Tolerance

Tolerance

To tolerate

“Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself,”  - Robert Green Ingersoll

“The highest result of education is tolerance,” Helen Keller

I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance, Samuel Taylor Coleridge


We hear the word "tolerance" a lot these days. We hear it especially in arenas of controversy and civil rights. What do we mean when we say it? What does it mean to those who hear it?

We ought to ask those two questions, I think, of everything we say - but especially for some thing in particular. This word has seen a lot of use - but *how* had it been used?

tol·er·ate

   [tol-uh-reyt]  Show IPA

verb (used with object), tol·er·at·ed, tol·er·at·ing.

1.

to allow the existence, presence, practice, or act of withoutprohibition or hindrance; permit.

2.

to endure without repugnance; put up with: I can toleratelaziness, but not incompetence.

3.

Medicine/Medical . to endure or resist the action of (a drug,poison, etc.).

4.

Obsolete . to experience, undergo, or sustain, as pain orhardship.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tolerate

tol·er·ance

   [tol-er-uhns]  Show IPA

noun

1.

a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward thosewhose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc.,differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.

2.

a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions andpractices that differ from one's own.

3.

interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc.,foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.

4.

the act or capacity of enduring; endurance: My tolerance ofnoise is limited.

5.

Medicine/Medical, Immunology .

a.

the power of enduring or resisting the action of a drug,poison, etc.: a tolerance to antibiotics.

b.

the lack of or low levels of immune response totransplanted tissue or other foreign substance that isnormally immunogenic.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tolerance

According to Dictionary dot com (which we are going to trust because I do not believe that it was put together by a bunch of total idiots), it used to be that that to tolerate something was to begrudgingly allow the existence of something unpleasant, while the noun-form of the word still means that - but the definition has been bumped down to number 3.

What caused this change?

When did tolerance mean fairness? 

When did tolerance begin to mean permissiveness (and open-ended permissiveness at that)?

I think it was a social one that began... I am not sure when. I am not going to delve too much into the history of the think. However, I think there is a degree to which we can look at what something is and what something was and draw some decently accurate assumptions from the two. History has a tendency to fall into patterns.

So what caused this change of meaning?

I think it was this: fear.

Fear? You ask? 

Fear! I answer.

People are (mostly) fearful by nature. Fear is often involved in their everyday lives to such a degree that they could hardly live without it. Some examples: 

"What should I wear?" suddenly becomes the fear "What if other people don't like what I wear?"

"What should I say?" suddenly becomes the fear of "What is other people don't like what I have to say?"

People are so afraid of what someone (anyone) might say about them or even think about them that they begin to try and please everyone. How do they know what everyone thinks? Easy! The press and (more so now than in the 60's 70's and 80's) the internet.

Enter the reign of political correctness. God help you if you offend anyone! Except, you cannot say "God" (capital G).

Our forefathers, when they wrote a constitution to govern a democracy were concerned of tyranny of the majority. I doubt they could have foreseen a tyranny of the minority like the one we have today. We did not want to hurt anyone's feelings or tread on anyone's toes, so we became malleable and misshapen.

Those who did not like the change tolerated it. They begrudgingly accepted things that they disagreed with, things that went against their thoughts of an orderly society, and things that went against their personal beliefs. After all, they were not approving it, only tolerating it.

That is where some folks got the idea (or perhaps they stumbled across it by chance) to change the definition of the word tolerance. Suddenly tolerance was a good thing! Now, to be tolerant is to accept and approve of someone's way of life - your own thoughts are of no consequence. Tolerance became a catchphrase for people to proudly wear in this new-forming society which took some of the momentum of the black civil rights movement and ran much, much further with it. 

Do not get me wrong - I am not bigot when it comes to race. I have been accused of racism in some of my humor - but I insult all races and stereotypes equally, so balance is no lost. 

I simply think that someone's personal beliefs *should* effect how they live, how they speak, how they act, and how they vote. I am not trying to be political here. I am not endorsing a candidate for President, governor, mayor, or mailman. I simply think that if you are going to create a movement (much more a catchphrase for a century), you ought to form it around words that make sense.

I do promote understanding. I think people ought to pursue an understanding of others' ways, beliefs, and practices. But understanding is a very different thing from tolerance - both old and new. 

So here are my questions for you, dear readers:

What do you tolerate in the old sense?

What do you tolerate in the new sense?

And the ever important: Why?

Now

The wooden clock will chime
the time -
once every hour, in fact.
To act,
is life. So take a bow!
Is now
the moment you must plow
right through the temporal door
onto this stage of yours?
The time to act is now!

Now.

“Live in the now.”

“Now is the time to act.”

“We are now approaching our destination.”

“For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity,” - Screwtape


What do we mean when we say ‘now’? When is it? You cannot measure it. As soon as you say the word ‘now’ it is in the past. Your very act of reading now is moving along from past to the future words.

