Brethren, definitions are always good and the dictionary writers almost always do their best to formulate them. Let’s start with them: what’s this thing suddenly so in vogue called “tolerance”? I mean the one we ought to practice in society, not the one practiced in pharmacy, botanic, medicine, or engineering.
Definitions and Daffynitions
The Google dictionary defines “tolerance” as:
1. The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with: "religious tolerance".
I like it. It speaks about “opinions or behavior”, not of people. How about this one, from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary:
2 a: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own
Really? How did the lexicographers know this? Now a person’s feelings of sympathy or indulgence are injected into the definition of tolerance. By this definition, no one can be tolerant without being sympathetic or indulgent to the beliefs or practices one objects to. The folks at Merriam-Webster got it right when they proposed the following synonyms for “tolerance”: forbearance, long-suffering, sufferance, patience.
"Tolerance" is better defined by the synonyms present Merriam-Webster’s proposed than by the definition itself. When I "tolerate," I "forebear, long-suffer, suffer" or have "patience." I feel neither "sympathy" nor "indulgence" to whatever it is that peeves me.
If you think that’s bad, check these from Dictionary.com:
1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.
3. interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.
Now we see an agenda at work here. According to the first definition, one is tolerant only if one is fair, objective, and permissive toward those (now we are talking about people) whose “etc.” differs from one’s own.” To be tolerant is to be “free from bigotry” which by implication means being unfair, subjective, and strict. But, who says one is “free from bigotry” and toward what? What’s the “etcetera”?
Number two is just a shorter repetition of the first one but read number three again:
3. interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.
Under definition #3, are observant Catholics “tolerant”? Well, I do have an “interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to my own. I do that all the time but I am not a liberal, and the only viewpoints I hold “undogmatically” are liberal viewpoints, at least those that relate to relativism, religious indifference, secularism, human sexuality, and abortion. I question many of these liberal dogmas. I do tolerate some of these more than the others because of a “fair and objective” attitude I hold against them, but my tolerance doesn’t lead me to a “permissive attitude” toward them. I advocate their cessation!
My fair and objective concern leads me to label abortion as murder, but because of my concerns, in the liberal lexicon I am considered a “bigot” toward women in this case, hence, “intolerant.” The same sober, educated questioning of “dogmas” leads me to hold same-sex “marriage” as a violation, not only of the institution of marriage – itself in threads anyway – but as a violation of the very human dignity of those involved in such a contract. Yet, this “undogmatic viewpoint” toward liberal, “humanist” dogmas is the wrong kind of undogmatism our social engineers demand in order to define me as “tolerant.”
The Past is Now
One of my favorite novels is 1984 by George Orwell, which I read in 1984 as a matter of fact. Back then we discussed the many parallels between the story plot and totalitarian societies. Back then we still had the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block, and also Cuba in our own neighborhood, therefore it was easy to point out the similarities. When we discussed if there were any parallels between the free societies and the world portrayed in the book, we mentioned intrusion of pervasive commercial advertising in our lives, and the way advertisers tried to convince us on how we could be happy if we only bought their product. The discussion turned about “backward masking” in song production and subliminal suggestions in music and advertising. Little did we knew…
One of my favorite plot devices in 1984 was the concept of Newspeak. Orwell wrote a detailed description of the concept in an afterword. Newspeak has come to mean any attempt to restrict disapproved language by a government or other powerful entity.
This is what’s happening with this slow evolution of the word tolerance, a noun that will be restricted to liberal elites who are fair, objective, permissive, and undogmatic. Everyone else, particularly Christians, will be seen, by definition, as intolerants and bigots.
Newspeak is here, this is where we are heading with our language, and not only English, but that’s also the trend with every western European language. 1984 is here. The past is now.
On my next post, I will attempt to formulate a Catholic definition of tolerance.