Here's one that has occupied me for literally years.
If one is tolerant of others oneself, and considers that tolerance is an important component of civilisation, how far should one respect others' intolerance?
I'm not entirely sure whether this is a question of ethics, logic, or simply consistency, but it hardly makes sense to insist that everybody should be as tolerant as one is oneself. As soon as you insist that your viewpoint is superior and should take precedence, you're undermining the central point of respecting others. It's a paradox, and one I've never been able to solve.
The question has come up repeatedly in the last few days, as people ask how I feel about my friends and relatives cutting me off over a divergence of views, and also witnessing others' struggles with prejudice. It isn't easy even to deal with the question, let alone give a satisfactory answer.
By temperament, I prefer to allow people their own attitudes, whether or not they're harmful ones. I am not sure enough of anything at all to insist on it, and besides my own attitude tends towards Darwinian anarchy, in which all ideas and actions stand or fall on their own long-term effectiveness rather than external judgment. But other than gut feeling, I have never been able to find a single reason to justify my conclusions. It's simply what I feel comfortable with.
I know there are many crusader types who can't see an injustice without wanting to step in and sort it out. The spread of that attitude is what has caused political correctness, and I can't say it's wrong, though it grates with me.
I have a suspicion that it isn't healthy to insist on a single viewpoint in society, even if it can be demonstrated that it is the best one. People need the freedom to be wrong, and it's better to have it out in the open. So, in that sense, it would be better to develop thicker skin than to censor the bigots.
And what does this have to do with the brethren? Well, they can stand in as representative bigots. Personally, I think they're wrong to be as insensitive and intolerant to others as they are, and I don't think the attitude can survive in the long run. And yes, that does mean that I think I know better. But I can't bring myself to insist that they should be forced to recognise my views, let alone insist that my views should be theirs.
You can't get out of a paradox without inconsistency, and that's the one I prefer.
18 comments:
Cultures and societies seem to draw certain lines in the sand, and as these lines are approached there are gray areas. Also exceptions which suit the powers-that-be are made. Attitudes to murder and theft are two such examples.
Probably individuals function in a similar way. Tolerance of intolerance, or vise-versa, would not be a single principle or practice. It would vary according to situations as judged by each individual.
Decades ago this was called "Situation Ethics" and was scorned by various religious types who were still living their lives from a set of instructions inscribed on tablets of clay. Or was it stone?
An interesting posting with which I have much empathy.
There's one thing I can't stand and that is intolerance.
Two comments...The cornerstone of any set of moral rules is embodied in the biblical epithet, "do unto others as you would that they should do unto you". I'm not sure who I'm quoting here...is it Jesus himself? In any case if we all approximated this ideal it would ensure that we all got along alright. As with countless other groups, The EB miss the mark by dividing the world into two groups; them and us, and treating them with a different standard. Sunnis and Shiites come to mind.(We all do this to some extent).
Second comment: Freud's notion of overdetermination throws a spanner in the works. However we try, each of our attitudes and behaviours is driven not just by the motive/s of which we are conscious, but also by others of which we are less aware, and some of these can be logically contradictory. For example we can write postings on blogs because we genuinely want to contribute to the discussion, but also because we want the readers to know how clever we are. It doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be both, and other things as well. Others can see our duplicity more readily than we ourselves can, because the mental defence mechanisms which make the logical conflict possible are themselves unconscious. Or as Robbie Burns put it,' The whole world's a little queer except thee and me and even thee's a little queer"
By the way I don't like Clive James all that much, he's very astute but a bit too cynical for my taste.
I should probably have made clearer that I'm talking about opinions and attitudes here rather than physical actions. Those who don't agree that actions which harm others are right to be out of bounds should still be forced to recognise that they are obliged to live by the majority's view on that.
But there is considerable pressure from society to conform in one's thoughts. Take the example of homosexuality. Within less than a normal lifetime, it has gone from illegal to becoming something that must not be criticised. Where does that leave those, like the brethren, who are still stuck in the old attitudes? Is it better to force them to abide by the new morality, or allow them their alternative opinion?
I find this fascinating, I'll admit. I've had a few very interesting conversations on homosexuality recently, and it has struck me that homosexuals constantly confront a very awkward mixture of prejudice and inability to admit to the prejudice. Having been through a confused sexual period myself (don't all teenagers?), I conclude I have no wish to share their practices, but I can quite easily imagine being different. Many can't, it seems. It might be better to acknowledge that.
My memory of "do unto others ..." is that it comes from the Water Babies, but I dare say Kingsley got it from somewhere. I don't recall it in the bible. It's a good rule for living, I'm sure. It comes a little unstuck when my wish that a bigot would recognise the validity of my views obliges me to do the same with his, especially if my own wish is not fulfilled.
