Some thoughts on tolerance
Mar. 6th, 2004 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerIf there's going to be a debate about civil rights and gay marriage, the word "tolerance" is going to get thrown around a lot. Since it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart, I've assembled some of my thoughts about it. There's nothing brilliant or beautiful here, but it might help some folks think about what tolerance means to them, and give something to throw back at people who insist that those who demand tolerance don't give it in response.
A common debate tactic of bigots is to attempt to confuse the issue by bringing out the word "tolerance". There are two ways in which this can be used to confuse the issue.
The first way is to pretend that tolerance means tolerance of everything; that it means accepting, for example, the justifications given by a serial killer are as valid as arguments against murder. Thus, a call for tolerance becomes a call for acceptance of everything. After beating the stuffing out of the straw man, the bigot will say something like "but I know right and wrong, and I will not compromise; (fill in the blank with whatever s/he hates) is just plain wrong."
The second way is to insist that those asking for tolerance are actually practicing intolerance. Now, there are soi disant "tolerant" people who are actually intolerant, and there may well have been excesses performed by people who have acted in the name of tolerance. (An example that I remember quite well was a student being prosecuted (by his college) for racism because he yelled that a group of black female students were "water buffaloes", when they were clustered under his dorm window, making a lot of noise, and refused to quiet down when he asked. I'm sure there's some debate about whether it'd be okay for him to be punished if he had yelled a racial epithet at them... but "water buffaloes" was just a random insult that he used on the spur of the moment.)
However, that doesn't mean that the idea of tolerance is a bad one.
Now, I'm going to use the word tolerance a lot here, and it can mean a lot of things, so I'm going to express what I mean when I'm speaking about tolerance in this context.
In essence, tolerance means that a person of good mind, good heart, and good will can come to a conclusion different from your own, and that you should not fault that person for coming to a different conclusion, nor believe that they are inferior in some way for having come to that conclusion. It means adopting a live-and-let-live attitude about things, and accepting behaviors that you find objectionable, so long as they are not hurting someone else.
It means, for example, accepting that a person can sincerely believe that homosexual acts are forbidden by the Bible, and thus are sinful, and thus, if one could honorably prevent them, one should, to protect people from going to hell.
People holding that belief are not hurting anyone except possibly themselves. (Obviously, I'm referring to the mere holding of that belief... I am not referring to any actions taken based upon that belief.)
However, the belief that one should interfere with another person's life's choices is one that you might call intolerant. Is a tolerant person supposed to accept that? This is one of the big challenges that faces people who are trying to come to grips with tolerance. Should you tolerate the intolerant?
This is not actually as difficult a question as it's made out to be. Tolerance does not mean that you should enjoy rude behavior, respect people who hurt others, or refuse to take a stand for what is right. Tolerance simply means tolerating the belief, not the actions that causes.
In alt.callahans, there was a good example of that. A person admitted to being a fundamentalist Christian, and was asked what his view on homosexuality was. He admitted that he thought that homosexuality was sinful, though, if I recall correctly, he also said that it was no better or worse than any other sin.
There's a key thing to note here: he was asked what his opinion was. (In fact, I believe he was asked multiple times, and evaded the issue, out of a desire to avoid unpleasantness.)
No tolerant person should give him any grief over his beliefs, because he had done nothing wrong with them. He was asked a question, and he answered it. He even gave a relatively nice piece of additional information (since Christians tend to believe *everyone* sins, saying that homosexuality is no worse than any other sin means that a gay person is no more of a sinner than anyone else, essentially).
Now, let's imagine a completely different person... a person who holds the same beliefs, but is completely different from this person I remember. What if that person kept mentioning, any time there was a mention of homosexuality in alt.callahans, that homosexuality was a sin? Would people have the right to be upset with him, or would that be intolerant?
Well, nobody is upset that human beings have to urinate; that doesn't mean that you can't be upset with someone for doing so in an inappropriate place. (Yes, if anyone just *has* to know, I had multiple other body functions on my mind when making this analogy, okay? This just seemed to be the most accessible/least gross.)
