt-index.html
There is a declaration of tolerance:
The test is whether we can be tolerant of intolerance. Many atheists can be tolerant of Christians … except fundamentalists. Ditto for Christians being intolerant of evangelical athiests. The KKK is the traditional test case for this question.
Perhaps more current is this:
Anybody can be tolerant of our neighborhood Muslim shopkeeper. Can we be tolerante a fundamentalist Mosque down the street that says that Jews eat babies, Israel must be destroyed, and that the becuase the US supports Israel, the US must also suffer and die? How far can we tolerate people who are devoted to the destruction of tolerance?
My submission is that tolerance cannot be absolute. It must be balanced, even superceded by other virtues including love, mercy, justice and the good of the many over the good of the few.
Well said, furt.
I consider myself to be a very tolerant and respectful person. I do not wish to judge people by their race, gender, sexual orientation, or by some other arbitrary criteria. Will I? Of course, yes. I simply work to try to avoid this as much as possible.
Do I tolerate intolerance? Yes, I tolerate it. I do not respect it. By tolerance, I mean that I believe that people have a right to freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Yet, I will not agree that said thoughts are of any value, nor that they should be unchallenged. Intolerance is not about being what you are or doing what you wish to do. It is about forcing your beliefs and your expectations and judgements on others. I cannot accept this as an ethical or compassionate thing to do, and so I do not respect it. I will amend, however, that I do try to respect said individuals to a point. However, I will openly challenge their views if there is an appropriate forum to do so.
I do not believe that the idea of tolerance goes far enough. It is not enough to tolerate a person or group. It is important to have respect and love for them as well. Tolerance is not a catch-all for perfect morality. As furt so aptly said, it must be tempered with compassion, decency, and many other things.
Tolerance is a first step, not a gospel. I fully support teaching children about tolerance and I have no problem with espousing tolerance as positive. I believe that it is. However, we can only get so far through only tolerating our fellow man. I can have love and respect for the person who is intolerant (or, at least, I always hope to), but not for the ideal itself.
Could intolerance simply be someone’s nature? Do you believe that the majority of people simply refuse to be tolerant, or do they not know any other way besides intolerance?
All of the evidence that I have seen implies that intolerance (if we are generally accepting that term to mean intolerant due to gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and so on) is a matter of nurture, not nature. I am afraid I would have to see some evidence that this were the case.
Even if it were not, that does not mean that we can excuse it. There are people who do not have control over their own actions and responses. Should we accept and tolerate those of the mentally ill who fit this definition doing anything they want, in so long as it is “natural”, or not their choice (injuring people, destroying people)?
People do at times not know that they are being intolerant because they do not know any different. I am not saying that these individuals are awful and should not be tolerated by society. However, it is the responsibility of society not to tolerate these views because they don’t know better but rather to teach them so that they do know better!
Generally, I would guess that people who continue to be intolerant despite being proven wrong (say a white supremacist who cannot show any real evidence that white people are genetically superior) are simply being selfish. They do not want to let go of ideas that they have grown too attached to, even if they are wrong. This can often be because of years of conditioning or even one bad experience. (“All gay men are promiscuous. You can show me 1,000 gay men who aren’t, but I know that they REALLY are, despite any evidence to the contrary. I should know, I knew a gay man who was promiscuous and I’ll never forget it.”)