Tolerance is the word that won’t die. I hate it. When people were talking about it ten years ago, I thought it would be one of those trendy buzzwords that falls out of favor after a few months. I still expect this to happen, but now it’s been a decade and people are still complaining about tolerance and how a group doesn’t have enough of it, or intolerance, and how some other group has too much of it. I’m not sure people even know what the word means, anymore.

A few months ago, I heard someone describe people who aren’t Christian as being intolerant of Christmas. More recently, I’ve heard Christopher Hitchens being described as intolerant of Christrians. (Aside from the tolerance bit, does nobody else recognize the irony of someone named Christopher being anti-Christian? Anyone? No matter what belief you profess, that’s hilarious.) And just yesterday I saw a comment saying that if Christians were just a little bit more tolerant of homosexuals, the world would be a better place.

No, no, and no!

If you actually know what it means, the world [in]tolerant is pointless and redundant in these contexts. Tolerance is the noun form of the verb “to tolerate”, which means “the act of allowing something.” Or to put it more colloquially, it means to put up with.

The definition has drifted from “allowing” to “sympathizing with”, but this doesn’t accurately describe what the not-being-tolerated groups are looking for. Plus, the problem with defining “tolerance” as “sympathizing with” is that its opposite, “intolerance”, does not mean “not sympathizing with”. It means “unwilling to grant equal rights,” or “unable to endure”. In other words, not putting up with something.

For me to be intolerant of something means that I will do not put up with it. There are not many things in life which I actually do not tolerate—and I’m guessing that there aren’t many things of which you are intolerant, either. It’s not always because you don’t want change. Sometimes you’re simply powerless to change things. But simply wanting change does not make you intolerant, as long as you’re not taking steps to bring about the change.

Things of which I am not tolerant: flies, unlaundered clothes, and my house being too cold. And really, that’s about it. This is because these are the only things I do not tolerate; they are the only things that I actively take steps to change. If a fly is bothering me, I will take a few minutes to hunt it down and kill it. After I amass a significant pile of worn clothes, I wash them. If my house is too cold, I turn up the thermostat. (A few more examples of things I don’t tolerate include being hungry or thirsty, having an uncharged cell phone battery, and having an empty tank of gas.)

There are plenty of things I hate, but tolerate. I hate traffic, but my options to not experience traffic during my commute are limited. I can’t afford a helicopter or a chauffeur, and I can’t work from home. The best I can do is leave earlier or later for work. I would actually be permitted to do this if I wanted to. (Some people aren’t.) But I don’t want to get up earlier, or stay later in the evening if I come in later, so traffic is something I hate, but tolerate. Other things which I could change but don’t include the type of food I eat, the climate that I live in, and the type of car I drive. If any of these things bother me enough to where I want to change them, now I have become intolerant because I’ve put forth an effort to make the current problems go away.

If you’re not trying to make something change or go away, you’re tolerating it. I’ve heard people talk about how the President’s handling of foreign policy is intolerable, but upon further questioning, it turns out that these people do relatively little about it. They could be writing letters, taking part in organized rallies, or even moving to Canada. Maybe these things will have no effect on the underlying problem, but they’re the courses of action that citizens have available to them.

Unfortunately, sometimes the people complaining about how intolerable the President is don’t even vote. In that case, sorry, but the President’s actions are perfectly tolerable to you because you’re putting up with them right now. You might think they’re unconscionable, indefensible, or even felonious, but it doesn’t matter what you think about them. If you’re not doing anything about it, you’re tolerating it.

I’ve heard Christians talk about how they, as Christians, should not tolerate the concept of same sex marriage. Fair enough. In fact they don’t, because they go to great lengths to prevent it from becoming legal, and this has indeed worked so far, at least in my home state. Same sex unions are not legal in Pennsylvania.

But I’ve also heard Christians talk about how they, as Christians, should not tolerate homosexuality. The problem is not only that the vast majority of them do, but that being truly intolerant of homosexuality would turn most Christian’s stomachs. There aren’t many options for eliminating gay people, and when we hear the occasional news story where a Christian kills a homosexual, I would hope it disgusts everyone, regardless of belief. But that’s exactly the point: if you’re not the sort of person who would go around murdering or locking up someone because they’re gay, or advocating that this be done, you’re tolerating homosexual behavior.

Atheists like Christopher Hitchens may be vitriolic towards religion. He may hate it, and claim the world would be a better place without it. But he’s hardly intolerant. He obviously continues to put up with religion. Expressing one’s opinion—however vehemently—is not being intolerant.

“When people discuss tolerance, what they mean is respect.”

When people discuss tolerance, what they mean is respect. Hitchens clearly does not respect religion. He may have justifications as to why it deserves no respect, but regardless of his reasons, the fact remains that respect for religion is not forthcoming. On the other hand, there are atheists who agree with the sentiment, but try to show respect for everyone, at least until they meet someone who refuses to recapitulate (though this is hardly unique to atheists; it’s just human nature).

Now the true difficulty regarding intergroup politics becomes obvious. Think about it: who is honestly satisfied with being tolerated? When you just put up with someone, that implies that they’re just not quite annoying enough to make you want to deal with the consequences of making them go away. It’s like the one annoying kid in school who reminds the teacher she forgot to assign the homework. (I was the that kid a few times.) Unless you’re beating him up after school, you’re tolerating his annoying behavior.

Nobody wants to be just tolerated. People want to be respected. Think about a group you would not want respect from. Maybe you can come up with a reason for not wanting to be respected by a particular group, but in all honesty, I cannot think of a group I wouldn’t want respect from.

Case in point: my enemy right now, as defined by my commanding officers, particularly the President, are militant Muslim terrorists. These are supposed to be the bad guys. But would I not want to be genuinely respected by them? No, that’s absurd. It would be a particularly poignant honor if that group truly respected me—or you, or any American, really. That’s crossing some deep, ingrained cultural barriers, there. It’s unlikely to the point of being laughable, but if it happened, it would be extremely valuable. At the very least, it means the person they respect is offering something they find worthy of respect. For anyone to reject respect from any other person—their enemy or their ambivalent neighbor or the nice old lady down the street—is foolish.

Atheists don’t want to be merely tolerated by Christians, they want to be respected. They’re often not, right now, and they may never be, but that is the goal, here. Christians, in turn, want to be respected by atheists and—justifiably I believe—they get aggravated and fight back when it doesn’t come from high-profile atheists like Hitchens or Dawkins. Gays don’t want to be merely tolerated by society; they want to be respected, the same way straight people respect each other: the sort of respect that is assumed without question among people within a demographic. You might never consider that you have respect for most of your coworkers or classmates or whomever you interact with on a daily basis, but that’s because it’s become so much of a prerequisite that you approach these people politely that it’s transparent to your daily interaction. That’s what most people actually want when they talk about being tolerated.

Christians, gays, atheists, Muslims, blacks, native Americans, the handicapped, the elderly—every individual wants their default starting point to be one of polite respect with every other individual, regardless of status. Simply having tolerance for these people is something that happens every day, all the time, because we’re civil. It changes nothing.

-Ted