Overdetermination is a notion I haven't met before, but it certainly rings true. Motives are murky things, and I, personally, am aware of often wishing to hide behind the pieces I'm happiest with.
Oh, and I'm by no means averse to cynicism, especially if it matches my own, as Clive James's seems to.
This is not the place to discuss who quoted what, but according to my research it was a Quaker saying that Robert quoted.
Rabbie Burns was never a Quaker.
In the context in which it was quoted, I suspect Robert meant "Oh the pow'r the Giftie gie us to see oorsels as ithers see us" which is certainly by Burns.
I take his point though.
Sermon on the Mount included many of these, not least of which was a paraphrase of "do unto others as you would that they should do unto you" Matthew 7 v 12.
As your proof-reader, I suggest "practice", unless you are American. Just remember that, like MoG, Clive James is a Sydney boy!
Fowler's Modern English Usage says BritE is invariably "practise" for the noun and "practice" for the verb. AmE is "practice" for everything except for some writers who use them interchangeably. So it's hard to get definitively wrong!
I appreciate the proof-reading though. I have learned a lot from editors.
I stand corrected. There's no excuse these days for not getting one's sources correct.I believe the origin of "The whole world's queer..." actually is Robert Owen, 18th Century Welsh philanthropist, written to William Allen of the Allen and Hanbury medical firm who was indeed a Quaker. Thanks George.I wrote it in the middle of the night when all good men in England were awake. At least I got Jesus right.
Perhaps I am out-of-date. My copy of Fowler's is dated 1965 and clearly states that -ce is noun, and -se is verb.
The Golden Rule - 'Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them' can be found in varying forms in the ancient Middle East - see Tobit 4:15, Philo's Hypothetica 7:6 and Rabbi Hillel (c 80 BC-30 AD). Jesus adopts this approach too. It's recorded in Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31.
Rabbi Hillel is an interesting character. Apparently he migrated to Palestine from Babylonia (where the Jews had been exiled at the time of the prophet Jeremiah). In Hillel's view, the essence of the Torah was not the letter of the law, but its spirit, and he summed it up in the Golden Rule.
In a well known Talmudic story, it was said that one day a pagan approached Hillel and promised to convert to Judaism if the Rabbi could teach him the entire Torah while he stood on one leg. Hillel replied, "What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go learn it."
I like paradoxes. They are a good way of discovering inconsistencies in our own thinking. Should we tolerate intolerance? Should we judge judgmentalism? Should we exclude exclusiveness? Should we brand as evil the practice of branding practices as evil? These are not idle word games. These are actual decisions that an EB escapee is faced with.
I am broadly sympathetic with your laissez faire attitude to other people’s ideas, not their physical actions. A grey area occurs when the ideas provoke actions. Ideas like racism or various sorts of militant fundamentalism can have dangerous physical consequences, such as racial strife and international warfare. On balance, I think it better to suppress the expression of these sorts of ideas, even if it means sacrificing some of our freedom of speech. And I know freedom of speech and freedom of thought are very precious commodities to someone who has been deprived of them for 33 years. I was deprived of them for 25 years.
As for the Golden Rule, I once misquoted it when my mother was fumbling for the exact words. “Do others if you don’t want done.” I think that outdoes Clive James.
Back to the correct use of spelling...... I have always "known" that is it practice with a c for common noun and with an s for a very.
So.... I thought I should check in my 2002 edition of The Oxford Manual of Style: The essential handbook for all writers, editors, and publishers.... and it agrees with me adding though that in the US, practice with a c is used for both verb and noun
Being British therefore I shall continue with my current usage!!
Personally I think this discussion about tolerating intolerance would be a great one to have on this sunny warm evening over a few pints of good British bitter.
Having spent £1/14/9 on my Fowler's, I am reluctant to buy another so soon. So I consulted Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-ce_.2F_-se
But I am a tolerant person!
That URL failed, so here is the simple version:
Click here
Surely "practice" is the noun and "practise" is the verb? The same as "advice" and "advise"? It's a shame "practice" and "practise" weren't each pronounced differently - has anyone ever read a mis-spelled "advice" or "advise"? I haven't. Probably because one thinks of how it is said as one writes it.
Re: practice/practise ...
Mea culpa. I just checked again and found I must have read it wrong in Fowler's for some unknown reason. In the words of Lewis Carroll "I twiddled my eyes". Which is odd, because I wouldn't have looked it up when writing if it hadn't looked out of place to me at the time.
Still, I hope everyone had fun with the discussion. It seems a bit late to change it now and render all the comments null and void.
My primary school teacher suggested that we should sometimes pronounce ‘practise’ to rhyme with ‘advise’, just to help us to remember its spelling. Not really a foolproof mnemonic though. What’s the betting some of her class now spell it as practize?
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