What Do We Mean By Tolerance? (2 of 4)

The word tolerance is best understood as a threshold, a breaking point – like a weight limit on an elevator defines the point of safe occupancy.

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It is innate to the vernacular of language that the definition of a word has less to do with its specific etymology, and more to do with how a culture’s dominant narrative insinuates meaning. For instance, when the word progress is generically used it is assumed to be a good thing unless placed in a specifically bad context like a progressing cancer. And that’s the thing – if we haven’t actually defined the destination, how can we tell whether we’re getting closer to it . . . and not farther away from it. In this way, a persuasive narrative can be misleading, insinuating an ambiguously desirable outcome without ever specifying why that outcome should be desired.

This is exactly how our culture’s prevailing narrative uses the word tolerance – it’s treated as if it should be an unquestioned virtue, by those who invariably have a long list of things they absolutely can’t tolerate . . . no doubt, a self-affirming list. So given the conspicuous duplicity and sheer cognitive dissonance with which the word tolerance is commonly used, you have to ask yourself – what standard are we to assume is being used by those who’ve deemed themselves to be in charge of holding the rest of us accountable? Asked another way — how do they know you’re being intolerant?

The word tolerance is best understood as a threshold, a breaking point – like a weight limit on an elevator defines the point of safe occupancy. But as it relates to human interaction, tolerance would be the threshold within our moral judgment, where we decide what is morally intolerable to us. So when our cultural narrative is promoting tolerance, it isn’t actually promoting tolerance, as much as it is an attempt to impose an existential moral perspective . . . without ever defining the underlying premise of their morality.

So instead of an honest conversation about what moral framework should we subscribe to when determining how moral tolerance is to be assessed – the concept of tolerance is purposefully left to be ambiguously applied . . . so as to impugn anyone as intolerant that fails to subscribe to whatever ill-defined morality the prevailing cultural narrative is currently promoting. In this regard, any intellectually honest notion of tolerance has long been abandoned in favor of being able to manipulate public discourse with fear and guilt.

Pluralism is predicated on the concept that we are able to tolerate disagreement with others without diminishing our own views, or having to accept opposing views as being true – because tolerance doesn’t actually require we accept everyone’s idea of truth as true. But again, we find within our current cultural narrative, a desire to define tolerance as unconditional acceptance. This ends up creating not only a moral ambiguity but also creates an unmoored irrational framing of truth – all of which allows those driving the narrative to change it to best suit their own agenda.

The admonitions of my Christian faith don’t allow me to merely tolerate my neighbor, but neither do they constrain me to co-dependently be held hostage to the foolish self-destructive behavior of them – I am simply to love my neighbor as myself. This does not require me to pass judgment over them, or pretend that I can convict them of sin — for I am to be the hands and feet of the gospel, ever inviting the wayward to return home to the loving arms of their Father. This is a central truth and the moral impetus of what it means to follow Christ — to speak truth in love . . . to a world that may, or may not, tolerate it.

. . . and remember the humble confession of — for the likes of me.

 

 
This is an updated post originally published on Still Chasing Light
 

Featured Image by un-perfekt from Pixabay

 

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