Another brilliant new Reality Check!
What is tolerance?
Hello and welcome to Reality Check.
Hi I’m Mark Pellegrino and today I’m going to talk about TOLERANCE.
In case you haven’t already noticed the focus of most Reality Checks is on concepts that
have been corrupted by common usage away from meanings intended to
promote liberal values to meanings intended to promote illiberal values. [Clip Dumb and Dumber, 1994] Thus the meaning of RIGHTS has been corrupted away from a liberal, freedom of action
to an illiberal entitlement to stuff.
Equality has gone from sameness before the laws of men and nature to the use of force to make outcomes the same. Likewise, selfishness has morphed from holding one’s interests as a primary to an evil form of greed that deprives others of what they rightfully should have. [Clip Finding Nemo, 2003] And finally capitalism, once a system defined by complete individual sovereignty and choice,
is now a tool for enslavement and inequality that requires violent intervention to correct. You get the picture yeah?
In all cases liberal values emplaced to mitigate violence by subordinating it to reason, are replaced by illiberal values intended to achieve
social ends through violent intervention in human affairs. The concept of tolerance has gone through a similar transformation. At one time Tolerance was the understanding that reasoning beings
with differing opinions, ideas, and ideologies, must abstain from violence against those
with whom they disagree. The virtue of abstaining from violence and either attempting to persuade, or failing that, living and let live
has been the glue that holds a society together
and keeps it free. It was through this liberal form of abstinence that America
was able to achieve a truly pluralistic society for the first time in recorded history, where multiple denominations of and even different schools
of religion and political thought were able to exist together without bitter rivalry
and overt violence.
Then along came illiberalism and tolerance became synonymous with acceptance.
[Clip Silicon Valley, 2014] “It’s the same thing, right?” Now agreeing not to harm or interfere with those who differ with you is not the same as actively embracing their ideology or world view as if it is as legitimate as your own.
Cause that’s what acceptance means you know. It means embracing a concept, practice, or idea as if it is the equal of yours. But what if it isn’t? What if your assessment of reality forbids such an embrace? The former solution was that you didn’t have to embrace anything
that went against your conscience or
assessment of the good, but you also couldn’t harm that person for offending your sensibilities or judgment either.
And that was a good thing, because compulsory acceptance kills tolerance.
I’m gonna say that one more time. Compulsory acceptance kills tolerance.
In fact, any type of unjust compulsion has the effect of killing the better angels of our nature
and often breeds a deep subterranean resentment in the person being compelled. [Clip First Blood, 1982] “They drew first blood, not me.” Not exactly grist for the mill of a tolerant
or benevolent society. But certainly the seeds of an intolerant one.
Now if you don’t believe me or think this is true let’s look at two glaring modern examples where acceptance is conflated with tolerance:
The issue of pronouns and the issue of cultural egalitarianism
or multiculturalism. In the first case we were not merely asked to live with folks who had decided that they weren’t going to abide by common gender roles and leave them alone – as a tolerant society would require we were told that misgendering was an act of violence. We watched as people who couldn’t keep up with
the constantly growing stream of identities, or even those who would’ve tolerated but not accepted the new nomenclature, were cancelled or publicly abused by an intolerant minority seeking acceptance. This violence inspired a backlash which has extended to the banning of books, curricula, and even political retaliation against companies that do embrace the new norms.
In the second case we are told to embrace other cultures as the equal of western civilization. Though the attacks on those who refuse are far less impactful than the threatened jail time, losses of career, or social standing that accompanied misgendering,
the lack of toleration for the perspective that not all
cultures should be embraced as equally legitimate is rampant in academia and engenders verbal and
sometimes physical violence in the name of acceptance.
[Clip Cori Bush/Lauren Boebert] “She just called the witness a white supremacist.” [Clip Cori Bush/Lauren Boebert] “No, I referred to the word, not to the person” [Clip Alex Epstein] “I have fought my entire life for freedom around the world. Skin colour has nothing to do with ideas” [Clip Alex Epstein] “Where you came from geographically is irrelevant. What’s relevant is what’s true.” So here’s the deal. Tolerance isn’t acceptance. And you, as a citizen of a free country, don’t have to be accepted or accept others to live in peace with them.
Your neighbor is not responsible for your self-esteem and you are not responsible for theirs. They are not obligated to make you feel all fuzzy inside, [Clip SNL, 2019] “A beautiful day in the neighborhood…” Nor are you obligated to tickle their fancy [Clip As Good As It Gets, 1992] “Sell crazy somewhere else,
we’re all stocked up here” Imagine the horror of a society that actually obligated itself to live by that moral standard Oh wait, we saw it and it ain’t pretty, it ain’t peaceful and it ain’t tolerant. Check. Check out the Ayn Rand Institute and the Ayn Rand University app
for more about the philosophy of objectivism.
