The International Day for Tolerance is commemorated annually on 16 November.
I don’t tolerate a blowfly in my soup. I don’t tolerate a flat tyre while driving.
If Mrs Kafoops comes along and starts to sound off about a neighbour, I could do more than tolerate that: I could join in the character assassination. However, I could also not tolerate it, and quietly say something good about the person being denigrated, or in other ways let Mrs Kafoops know that I don’t agree.
What I must do, however, is show tolerance to Mrs Kafoops.
Tolerance is a tricky concept. We tolerate something seen as objectionable, but which is recognised as having the right to exist. We ought to be tolerant towards other religions and cultures, and though it may be difficult, we try to be tolerant of some very different views of people who share our own religion and culture.
However, tolerating people is different from tolerating ideas and practices. Willingness to tolerate a person involves a relationship, and that involves levels of morality, as well as empathy and even forgiveness. There’s something that sets the teeth on edge when thinking that a person has to be ‘tolerated’. I should be able to do more than that… surely?
It is clear that some matters cannot be tolerated, for example, the Nazi swastika or salute. And yet, those symbols are not bad in themselves, and in some circumstances are perfectly acceptable. For example, the swastika is a symbol that is widely used in some Asian religions, representing success and prosperity. And sometimes we raise our arms in blessing in certain religious ceremonies.
The use of the swastika by Hitler and the Nazis renders it intolerable in much of the West as it represents there the antithesis of any human concept of goodness: the descent of humanity into genocide, hatred, and unimaginable cruelty. It is the meaning that the swastika represents that allows it to be tolerated or not.
Nazism is not dead. In Australia recently a man was sentenced to jail for performing the Nazi salute. As he left court, he was heard to say, “Australia for the white man”. A squad of men was seen recently in a country town with their arms raised in the ‘Seig Heil!’ position. Legal processes are now being called on to control the display of these symbols as a way of guarding against the violence and hatred they can symbolise.
It is interesting that nothing that any of these strutting and saluting people did is original; it is all imitation, copying. Imitation is an essential human practice. Without it neither children nor adults would learn new skills such as reading, playing a musical instrument, or excelling at sport. Apart from skills though, imitation is the means by which humans try to ‘take on’ the person of another. Copying the clothes styles of another, their manner of speaking, and their attitudes are ways of expressing a desire – the desire to resemble someone else. It’s about identity.
Imitation is a particularly potent reality affecting toleration. No one should tolerate what is demonstrably false, cruel or violent but the role of the imitative ‘mob’ in human affairs has resulted in such conduct for millennia. Social crises like plagues, invasions or extreme weather events moved populations to blame someone, and then everyone joined in to rid themselves of those whom they thought, rightly or wrongly, were the cause of the distress, and who thus could not be tolerated in the society. Witch-hunts in the Middle Ages and even in our own times, show the force of groups that share the same convictions concerning social upheavals. Unfortunately, violence towards those suspected of causing the collapse is usually the outcome. In many countries now, legal systems are able to control the group desire to punish – but this is not universal.
However, the same process can also have influence on goodness and positivity. Whilst it is far easier for many people to join in a loud, brash crowd – especially when protected by the anonymity of masks or screen names – tolerance, empathy and goodness can also be heightened by imitation.
The eminent French-American philosopher René Girard said, “If we do not imitate Christ or Christ-like models we will continue to imitate each other and remain in the thrall of rivalry and violence”. There are Christ-like people all round us. A friend who bites her lip when she could give forth. A smile towards someone you’ve never seen before. A quiet moment before responding. The donation that no one knows about. The text or email of congratulation. The excuse imagined where there doesn’t seem to be one. It is up to each of us, and all of us, to plant the mustard seed and to knead the yeast into the tolerance mix.
It is good to reflect on one’s own level of tolerance. Questions come in handy, such as, what are my first feelings on seeing a woman in a hijab? What do I think when I see an unkempt man sitting on a blanket outside a shopping centre with a money tin? What do I proclaim to the television when a politician I mistrust appears? Do I always agree with statements made by people I like, but disagree with those I don’t? Do I try to learn the causes of the upheavals that are abroad in our world today? Am I always aware of the difference between not tolerating opinions and not tolerating those who hold those opinions?
Whatever my level of tolerance towards ideas, theories or statements, am I content to merely tolerate Mrs Kafoops?
Susan Connelly rsj
[1] René Girard by Vicq, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons