Personal Absolutism I: Tolerance vs. Acceptance

The struggle to define who oneself is while subject to change and interaction with the world around you is universally recognized as one of the greatest challenges in any life. While I will not claim to have all the answers, my hope is that we might discuss some core ideas relating to how one must do this: A philosophy of worldview foundations, so to speak.

Before we can address the subject as a whole, however, it is important to cement certain ideas and definitions before we continue. Lesson one: always define common terms in discussion.

Something we hear talked about often in today's world is tolerance. It is a word we are all familiar with, and many people use casually. We need to be more tolerant of this or that, someone seems intolerant, we need to show tolerance, etc. It is used so often we can almost ignore it, it has lost all practical meaning for having been used so much.


In fact, it has a new meaning.

I'm going to use a pretty controversial topic here, but let's try not to get our feathers too ruffled, okay? Example being this: We are commonly told by interest groups, politicians, and (in some states and coutries) the government that we need to be tolerant of a homosexual lifestyle. I'm not sure how many people are told this to their face, but it has been made clear that people who don't think homosexuality is okay are intolerant, homophobic bigots, right?

Wrong.

See, this is where we mess up tolerance. You see, tolerance is (and I still can't believe how many people don't get this) the infinitive from which we derive things like tolerate. How many of us tolerated a younger sibling growing up? What did that look like?

Isn't it usually somewhat exasperated? You bet! Now, I'm not saying we all should be exasperated with the gay community. Let's all detach ourselves from that example now, for the sake of clarity.

See, to tolerate something is a kind way of saying you "put up with it". You may not agree with it, and you may speak out against it, but you won't harm it or infringe upon it. You'll abide while it happens, even if you think or know it is wrong.

In that way, tolerance can be good or bad. We tolerate people with beliefs different from our own-this is good. We might try to change their minds, but we don't axe our neighbor because they're a practicing Jew and our house is part of the Church of Bob and the Sub-Genius. That is tolerance.

On the other hand, a lot of Austrians tolerated Hitler's treatment of the Jews after the Anschlüss, figuring that even if they didn't agree with it they wouldn't act against it. It landed a lot of people in Eichmann's office. That is also tolerance.


What we are asked to do today, however, is not tolerance.

We are asked to accept. We are supposed to agree that everything is okay, and that there is nothing we should ever disagree with or believe is wrong. We are taught now that meta-ethical moral relativism and post-modern ethics are tolerance. That to tolerate is to condone.

Bull.

And so the point of this first part is to teach a first step in identifying a truth-oriented worldview : Relearn what it is to tolerate, and always know what things you tolerate, and which you condone. You must be ready to separate the two.


If tolerance is really to accept all things, be intolerant. Some things are just stupid.


More soon.