Friday 15 October 2010

I am not tolerant.

I now realise I'm not a tolerant person and never have been.
Tolerate for me means 'To put up with something'.
If there's nothing objectionable about anther culture, race, extra there's no need to tolerate them.
I don't tolerate people who are cruel to others in the name of their culture because there is something objectionable about it.
Its important to acknowledge this as I believe many of the arguments from the far right are routed in misunderstandings and misuse of terminology.

The left often use 'Tolerate' to mean 'respect' and 'accepting'. The far right exclusively use the word to mean 'to put up with'. A definition I'd argue we should all stick to. There's no need for this confusing duel meaning, we can talk about the benefits of an accepting society. But we can all lack tolerance as, of course, we shouldn't be putting up with things when we could make things better.

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