A common refrain in some circles is that we need more tolerance. We should tolerate people who look different, think different, act different. I think tolerance is just another word for weakness: being too weak to say what you really think, too weak to call out destructive behavior, too weak to identify actions that bring pain and sorrow.
No, wait. Tolerance is strength. Tolerance means being strong enough in your own convictions that you can tolerate someone having a different opinion. You know that they won’t change you, and so it doesn’t matter what they say or do. You tolerate their existence, even knowing that they’re wrong and possibly evil.
On Good Friday of 1998, an agreement was reached in Belfast that achieved peace between the UK and Irish governments. Northern Ireland would have a devolved government that shared power between the unionists and nationalists—or in short, the Protestants and the Catholics. In a sense, though, it was more of a cease-fire than a true peace treaty. John Paul Lederach, Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, visited some time afterwards. He wrote the following haiku:
Maybe, he says, this
is as good as it will get.
Peaceful bigotry.
John Paul Lederach,
as quoted in an interview with Krista Tippett
Given the choices of a hot war, a cold war, and peaceful bigotry, I suppose the peace that tolerance brings is sufficient. And yet, it remains far from true peace—shalom—and reconciliation.
You know what requires strength? Acceptance. Welcoming. Humility. Vulnerability. Being open to treating another human as your equal, no matter the differences between you. Welcoming them as a fellow child of God, an earthly vessel that contains a divine spark. Being humble enough to realize that another person may be more right than you are about something important, or to realize that if you had had the same experiences, you may believe as they do. Being willing to learn something that you don’t like about yourself, and then being willing to change it.
Tolerance is usually brought up in the context of racial and ethnic differences, or the LGBTQ community. In those contexts, “tolerance” means, “I recognize that you are inferior to me, but it’s OK that you are.” That’s a pretty low bar, and the fact that some people can only aspire to tolerance brings me sadness. If we, as individuals, as a community, as a nation, and as a species should aspire to anything, it should be to love.
Love is strength. Truly loving a person for who they are means that you’re willing to put their well-being ahead of your own, even if just in a small way. Another haiku from Lederach, this time written after a visit to Burma:
Don’t ask the mountain
to move. Just take a pebble
each time you visit.
John Paul Lederach,
as quoted in an interview with Krista Tippett
Love is having the courage and wisdom and strength to take a pebble of the load the other person is carrying. Love is being willing to see the world through another person’s eyes, to strive to understand who they really are.
Tolerance is weakness.