Tolerance

I was listening to a man on the bus today talk to another man. (That is to say I had no choice but to listen to this man. He was yelling his opinions at this man at a volume that was just a hair higher than irritating!)

The man kept talking about politics. (Taboo bus conversation.) He kept talking about how Republicans do not respect or tolerate any other race but whites and how they don’t tolerate any other religion except Christianity. He went on to say, and I quote, “Everyone should respect and have blind tolerance for every religion, view point and political party. Everyone one deserves to be on this earth just as much as anyone else. The utmost a person can do is being tolerant!”

Now, I understand perfectly where this man is coming from. He is saying a nicely packaged acceptable statement that comes across caring and filled with justice. However, I’m going to do what I love doing best and dismantle this statement to show how it actually supports and promotes an attitude of the exact opposite of what this man’s intentions are.

It is in fact in my opinion that the greatest crime one can socially commit is blind tolerance. I believe firmly that an intolerant heart is a heart that has love in it. Let me explain;

We should be tolerant of all religions right to exist and practice freely, correct? Even a religious practice that said it is moral to marry, molest and rape young girls? Well, our government has decreed that it is “selectively” intolerant of this act, like in the case of Rev. Jeff’s of Utah whose cult practiced these very acts for generations.

We should be tolerant of all ideology? Hitler and Stalin had some very stimulating speeches then!

I think you see where I’m going with this, so I’ll stop.

These are all extreme cases of what one should not be tolerant of, however I believe there are things in this life that lie on the grayer side of the spectrum that people tend to be tolerant of that they should not, which leads people to gradually accept things that should be unacceptable to a rational mind.

Mostly people should not be tolerant of apathy. In the end I think indifference is what blind tolerance creates. A blindly tolerant world is a world that does not reject you; but no more than it accepts you either… nor will it love you anymore than it hates you. Blind tolerance is indifferent to every faith, ideology, opinion and human being. It is indifferent to all those things that make us human, thus blind tolerance is inhuman.

So many people say “Tolerance is love”, I think tolerance in its core definition is “not giving a damn”. I’m sure my boyfriend would be moved to hear me whisper in the dark “Baby, I tolerate you!” It is cold, impersonal, and without tact. Therefore tolerance is not love; it is avoiding conversations, people and problems. It is a way of sounding caring without becoming attached to our fellow human. Sound like you care for their plot when really you are indifferent to their plot and care for only your own.

Tolerance has a time and place. “Tolerance is love” rhetoric is likened to the old saying “live and let live”. Would you live and let live a viper in the bush? Most likely, but would you let it live in your bed, in your wife’s closet… in your child’s crib? Of course not. We need not check our brains at the door with tolerance in other realms of life either.

One thing I agreed with that man on the bus said was “Everyone deserves to be on this earth just as much as anyone else.” He’s right. But I think he’s right from a different stand point than he’s most likely taking.
He most likely thinks that everyone deserves to be on the earth as much as he does with the assumption that he in fact DOES deserve to be on this earth. However, I do not think he does deserve to be on this earth, neither does my neighbor, my friends, my boyfriend, my teachers, or even myself.

Who really deserves to be alive? How did we earn it? Are we all just that great of people that we perpetuate our own existence with our shining karma? Rubbish!

We are all guilty of crimes, indifference and perversions. We all descend from peoples that have warred, pillaged, raped, slued, enslaved and ravaged other peoples. We, alive, are the products of the winners of wars and the bounties of thieves in reality. Who among any of us deserves truly to be on this earth in the end? We suck!
That’s the real reason why you are to never deny another man his existence. You are just as deserving, or non-deserving as the next poor chump. You deserve to be punished for the way you stab your brother in the back, cheat on your wife, cheat your taxes, but you aren’t. So God-forbid you ever forget that and ever condemn another man of what you so proudly have committed in your life. You give yourself leeway when you tell a lie or steal some change. You justify your own behavior every time you lose your temper or act impulsively. So why not love others as you love yourself. You’d never harm yourself over what you’ve done; give your brother the same leeway. In the end our goals should never be to tolerate each other, but to actually love each other.

Tolerance is not about tolerating ideology, religion or parties. It is about loving humans, while being intolerant of the human evil; accepting humanity while rejecting malice. If tolerance is left blind of humanity it begins to become both indifferent to the man and the crime, as though they were one. I still refuse to accept that a man can and should be defined by the sum of his actions; forbid I had that fate. Love is never blind. Love is dividing. Love is what makes a man favor one woman above all others, love is what makes a mother patient with her child’s behavior and love is the only reason there is any grace in this world to begin with.
One needs to be boldly intolerant against bigotry, hatred, injustice, corruption, abuse, genocide, and suffering. Yet, the world desperately needs us to be tolerant of those who commit such actions, because in the end it is us who are the culprits.