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?