Intolerance and hypocrisy abound...The problem with tolerance

[MrsSmith]

rug  (1000+ posts)        Mon Sep-05-11 03:30 PM
Original message
The problem with tolerance
 For a secular godless age, there is one virtue we promulgate about ourselves at almost all opportunities: tolerance. Among the British values often celebrated by politicians is our capacity for tolerance. Schools are required to instil values of tolerance into millions of children; Muslims are told to be tolerant by David Cameron. Tolerance has become something of a founding mythology for western developed nations: our tolerance is regarded as a mark of our superiority over many less tolerant, less developed nations around the world. Our tolerance – in contrast to the intolerance of many of our ancestors – is evidence of the concept of historical progress.

Our ancestors may have ripped each other apart over small theological differences, they may have persecuted those with different sexual preferences or ethnic identity, but in this enlightened age, we tolerate diversity. It is the one virtue the state regularly exhorts us to demonstrate.

But far from being the kind of unequivocal virtue the politicians proclaim it to be, take a closer look and the word collapses under the weight of contradicting expectations. A closer look is exactly what Frank Furedi, a sociologist, offers in a new book On Tolerance, which will infuriate and delight in equal measure – and probably leave a lot of confusion in its wake.

The problem is that tolerance – understood in its classical liberal sense as a virtue essential to freedom – has been hijacked and bankrupted, argues Furedi. Dragged into the politicisation of identity, tolerance has become a form of "polite etiquette". Where once it was about the tolerance of individuals and their opinions, it has now been "redeployed to deal with group conflicts". Once it was about opening the mind to competing beliefs, now it is about one that affirms different groups. Along this slippery path, much of the original importance of tolerance has been distorted or lost.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/sep...
 

Teh DUmmies gets it, yes they do...NOT!!

RC  (1000+ posts)        Mon Sep-05-11 04:22 PM
Response to Original message
1. Tolerance is now used as a club to beat you over the head if you are not tolerant to their
 intolerant views. Another word being co-opted by the right wing loons.

darkstar3  (1000+ posts)        Mon Sep-05-11 04:46 PM
Response to Original message
2. Like so many things, it is a double-edged sword.
 The Christian who says that homosexuality is an abomination believes, whole-heartedly, that "tolerance" means people should respect his "Biblical view." It doesn't even occur to him that he is being intolerant.
  Pot - kettle!!
...
 LARED (1000+ posts)      Mon Sep-05-11 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. If tolerance is a two edged sword, why is  
 that Christian being intolerant?

If article is making the point that tolerance is about respecting others opinion even though each person may vehemently disagree with that opinion or view. I am sure the Christian and the homosexual will never agree about the morality of homosexual behavior, and being tolerant means that's OK. Tolerance should mean they get to agree to disagree with no coercion, or threats, or violence done to each other.

As the author points out in today's vernacular tolerance is more about affirming something you disagree with rather than being honest about your position publicly. So in essence what one expresses privately may be very different from what one states publicly for fear of being accused of intolerance. For better or worse I would rather have people speak their minds even if I disagree with them.  
 
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 darkstar3  (1000+ posts)        Mon Sep-05-11 06:35 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. How in the world do you even need to ask that question?
 Do you truly not understand why "homosexuality is an abomination" is intolerant?

Intolerance can not, dare not, be tolerated. That is the double-edge.
 Says the "tolerant" side...
...
 LARED (1000+ posts)      Mon Sep-05-11 06:42 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. You are missing the point
 The point of the article is intolerance should be tolerated in a free society. As long as we respect each other rights.  
 
...

 darkstar3  (1000+ posts)        Mon Sep-05-11 06:51 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. And that's bullshit.
 Intolerance should be confronted. Failure to do so means failure to move toward a more understanding society.

(As a side note, even the word "tolerance" is disgusting if you spend a few moments thinking about what it means. Perhaps "acceptance" would be a better idea.)
 

Yep, exactly as we've stated over and over...the "tolerant" side has no tolerance for those that disagree, but are fine with demanding acceptance.    

Hey, lurkers, why are most of you bigots?  Why is it that so few of you understand how prejudiced the rest of you blind bigots are??   

[jukin]

As the DUmp, the donk party, and the 0bama administration prove daily, tolerance is accepting a leftist's point of view.

[Vagabond]

Tolerance the way that DUmmies define it means doing nothing to stop the cancer that is destroying your society.  Or, as Aristotle noted, Tolerance is the final virtue of a dying culture.

[Skul]

It's cute when they try to "out deep think" each other.
As yet, none of the "deep thinkers", has lurked , CC.
I'll sit and watch.

[Skul]

rug  (1000+ posts)        Mon Sep-05-11 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #9
15. Thanks for the background information.
 It should be noted, though, that the RCP in the UK, which was Trotskyist, is not the same as Avakian's RCP in the US, which is Maoist.

What???
Try that in English, old boy.

[JohnnyReb]

Well: A mighty deep subject for a shallow minded DUmmie.