Tolerance: Purpose and Abuse
Greetings,
Here are my views on tolerance and how in this age it is used to abuse people.
Now firstly lets get the definition of tolerance so we are all clear on it.
1 : capacity to endure pain or hardship : endurance, fortitude, stamina
2 a : sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own
b : the act of allowing something : toleration
3 : the allowable deviation from a standard; especially : the range of variation permitted in maintaining a specified dimension in machining a piece
Now I included the first one as a means of providing narrative, as we can see tolerance is the act of capacity towards difference. The more tolerant we are the better we are at handling difference in our lives.
HOWEVER,
What I do not see in these definitions is the acceptance to let it continue.
Example 1: Definition 1 indicates the capacity to endure pain but clearly doesn't mean that the person enduring is some kind of sadist wanting more, it just means they can handle pain better.
Example 2: In Engineering, material tolerance is looked into when considering the best material for a product and when we look at tolerance we see how much it can withstand before breaking. Now this doesn't mean that we are designing it to do this, we are simply preparing for possibilities, just like when a phone is designed you'll notice the materials are considered for it being dropped, that's not because it's purpose IS to be dropped only IF.
So in both examples tolerance is not a given and shouldn't be just expected upon people.
Another example is when it comes to swords, now I love swords, fantastic things. But what is noticeable is the idea of flexibility in a sword and how that factors into tolerance levels because if too much pressure is exerted on a blade and it bends too far it exceeds its tolerance, bends permanently and therefore ruins its purpose, after all what can you do with a bent sword.
So when we look at society, especially Western society and how we are told it is the most tolerant thing to do to accept Migrants or allow them their practices or allow gay parades etc etc etc but like I mentioned earlier tolerance isn't a given, its a worst case scenario measure, not a race to achieve.
Ever notice how tolerance and progressive seem to walk hand-in-hand in this society as though they are the same thing when anyone who understands their definitions knows that to be progressive in the way those kinds of people want societies tolerance is being pushed to its limits and we all can see how this ends. Once a society's tolerance limit is reached, it either changes its form or breaks, either answer is not good. So if we equate the sword analogy to society, let's say for example Sweden, we can see that tolerance levels are high as is 'progression' however we are already seeing signs of stress and change (no go zones, bitterness, intolerance etc) which means that in the days to come Sweden result in one of two outcomes, war or alteration into a new form and whose to say the new form is better.
So I say to people don't listen to talk of tolerance as a virtue, and when we hear it in the news realize that they are talking about putting pressure on our worst case scenarios. Be smarter than that, don't tempt fate.