Tolerance

Due to an undeniably Australian childhood, I'm probably going to end up trying to say this at some point anyway - so I may as well get it over and done with now: "suffer in your jocks!"

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I want to talk about tolerance.

My uncle has decided to name his mobile home "Tolerance" as it is the symbol of his retirement, which came much earlier than he originally intended due to his lack of tolerance.

My uncle has never been one to suffer fools gladly, but after a serious illness and a few successive economic downturns he came to realise he was no longer suffering them willingly. In fact, he was barely suffering them at all. He decided that putting up with morons for little or no pay wasn't the way he wanted to spend the next five years of his life, so he called it quits earlier than he planned in order to get to work on his dream retirement: converting a second-hand school bus into a mobile home.

His fervent hope is that, after a few years of not dealing with people who are variously morons or selfish gits trying to get things for free, he might regrow some of his tolerance for humanity.

Personally, we're not sure how becoming a nomadic hermit with only dogs for company is going to help him like humanity more, but he seems to think it's a good plan.

The other day I was flicking through my diary when I noticed some-day-or-other was set aside as the International Day of Tolerance. I didn't actually take much note of the date (I can't even remember if it's in the past or the future), but I do remember thinking: "What's the point of that? Am I supposed to find someone I usually avoid and put up with them for a while?"

It wasn't until today that I remembered the word "tolerance" is used as one of those New-Agey, P.C. buzzwords trying to encourage us to be more beige in our attitudes to the people around us. It's to do with things like "religious tolerance" and "cultural tolerance" and things like that. Somewhere along the line I'm sure it also has something to do with gay people getting married and adopting children from other races. Or something like that.

It's a strange thing, when you think about it: "tolerance". It's not acceptance, but people seem to forget that. There seems to be this strange sense that, when you show tolerance to your fellow human, you are somehow accepting them for what they are.

It's not true, of course. To tolerate something is to "put up with" it. You don't have to like it, you don't have to accept it - heck, you could still passionately hate it, if you wanted to. But you tolerate it. You let it be. You "suffer" it.

I used the phrase "suffer fools gladly" above. It uses an older meaning of the word "suffer" that really only exists in set phrases these days - like the famous Biblical quote "suffer the little children to come unto me". It means "put up with it". Sure, you would rather this thing that upsets you didn't exist or happen or be in your space, but put it up with it. Tolerating this thing may cause you to suffer from annoyance or other unpleasant emotions, but that's something you'll just have to deal with.

Tolerance is the indifference you show when you're not feeling love, but can't permit obvious hatred.

If you actually said that to someone: "I tolerate you", they would probably be highly offended. Deep down, we don't want to be tolerated, we want to be accepted and loved.

But tolerance is surprisingly useful for creating one of those things we charmingly refer to as "civilisations". By tolerating each other even if we don't like each other - by being civil even if we can't be friendly - we build and maintain societies.

Imagine how quickly our society would fall apart if we started treating "us" with the same intolerance we treat "others". It's actually not that hard to imagine - we're doing it a lot more now than we did before. It's become fashionable to blatantly hate the people who are supposed to be on the same team (and I'm going to try to avoid blaming 'reality' TV for this, but it's very hard).

Now, imagine how much stronger, better and richer we would all be if we starting treating "others" with the same tolerance we treat "us". Or if, (radical thought, I know) we treated other people the way we would like to be treated...

Tolerance is not as nice as love and acceptance, but the world is much better with it than without it.

So three cheers for tolerance! Here's to a bright and shining future where we put up with each other in a reasonably civil manner.