It's been a year, hasn't it?
The end of a year is when I like to give myself the gift of reflection. I'm a big fan of inner work and this is as good a time as any to take stock of what was before stepping toward what will be. When I sat down to write my thoughts on this past year my mind kept circling back to examine tolerance.
I'm not a fan of the School of Tolerance that has held court in the social justice world. People tolerate a stench or an annoying as hell person sitting next to them on a sold out flight to Phoenix...and as soon as the opportunity presents, those same tolerant people get as far away from that which they suffered as they can.
Tolerance is a temporary thing and many a happening in 2008 highlighted that. The marriage equality fight in California, where neighbors that shared gardening tips suddenly found out that some of them weren't down with sharing equal rights. The presidential election, where the complex diversity of the electorate ran into brick walls of assumptions and stereotypes and dishes heaped high with my oppression beats your oppression casserole served with a side of feminism is what I say it is rice.
Oh, I get why folks still send their children to the School of Tolerance despite the low graduation rate...don't get me wrong. Respect is hard. Tolerance is much easier. Respect can't be forced or guaranteed. Tolerance lives on the pages of Employee Handbooks and in the by-laws of Corporate Diversity Committees where people agree to practice the religion even if they aren't believers.
I acknowledge that those handbooks and policies offer some measure of protection in the workplace and schools. On one level society desperately needs guides for what will or will not be tolerated, what should or should not be expressed, so that our tendency to destroy what is different and therefore threatening may be checked. But on another level those policies create a false sense of shared beliefs and values...and all it takes is a ballot initiative and a marriage is between one man and one woman yard sign to blow the myth of tolerance being just as good as respect straight to hell.
That's the real, the challenge and the opportunity before us in the New Year.
As my grandmother often said, they call it the struggle because it is one...
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Respect for others stems from self respect.
Where self respect originates or how it survives in some people and not in others, varies.
Imagine if we paid teachers a respectable wage. Imagine if the people that gave children relief from their families, a chance to be a part of another group, learn and grow as individuals, were all self respecting men and women. Mmany already are, but, imagine if we could weed out the crazy, bigoted, nasty ones?
We teach our children but we are not their only teachers. In society, we teach our employees and our fellow civilians, create boundaries enforced by laws (hate crimes for instance) but, those with the sense to create those boundaries are not the only influence. My sister is in Switzerland with her child and S.O. trying to explain to them why the black character in their X-mas displays are offensive and potentially damaging to children like my niece/god daughter. THey don't have the diversity we are accustomed to. They have not heard this argument before and they certainly didn't know they needed to have tolerance rules.
KRS 1 raps about what we hear and what we repeat twice, staying with us-
embedding in our consciousness.
I'm grateful for tolerance, because it is contagious, it often spreads and grows.
Respect for others stems from self respect.
Agreed. And I think people tend to go with the shallow, somewhat insincere "tolerance" theme because it's easier. You can't just tell people to have respect for someone. You have to instill that respect in them by modeling the behavior yourself, and sticking to your guns regarding offensive ideas in pop culture no matter how unpopular your position is. And that takes work. But whoever said that overcoming age-old, deeply ingrained, problematic cultural attitudes would be easy?
Sharkfu, you've expressed my thoughts exactly. I have often thought that the word tolerance doesn't quite express what needs to happen. We need to accept, integrate, put people all on the same level- respect them as equals by making certain they are treated equally. This word tolerance is used allot, tossed around allot. It's like greenwashing sometimes.
Tolerance is indeed fleeting, and does not acknowledge the full humanity of the other person. However, tolerance is a full step up from believing another person is deserving of abuse. If someone is only at the stage of tolerance in their evolution, I will take that for now. If tolerance becomes the baseline, we will just keep moving up. It is slow, messy work changing the world. Tolerance is not enough, but right now, tolerance is better than people being gang raped because of their identity. We have to keep reminding people that tolerance is just the first step, but then we have to acknowledge that a step forward is better than staying still.
Well put. I'll keep your thoughts in mind SharkFu- I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about how to start teaching my toddler the concept of respect.
I think about this all the time too, with a 4 y/o and a 13 m/o kid, but I think my parents got it right. They lived it. Everyday they just acted like there was no difference. I think it helped that we lived in a well-integrated neighborhood. When we noticed that other people acted like there was a difference they would explain that a lot of people feel like they're better than people who look/act/live/believe differently from them, but they've just made a mistake. I love that line. Because then instead of growing up hating or despising hateful people, you just feel sorry for them. And as a kid, making a mistake is a powerful concept to you. I also think it's great for kids to get the concept that adults can be wrong. The only problem with this approach is that it only deals with explicit behavior, but I think you can discuss systemic problems and the implicit expressions of discriminatory attitudes with them as they get older. Fortunately the TV gives you many, many opportunities for this...
What I hate about the concept of tolerance is how much intolerance will we tolerate in the sake of tolerance? For example, when the post about Rick Warren speaking at Obama's inauguration, it freaked me out when people were saying things like, "At least he/his representatives are reaching out and building bridges with conservatives." WTF? You can reach out to conservatives and Christians without supporting a hate-monger. Some things are worth being militant about like basic human rights.
I love the idea of inner work. I often think that all these college kids I'm teaching are missing the point, thinking that they're here to prepare for some career. Especially since most people don't even end up working in the field they started in. I think that a college education is only a true success if you emerge as a self-reflective critical thinker who knows how to utilize resources. These are the skills that will serve you (and your community) best throughout your life.
I love the idea of inner work. I often think that all these college kids I'm teaching are missing the point, thinking that they're here to prepare for some career. Especially since most people don't even end up working in the field they started in. I think that a college education is only a true success if you emerge as a self-reflective critical thinker who knows how to utilize resources. These are the skills that will serve you (and your community) best throughout your life.