Tolerance (from tolerate and this from the Latin tolerare). Moral quality that expresses an attentive and respectful attitude of a person, group, institution or society concerning the interests, beliefs, opinions, habits, and conduct of others. It manifests itself in the eagerness to reach mutual understanding and conciliation of divergent interests and opinions through persuasion and negotiation. Dictionary of New Humanism.
New Humanism
After reading this definition, it is easy to see that the level of intolerance is growing in all ambits: in the social and political, as well as in the personal. Precisely in the political field, the level of intolerance has reached the most dangerous levels. Parliaments, which according to political theory should serve to channel social interests and conflicts in a bloodless manner, have become battlefields. Dialogue and mutual understanding are conspicuous by their absence, and opponents are attacked without restraint through disqualification, delegitimization, and moral condemnation. The confrontation is so powerful that we easily take sides, placing ourselves on one of the opposing sides. This phenomenon, which some call polarisation, spreads like wildfire through the media, which limits themselves to broadcasting the clashes without providing any insight into the conflicts. Some of them even openly try to mobilize the population towards a larger-scale confrontation. This atmosphere pollutes our lives in many ways. The greater the charge of indignation, injustice, or revenge, the more it commits us to take sides. Attitudes are reproduced by acting as role models. How can we be surprised if we perceive the imprint of this behavior in our relationships?
Urged on by this compulsive environment, we think we choose sides, but our adherence is determined by our biography, nationality, sex, religious belief, age, social class, etc. It does not matter on which side events have put you, what matters is that you understand that you have not chosen sides, Silo will be able to have a coherent criterion about our attitude in this respect.
At the basis of the formation of the sides is the most basic emotion of the human psychism, we adhere to or reject something that surrounds us. A mechanism that allows us to structure the situation in which we are immersed, but which is inevitably reductionist, especially in increasingly complex situations such as the present. Surely this bipolarity of attraction and rejection, black and white, good and bad, was useful for human survival in circumstances very different from those of today, in which the sides, far from resolving conflicts, tend to exacerbate and extend them.
In exchange for this simplification, factions create a certain cohesion between individuals at the cost of the deterioration of another family, friendship, work, etc. ties, which are difficult to repair. However, this supposed loyalty is diluted if circumstances or interests change, or if the aim is to go beyond mere opposition to the adversary. At such an accelerated time as the present, everything changes rapidly, sides are quickly armed and disarmed, and it happens that in a few months, those who share the same flag are at each other’s throats. This mechanism is used to channel social unrest against an ethnic group, a social class, or a region, to strengthen a certain political position, change the balance of power, or achieve power. In these cases, the common factor that binds the side together is usually a feeling of injustice, revenge, or outright vengeance, which is adhered to because the compulsion is shared.
The reality, if we were able to ask ourselves honestly, is that there is very little internal freedom in this dynamic in which we are drawn into endless confrontation. No single point of view allows for a complete understanding of the objects or situations that interest us. But it is a difficult exercise to move for an instant and change our vision. Antonio Machado wisely said, “Not your truth, the Truth; and come with me to look for it. Yours, keep it for yourself”.
Nor is it easy to realize how gratuitously we project our fears onto the side we detest. If in the past the enemies of one’s faith were burned at the stake, today their image is destroyed as a foretaste of greater evils. But the direction of these acts still has the same flavor of violence and the same lack of self-criticism of a bad dream from which it is necessary to wake up. An awakened look, with greater understanding, can value the commonality over the differences that try to impose themselves and therefore has a greater margin of freedom to find common ground and solutions that are not accessible to the consciousness “tied” to the side.
The term toleration was popularised by Voltaire in his Treatise on Toleration to promote freedom of religion in 18th-century France, where the Huguenots were discriminated against and persecuted by Catholic power. Although the book was included in the index of works banned by the Church (in a display of intolerance), it was widely distributed throughout Europe. At the time, religious disputes on the Old Continent were between Catholics and Protestants, who, despite their differences, shared the same cultural basis. If the Enlightenment philosopher then saw tolerance as the solution to stop religious fanaticism and discrimination, what would he think of today’s situation, where atheism coexists in Europe with religious creeds from all over the world? Only tolerance allows religious, ideological, and political pluralism, guarantees minorities against majorities, and ensures the sovereignty of each individual’s personality. Only with tolerance can people, countries, and regions build a project following their best aspirations.
Human diversity is enormous and any phenomenon admits multiple interpretations. Let us not try to impose our subjectivity, and let us learn to make our point of view more flexible to understand that of others. The more points of view we can integrate into our look, the more complete will be the vision of the object we are looking at.
We have observed that in the mechanics of the sides, we are dragged into it, reducing our field of freedom, becoming irritated by what is different and by what makes us uncomfortable, reaffirming our positions, opinions, or tastes, and denying ourselves the possibility of mixing, learning, and change. Discriminatory and violent attitudes easily appear in this dynamic.
Tolerance, on the other hand, leads us to rescue the subjective and the diverse. It is not just a matter of understanding, but an attentive and different way of observing oneself and observing diversity. Each of us will see what we do with our lives, but we must also keep in mind that our actions will reach beyond ourselves. From this look, communication with other people is a necessity and a fundamental commitment that allows us not only to change our point of view but also to contribute to the transformation of the world. Reaching an understanding and reaching agreements has more to do with the image of the future that we pursue than with the reaffirmation of positions assumed as truths. To open up to dialogue is to overcome individualism, to change, to learn, to humanize the other, and to build bridges of understanding. Violence and discrimination have no place in the spaces that are being built with these intangibles and even provoke a visceral rejection.
This is a call for tolerance. To place as the highest value of every human act the principle that says “Treat others as you want them to treat you”. To communicate with your neighbor, your friend, your work or study partner. Also, with oneself. These gestures, however insignificant they may seem to us, commit every human being. Committing to dialogue in our daily lives can undoubtedly transform the social atmosphere and create spaces where hope can find its way in.