It is not intolerant to believe that a person has been rude in making a belief known, especially when not asked.
OK... but what if the person believes that Christians must witness, and must say things like "you know homosexuality is wrong" when someone mentions homosexuality? Well, one could easily believe that a person has such a belief, and might well feel that they should be given a pass, the first time, for saying something like that.
OK... but what if the person feels that it must be done every single time? What if the person believes that any given repetition might be the magical one that drives the message home?
Well, let's imagine another situation that is roughly analogous.
Let's suppose the person has a scar on his, or her, face. Let's suppose that say, of any given 1000 people surveyed, you can expect 999 to agree that the scar is ugly, and detracts from that person's appearance.
Even though it is essentially true to say to the person "you have an ugly scar on your face, and it makes you look bad, so maybe you should do something about it if you can", I cannot imagine anyone, anywhere, who doesn't consider repeating that statement to be rude.
And this situation isn't even a matter of faith, where a reasonable person should acknowledge the possibility of being wrong.
I don't think I'm going out on the limb to say that is rude behavior to say something that you think will bother another person, unless you feel that is information that the person both does not have, and needs to know.
The former condition ("information that the person does not have") is key here. It's generally considered okay to deliver unpleasant information if a person doesn't have already. But, if you know that the person already knows it, pointing it out over and over again is rude.
Okay, but, this person's religion is forcing them to be rude! How can you be tolerant, and consider them rude for something their religion requires?
Well, if you're going for the gold star standard of tolerance, you should cut them some (emphasis on the "some") slack because they can't help themselves... but it is not intolerance to decide that you do not want to have anything to do with someone whose behavior is rude.
A tolerant person's complaint might be "people have a right to their beliefs, but I have a right to find their behavior bothersome."
Of course, this assumes something... this assumes that a person's beliefs really do require that they do this rude thing. What if the person is simply doing it for ego gratification? Tolerance doesn't mean being stupid about people's statements, nor about their motivations. If a person seems to enjoy gay bashing, and simply claims to be required to do so, tolerance does not mean that you shouldn't hold them in complete contempt. It simply means that, if you later discovered that their belief was sincere, you should be ready to completely change your mind about the person.
A common debate tactic of bigots is to attempt to confuse the issue by bringing out the word "tolerance". There are two ways in which this can be used to confuse the issue.
The first way is to pretend that tolerance means tolerance of everything; that it means accepting, for example, the justifications given by a serial killer are as valid as arguments against murder. Thus, a call for tolerance becomes a call for acceptance of everything. After beating the stuffing out of the straw man, the bigot will say something like "but I know right and wrong, and I will not compromise; (fill in the blank with whatever s/he hates) is just plain wrong."
The second way is to insist that those asking for tolerance are actually practicing intolerance. Now, there are soi disant "tolerant" people who are actually intolerant, and there may well have been excesses performed by people who have acted in the name of tolerance. (An example that I remember quite well was a student being prosecuted (by his college) for racism because he yelled that a group of black female students were "water buffaloes", when they were clustered under his dorm window, making a lot of noise, and refused to quiet down when he asked. I'm sure there's some debate about whether it'd be okay for him to be punished if he had yelled a racial epithet at them... but "water buffaloes" was just a random insult that he used on the spur of the moment.)
However, that doesn't mean that the idea of tolerance is a bad one.
Now, I'm going to use the word tolerance a lot here, and it can mean a lot of things, so I'm going to express what I mean when I'm speaking about tolerance in this context.
In essence, tolerance means that a person of good mind, good heart, and good will can come to a conclusion different from your own, and that you should not fault that person for coming to a different conclusion, nor believe that they are inferior in some way for having come to that conclusion. It means adopting a live-and-let-live attitude about things, and accepting behaviors that you find objectionable, so long as they are not hurting someone else.
It means, for example, accepting that a person can sincerely believe that homosexual acts are forbidden by the Bible, and thus are sinful, and thus, if one could honorably prevent them, one should, to protect people from going to hell.
People holding that belief are not hurting anyone except possibly themselves. (Obviously, I'm referring to the mere holding of that belief... I am not referring to any actions taken based upon that belief.)
However, the belief that one should interfere with another person's life's choices is one that you might call intolerant. Is a tolerant person supposed to accept that? This is one of the big challenges that faces people who are trying to come to grips with tolerance. Should you tolerate the intolerant?
This is not actually as difficult a question as it's made out to be. Tolerance does not mean that you should enjoy rude behavior, respect people who hurt others, or refuse to take a stand for what is right. Tolerance simply means tolerating the belief, not the actions that causes.
In alt.callahans, there was a good example of that. A person admitted to being a fundamentalist Christian, and was asked what his view on homosexuality was. He admitted that he thought that homosexuality was sinful, though, if I recall correctly, he also said that it was no better or worse than any other sin.
There's a key thing to note here: he was asked what his opinion was. (In fact, I believe he was asked multiple times, and evaded the issue, out of a desire to avoid unpleasantness.)
No tolerant person should give him any grief over his beliefs, because he had done nothing wrong with them. He was asked a question, and he answered it. He even gave a relatively nice piece of additional information (since Christians tend to believe *everyone* sins, saying that homosexuality is no worse than any other sin means that a gay person is no more of a sinner than anyone else, essentially).
Now, let's imagine a completely different person... a person who holds the same beliefs, but is completely different from this person I remember. What if that person kept mentioning, any time there was a mention of homosexuality in alt.callahans, that homosexuality was a sin? Would people have the right to be upset with him, or would that be intolerant?
Well, nobody is upset that human beings have to urinate; that doesn't mean that you can't be upset with someone for doing so in an inappropriate place. (Yes, if anyone just *has* to know, I had multiple other body functions on my mind when making this analogy, okay? This just seemed to be the most accessible/least gross.)
It is not intolerant to believe that a person has been rude in making a belief known, especially when not asked.
OK... but what if the person believes that Christians must witness, and must say things like "you know homosexuality is wrong" when someone mentions homosexuality? Well, one could easily believe that a person has such a belief, and might well feel that they should be given a pass, the first time, for saying something like that.
OK... but what if the person feels that it must be done every single time? What if the person believes that any given repetition might be the magical one that drives the message home?
Well, let's imagine another situation that is roughly analogous.
Let's suppose the person has a scar on his, or her, face. Let's suppose that say, of any given 1000 people surveyed, you can expect 999 to agree that the scar is ugly, and detracts from that person's appearance.
Even though it is essentially true to say to the person "you have an ugly scar on your face, and it makes you look bad, so maybe you should do something about it if you can", I cannot imagine anyone, anywhere, who doesn't consider repeating that statement to be rude.
And this situation isn't even a matter of faith, where a reasonable person should acknowledge the possibility of being wrong.
I don't think I'm going out on the limb to say that is rude behavior to say something that you think will bother another person, unless you feel that is information that the person both does not have, and needs to know.
The former condition ("information that the person does not have") is key here. It's generally considered okay to deliver unpleasant information if a person doesn't have already. But, if you know that the person already knows it, pointing it out over and over again is rude.
Okay, but, this person's religion is forcing them to be rude! How can you be tolerant, and consider them rude for something their religion requires?
Well, if you're going for the gold star standard of tolerance, you should cut them some (emphasis on the "some") slack because they can't help themselves... but it is not intolerance to decide that you do not want to have anything to do with someone whose behavior is rude.
A tolerant person's complaint might be "people have a right to their beliefs, but I have a right to find their behavior bothersome."
Of course, this assumes something... this assumes that a person's beliefs really do require that they do this rude thing. What if the person is simply doing it for ego gratification? Tolerance doesn't mean being stupid about people's statements, nor about their motivations. If a person seems to enjoy gay bashing, and simply claims to be required to do so, tolerance does not mean that you shouldn't hold them in complete contempt. It simply means that, if you later discovered that their belief was sincere, you should be ready to completely change your mind about the person.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-07 11:56 am (UTC)If you DO mind, let me know and I will remove the link.
In the meantime, thank you, John.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-07 12:16 pm (UTC)