Tolerance

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Those who visit the country where I live may say that it has a very tolerant culture. Having grown up here, and lived here pretty much all of my life ~ I’m not entirely sure about it…

According to the dictionary ‘tolerance’ means: showing willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with. It comes with a certain open-mindedness, an unbiased, patient attitude; and a sense that being forgiving ‘makes you the better man’.

The danger in being tolerant comes from being too permissive. To let it change into a mentality of ‘anything goes’. Even being so tolerant as to tolerate intolerance ~ something that does happen; all in the name of tolerance…

In order to create a an open, unprejudiced society ~ we have a tendency to regulate tolerance. We start putting up rules and regulations as to what we can and cannot say ~ at least in public. We vote for laws that take away all measure of inequality; in a sense doing away with the age-old adage that says: “May the best man win”. And pretty soon it is not the person that is best for the job that gets it, but rather the person that gives the company an appearance of equality.

This also has an effect on how we view history.
Rather than learning from the mistakes we have made as a culture ~ often at least a couple of hundreds of years ago ~ we set out to re-write history; or at least bring down all things that refer to events that happened long time ago.
Now granted, there are things that probably shouldn’t have happened; yet this attitude is a sign of intolerance. An intolerance to our past; and if there is an intolerance of our past, there is likely to be an intolerance of ourselves in the present…

In all reality we as a culture are a very tolerant culture; having crossed into extreme permissiveness. And when we feel that we might be too lenient in certain situations ~ we seem to be more apt to feel guilty about it, than we are likely to be patient, open-minded, or forgiving about it.
Another way to put that is that it looks like we are far more tolerant towards others than we are towards ourselves ~ while at the same time having the idea that ‘anything goes’. That to say anything, do anything; to do exactly what we want to do, when we want it is okay ~ without giving any thought as to how that would affect others.

Yet that is no tolerance, open-mindedness, or patience; that is just plain selfishness.
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