No, I Won’t Tolerate Your Intolerance

You Think You Have Me Trapped. You’re Wrong

A “fun” game that the intolerant love to play is to demand their behavior be tolerated. “After all, you preach tolerance, why am I an exception?” they ask. They think they’ve won the argument, that you can’t defeat this so-called trap they’ve laid. Oh, but you can.

What people who seem to revel in their intolerance don’t seem to realize is that people who promote tolerance, aren’t promoting tolerance for all things. Why would they? There are many things we shouldn’t tolerate after all.

Those who promote tolerance are trying to get people to understand that their prejudices and biases aren’t based on reality. They’re trying to get people to understand that their unfounded hate harms people. Hell, it harms them! After all, how happy can you be, carrying the weight of all that anger and hatred in your heart?

Teaching tolerance is about getting people to stop hating people just for being them. It’s about realizing that everybody is a human being, worthy of respect. The whole point of teaching tolerance is that you can’t tolerate intolerance. To suggest otherwise is literal nonsense.

It’s baked into the concept! I mean, how toothless would you have to be to want people to stop judging others for things out of their control, and say nothing when people do it?

What is tolerance?

See, this is likely why people have their “gotcha!” moment. Tolerance is putting up with or allowing someone who has contrary opinions, beliefs, or behaviors. Well, that fits perfectly, doesn’t it? You don’t like my opinions or behavior. Tolerate it!

I’m sorry but Nah! You see, people who promote tolerance aren’t really promoting tolerance. What they’re promoting is accepting people for who they are. They’re promoting love and kindness, understanding and empathy. They aren’t all that interested in getting people to put up with poor behavior or opinions.

Tolerance, in its base form, is about putting up with things that you don’t like. In that way, yes, they’re promoting tolerance. What they really want though is for you to pull your head out and realize that you’re wrong. They’ll accept that you may not like something but stay civil. They’d prefer that you do some critical thinking, some soul searching and realize your hate is based on nothing more than that people are different from you.

Honestly, this argument is only used as a way to try and silence people. The intolerant don’t want to discuss why they’re wrong. They definitely don’t want any backlash for their terrible behavior. They think they should be allowed to be as hurtful as they want and simply get away with it.

In the smallest of ways, they’re right.

What I mean by this is that there are a lot of people who will run around and harass and demean people they perceive to be intolerant. In these scenarios, I can see the need for just a little more tolerance, even for the intolerant. Sure, they chose to be intolerant but that doesn’t give people carte blanche to try and destroy them.

It isn’t helpful. That’s my real point here. I understand the anger and resentment people have for the hateful human beings out there. Wanting to lash out is only natural. Here’s the thing though, even if they fired the first shot, you won’t win this battle by firing back.

In any kind of cultural war, the people who win, are the ones who make the most sense. The ones who can change hearts and minds. If you’re running around attacking everyone you perceive as intolerant, people will get defensive. People who might have been receptive to your words before, may no longer be.

Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) wrote a story about this topic first. She had tagged some people (not me, how rude! lol) but also invited anyone else to join in on the conversation. This is my take on the topic of tolerating intolerance. Here’s her story for those interested.

I’ll finish this off with a question for you readers. What do you guys think?