Accepting and respecting someone’s ideas without agreeing with them is tolerance.
Do you know what happens when you dehumanize someone in their “truth”? Puts them in instant defense mode and the remainder of your message falls on deaf ears. Even if their position is absurd and based on incomplete information—lashing out only serves to separate and continue mass ignorance.
Remember; tolerance applies to how we treat people we disagree with—not how we treat ideas we think are false.
Make it a goal to engage in intellectual dialog & not judge everyone who holds differing perspectives as being morally inferior. The former takes more work but if you speak in truth, it will stand the test of ridicule and ostracization.
Tolerance is respect, acceptance, and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures—our forms of expression and ways of being human. It is fostered by knowledge, openness, communication, freedom of thought, conscience, and belief.
Tolerance is harmony in difference.
Tolerance is the exact virtue that makes peace possible—as it contributes to the replacement of the culture of war, by a culture of peace. Tolerance requires that every person is treated courteously, no matter what her/his view, not that all views have equal worth, merit, or truth. But they all should be heard and vetted for truth.
Don’t let this new notion of tolerance intimidate you.
Treat all people with respect, but be willing to show them where their ideas have gone wrong. To say I’m intolerant because I disagree with another’s life philosophy is fucked and antithetical to cognitive congruity. You know, being mentally unhealthy.
This essential element of classical tolerance—elitism regarding ideas—has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. The distinction between pseudo-tolerance and genuine tolerance is critical to understand—because the former is often mistaken for the latter. This mistake leads to a radical devaluation of the importance of truth seeking—especially in the modern political environment where individuals want to claim moral superiority for their spoon fed belief system.
Consequently, a person may be accused of being “intolerant” simply because he holds to a truth that differs from the consensus. In our current environment, if you think someone is incorrect in their analysis of whatever, you’re called intolerant despite treating them in their humanness. Ya, no. Only if you’re talking with their ego in exclusion. Most of what passes for “tolerance” today is intellectual cowardice, a fear of intellectual discourse.
Canceled. Deleted. Rejected. Echo chamber secured. Further divide ensues.
Those who brandish the word “intolerant” are unwilling to be challenged by other views, to grapple with contrary opinions, or even to consider them.
It’s easier to hurl an insult—“you intolerant racist sexist bigot”—than to confront the idea and either refute it, or for fucks sake be changed by it.
The person who is genuinely tolerant does not turn his back on truth, nor does he disparage others for not having already found it. When we retain our commitment to truth and respect for others enough to find their own truth, in their own individual way, we honor their self discovery process. This right here is the path to peace.
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