Mirriam Webster online dictionary gives us these definitions:

a: at the present time or moment
b : in the time immediately before the present now>c : in the time immediately to follow : forthwith now>
2—used with the sense of present time weakened or lost to express command, request, or admonition <now hear this><now you be sure to write>
3—used with the sense of present time weakened or lost to introduce an important point or indicate a transition (as of ideas) <now, this may seem reasonable at first>
4.... etc.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/now


For our purposes, let us look at ‘now’ as  ‘the present’ or ‘the moment’ (though Mirriam Webster does not use ‘the present’ as a noun, using ‘present’ as an adjective to form the phrase ‘the present time). “The present” can be seen as synonymous with “now” I think. Without bending grammar too much we could even consider “now” to be the proper noun for “the present.” So, what do we mean when we say “now?”

Well, as part of a command, it means “immediately.” For example, an irate mother calling her son: “Johnny H. Erickson, get your rear over here NOW!” I had many such imperatives shouted to me when I was a boy. That is simple and easy to understand. It’s a case of “at this present time, begin the task which I assigned you.”

But then there is the much more involved use of “now” which is part of the popular phrase “living in the now” (which, personally, I have always disliked to some extent in my prudish, purist, writer’s way, thinking that “living in the present” or “living in the moment” was the proper way to express that idea). It is also commonly used in the phrase “choose now” or its equivalent. In fact, if you look at how the phrase “living in the now” is commonly used, it is very often tied into choices facing a person. Granted, many of the choices justified by the phrase “living in the now” are foolish ones but they are still choices. What these foolish choices represent is a state of mind concerned only with the more immediate situation and not possible consequences down the line. At the time of this writing, there is a popular phrase in American youth “you only live once” or shortened to the acronym “YOLO.” I have heard it described as “carpe diem for idiots.” I tend to agree.

In any event, that is not the whole explanation for the word and idea of “now.” When you get down to it, the “now” in carpe diem refers to a day (literally) or, in common use, a specific chunk of time. But when the choice actually comes to be made, then that quantity of time has shrunk down quite small indeed.

Like I mentioned at the very beginning, the present is a point. In fact, mathematically speaking (dipping a toe very lightly into the world of theoretical physics) “now” is exactly that - a point - a fourth dimensional point. I am going to assume that you know something about geometry, but for the sake of my explanation, I shall do a bit of, well, explaining.

A point, is a thing that does not actually exist. It has no dimension in any of the three that something must have to exist (height, depth, and width). I’ll skip over the line, square, and cube examples. Then comes the fourth dimension, time. For something to exist, it must have a length of duration. If it does not exist for any period of time, it does not exist at all. It must travel from one point in time to another. So, all of space (the three dimensions) has to travel along a fourth linear dimension, and when we measure that line, we call it time.

I know that was a bit involved but I think a video I discovered on youtube (shown to me by a friend, far more intelligent than I) may help with the exposition:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA  (watch up to time 5:12)

The moment/present/now (whichever you wish to call it) is one point on the line of time but we, as people existing in these three dimensions and traveling along the fourth, cannot view it objectively. It is (as the video called it) a cross section of time, living moment by moment. You’ll have noticed the narrator also said out choices “could branch off at any moment.” So, what we really live choice to choice.

So, I think the best identifier we have for “now” is choices. Now is when we choose. Of course, this raises some questions about who *we* are as beings existing in these dimensions. I will save that discussion for another time. For now, I will simply refer to us human beings as “people” and we can hash out what we mean by that later. But for us, as people, “now” is when we choose. Now is when we act, speak, and think.

Now is when a person decides to pull the trigger and become a murderer.
Now is when a husband decides to that his passions are more important than his wedding vows.
Now is when a soldier decides that his body will make a suitable shield between his brothers and a grenade.
Now is when you decide that getting drunk out of your mind would be a good idea.
Now is when the man plucks up the courage to ask his girl to marry him.
Now is when I choose to type this next thought.
Now is when I decide I need a shower and take a break from writing this to go cleanse myself and think some more about what I’m trying to say and how to present it.
Now is when I decide to pick up a pretzel and put it in my mouth.

All across the spectrum of importance, we are making choices constantly. Now is when that happens. But each of these choices have immense import whether we realize it or not. Each choice shapes our lives - it has an impact on our outcome and our nature. Going by the ideas in that video, choices shape our fifth dimension.

It is a weighty thought, isn’t it? It ought to make you ponder for a time. What am I choosing? Why am I choosing it? Where will my choice lead? What effects will it have?
So, let me ask. How are you shaping your fifth dimension? As a person, an aware individual, you have some control over what end-state you will arrive at. Where are you going? What are you doing *right now*? That one is actually easy, you are reading a blog. But after you choose to close this browser window, what will you choose to do?

But there is another aspect to “now” that ought to be addressed. You never escape the now. You are always making decisions - there is no way to do nothing. So, while you ought to be aware of the import of your decisions, decide! It is often good to decide to wait - but, decide to wait, do not default to it. It is not just a question of putting the present into context but making sure that the present is not wasted.

So, I encourage you, my dear readers, to “live in the moment” and be aware of the fact that you live from choice to choice - but also to have awareness of the world that you live in and the import your choices have. Each choice you make changes the entire future of your life. It folds that fourth dimension into into the fifth and alters the shape of time. In a way, your “now” is forever.