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Intolerance remains. Tolerance remains a fantasy.

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but when you are friends with someone, that means telling them when they are being obnoxious or wrong.

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What drives the hatred of the intolerant; could it be an underlying hatred for absolute truth?

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There is no absolute truth so this couldn't be the case...
Keep searching

I think almost everyone needs to utilize a dictionary to determine exactly what tolerance means, to begin with. Shall I quote the relevant defintion?

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

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I repeatedly observe people stating that, if one were tolerant of those who are intolerant, or hold intolerant views, that this would somehow mean that intolerance would flourish.



This doesn't make any sense. Tolerance has less to do with the views themselves or the people who hold them, and much more to do with accepting the nature of the fact that people hold different viewpoints, even if these viewpoints are ignorant of the nature of reality or potentially damaging to themselves, to others, or to reality.

Being tolerant means realizing that, quite naturally, different individuals, leading different courses through reality, come to form different ideas and perspectives, and there is nothing that can immediately change that. Tolerance is a matter of respecting the nature of reality.

Being tolerant of intolerance, or of anything, doesn't necessitate that intolerance lies unchecked, and that it will subsequently flourish. I'd love for any poster to demonstrate to me otherwise, beyond simply asserting its truth.

For example, let's say we all have a friend that holds the perspective that tulips are intolerable. Our friend despises the sight of tulips in gardens, and will avoid gazing upon them at all cost. Now, tell me, how is being intolerant of his intolerance affecting any change in regards to his intolerance?

What does it mean, to be intolerant? Isn't it simply implying that one chooses to not accept the nature of reality for what it is? If we do not accept the nature of reality as it has presently unfolded itself to be, then how are we more capable of influencing the course of reality, from this moment, as it exists, by being intolerant?

We aren't. I can tolerate that our friend is intolerant of the presence of tulips. My tolerance does not in any way interfere with my ability to influence the course of his life to, at the very least, get him to stop trampling other people's flowers, or to stop preaching to them about how ignorant they are for cultivating tulips.

Being tolerant does not mean that one cannot be an effective catalyst of change; in fact, it enables one to assist the manifestation of reality as one prefers, as one fully accepts and comes to terms with reality as it has manifested thus far.