Intolerant of Tolerance

Whenever there is a clash of values, this seems to be our standard response. Tolerate the differences. Just because they are different doesn't mean they're any better or worse than yours.

So what if that guy disagrees with climate change? Everyone's entitled to their opinion! Who are you to say your beliefs are any more valid than someone else's? If a Muslim woman wants to wear a hijab, then that is her right.

Or as the big man once said: Thou shalt not judge.

And to this collectively recognised and long respected bastion of our society, I have only one response:

Wrong.

I vehemently disagree with tolerance.

If you tolerate something, by definition you disagree with it. If you disagree with something, there must be a reason you disagree with it. Your reasons will be based of your understanding of how the world works – generally this is based on evidence of some sort.

So if there's a reason you disagree with something, then one or more people in this situation is wrong. Not just different, but WRONG. As in 'irrational'. As in 'misinformed'. As in 'provably incorrect through the use of evidence'.

And you need to be very aware that it might be you.

Because that's the kicker: in any given disagreement, it is very rare for one party to be entirely right or wrong. After all, none of us is a god, none of us know how everything works perfectly. If you did, you could predict the future impeccably. Since we seem to struggle with whether the train will run on time, claiming to be 100% right on anything is enormously arrogant.

Almost always, both parties are both right and wrong to some degree.

Liberals are not perfect. Conservatives are not perfect. When liberals and conservatives disagree they are both wrong to some degree.

A sensible way to resolve this is for the two conflicting parties to sit down and calmly figure out which of their claims make sense and discard those that are faulty.

A considerably less rational way to dealing with it would be to say that 'everybody's right and let's not talk about it any more – and while we're at it, why aren't you more tolerant?'

In fairness, the basis of tolerance is that if what another person thinks or does doesn't hurt me, then it's none of my business. I strongly agree with this.

Unfortunately, there isn't a single thing an individual does, says or even thinks that does not eventually affect other people. And if it affects other people, those people will in turn affect those around them. Which eventually leads back to you and me.

The guy behind me at the football discusses how global warming is a scam with his friends. He's certainly not hurting me. But that's 3 more people who disagree with climate change. Three more votes. Three more electricity users. Three more parents. Three more people with mouths to spread their opinions.

A kid I've never met from the other side of town thinks carrying a knife will make him feel safe. Kid gets caught, threatens someone, or even just tells his friends. Now there's more knives out there and I'm being frisked at a train station without a warrant.

The pope continues to believe homosexuality is a sin. We continue to see protests, discrimination and violence against the gay community. Protests, discrimination and violence the pope could end pretty quickly if he ended his tacit approval-through-silence and threw his considerable weight against them.

Tolerance perpetuates ignorance. It tells us our beliefs are valid, regardless of whether they stand up to proof or not.

If you cannot stand up and justify your beliefs before rational inquiry and justify them on the basis of evidence, then your beliefs are faulty.

And since everything you do influences others around you, you do not have the right to hold faulty beliefs. No more than I have the right to punch another person in the face.

This may sound awfully black and white, but bear in mind that this is what human inquiry, through education, science, philosophy, engineering, sport and media, has been actively doing for our entire history – trying to figure out what works, what is best, how we can improve and apply these discoveries.

We discard old ideas as they are proven inaccurate or incomplete and replace them with better versions – which will inevitably turn out to be flawed themselves (though less flawed) and need to be replaced again.

So what's my answer here? Full scale war on the street until the last ideology left standing is the winner? Allow the founding beliefs of millions to be unceremoniously torn out from under them?

No. The Richard Dawkin's approach to religion is a good example of how that just makes the problem more entrenched – the line in the sand is drawn and you are either with us or against us.

If you take this combative approach the only possible conclusion is the annihilation of the opposition; a long, bloody and painful process – exactly the sort of thing we were trying to avoid in the first place.

So what then?

Let's have a look at the complete version of that quote from the big man: Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged.(Matt 7:1-2)

Hmm, that changes things a little doesn't it? Sounds like a pretty good deal really.

Let's have less tolerance and more compassion.

More empathy and less hate.

Let's have less people proclaiming they are right and more people willing to question their own beliefs. Let's have people get over themselves, acknowledge their fear, their uncertainty, their human ignorance and try to find out more about other ideas before they go ahead and hate them.

Let's see more courage and less cowardice in hiding behind words in a book, simplified arguments, selective case studies, and avoidance of any fact that does not fit your world view.

Let's see people approach other thinking of them as a human first and foremost, and try to overcome the superficial differences that cloud the fact we agree on at least 90% of matters.

And if I may be allowed to point out two particular targets, the 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' factions of the abortion debate need to hear this point loud and clear;

YOU ARE BOTH RIGHT. AND YOU ARE BOTH WRONG.

And the most frustrating part of all is that you agree for the most part. Yet this ongoing war of ideas and refusal to compromise hurts the very unborn children and terrified mothers you seek to help.

Accept it, or you will cause nothing but the suffering you seek to prevent.

It is scary, there is no doubt about that. I'm asking nothing less than that you be willing to acknowledge that everything you've worked towards and based your life around might be wrong.

But you cannot avoid the choice – either you approach life with empathy or you approach it with blindness.

Will you be a positive force in this world or a negative one?

Think hard.