Tolerance, shmolerance

I’m conscious of the idea of tolerance, but I do my best to avoid it.

I’m especially keen to keep my distance from it in the way it scans in our country’s watchwords: Discipline, Tolerance, Production. This bothers me the most for the (hopefully) obvious reason that it is about us, about who we are. This is a thing we were taught in primary school as something virtuous.

I find it reprehensible.

You can have a look at dictionary definitions, lectures, academic papers and articles. The first thing they highlight is that, at its core, tolerance means putting up with something you don’t like.

I know many tolerant people. Now that I’ve found research to support the sort of ick feeling I had about them, I feel a lot better about not liking that part of them.

Tolerance presumes a sort of superiority on the part of those doing it. Those doing the tolerating understand themselves to be somehow better. Or in the majority. Or fundamentally more right than others.

For those being tolerated, the picture is not so sunny. Folded into who they are is the idea that something about them is bad or anathema to others.

I have a bushel of cats. For most of my family, this is a situation to be tolerated if they visit me. They are enduring the existence of creatures they might find unpleasant in order to please me.

I know I said I want no traffic with tolerance, but on the occasions my sisters put up with the felines of my home, I am grateful. It is so easy, such an effortless trap to fall into – gratitude that your way of life is not spat upon. That’s as low as the bar can go.

We are not all the same. We do not all like or care to be associated with the same things. When we do not unleash our fury or repugnance on the things that don’t rhyme with us, we say to ourselves, “Well done, us.”

This is our attitude when it comes to religion, race, sexuality, class and sometimes pets.

But who am I to merely endure anyone else? Where does my privilege come from? That’s what it is – and make no mistake, when you say you tolerate someone or something, you are framing yourself as superior. You’re say the other is lacking but in your magnanimity, you will overlook their lesserness.

In teaching tolerance as opposed to acceptance and respect, a hierarchy – intentionally or not – is built in to our way of thinking. The group on the receiving end of the tolerance is belittled by the very word.

The rules and laws that advocate tolerance further entrench such feelings. It’s saying, “Hi, different person. I wish I could throw rocks at you, but there’s a new law in town that says you’re a kind of person and I’m not allowed to hurt you.”

I can’t say that sort of thing makes me comfortable. In an academic article by Verkuyten, Yogeeswaran and Adelman on The Negative Implications of Being Tolerated: Tolerance From the Target’s Perspective, there is a simple and dispiriting chart that sets out how our tolerance-thinking breaks down.

The threatened identity needs include self-esteem, belonging, control and certainty. These needs are jeopardised because of perceived devaluation (disapproval and condescension) and perceived noninterference (dominance and arbitrariness). The outcomes include the personal (wellbeing and identity management), interpersonal (social costs and withdrawal), and intergroup (perceived injustices and collective action).

I just tried to quote a chart. It’s exactly the kind of writing I find most irksome, but in this case I really did need all the information. From the same paper comes a quote I find easier to relate to.

They refer to a Belgian report that says: “That is the problem with toleration: others determine if they tolerate you, which rules and norms you need to meet in order to be allowed to participate…As LGBTs we do not want to be tolerated, we want to be respected.”

You can substitute “LGBT” with anything you think you stand for or against – and the picture sharpens. No race, culture, ability, no group of similar beings wants to be part of your party just because someone says they can’t take up arms against you.

We need so much more than tolerance. Is tolerance much more than discrimination without a lynch mob? We need to be more sensitive and sensitised people. We need to be better at being people.

Think acceptance. Think cherish. Think embrace.

Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition.