The West and the Rest

This post elaborates on ideas discussed in the previous post on the nature of tolerance. Tolerance is something we all need in order to navigate daily life: for instance, when we are put on hold while phoning to make a dental appointment, or when we have to put up with snarky customers if we are a salesperson. Marriage and family teach us to put up with others, even those we don't care for. We don't tell people, especially lowly employees, that they are bloody fools.

But the contemporary version of tolerance is different. It means not judging, no matter how ludicrous or suspicious someone's behavior. The classic example would be Pontius Pilate. This version of tolerance, which has become part of our modern Western moral code, was evidently abhorrent to the lady I wrote about in my previous post. She saw evil in our ways and wanted to return to old-fashioned truth telling on subjects like good and evil, words that have no purchase among the tolerant. She is not alone.

Tolerance is a liberal idea that emerged in the West in the course of the early modern period. Although the thinkers of the Enlightenment are given credit for spreading this idea, tolerance is what Reinhold Niebuhr called the "highly contingent achievement" of a culture that we have taken to be "the final form and norm of human existence." It is easy to be tolerant, to be non-judgmental, when you have a roof over your head and enough to eat. It is thus a phenomenon of advanced societies, and you don't even have to be a particularly rich person to be tolerant in the non-judgmental sense. If you live in Tucson or Indianapolis and eat Thai or Indian food, if you like to shop at Whole Foods (rather than at the local, lower-priced corporate supermarket), if you don’t mind subtitles with your movies, you are half way to being tolerant of every new "progressive" idea that comes down the road. And if you listen to TED talks and know the difference between Tom Stoppard and Andrew Lloyd Weber, it’s a good chance that you are the real thing, except when it comes to American evangelicals.

Our present-day open-mindedness is not a virtue; it is an attitude contingent on the prosperity that we in the West have enjoyed for several centuries, an enjoyment stemming from exploiting the resources of non-Western countries. We take it for granted that people should have choices, e.g., be allowed to follow the profession they desire or marry the person they love, not someone chosen by their parents, but for most of the world choice is not and has never been an option. I came across a very minor example of how we take tolerance for granted while searching for images for this post. A site called How to Forgive recommends "Embracing Other People's Freedom." It goes on as follows, with a statement that reeks of being "virtuous": "Everyone has a right to decide what’s good for them and the freedom to make mistakes. It’s not usually worth playing the role of a preacher, teacher, judge, critic or parent in anyone’s life. Freedom allows everyone to focus on their own lives, choices, responsibilities and continual learning." Practically every American college student has absorbed this platitude.

Bien pensant

Not only is such wisdom incomprehensible to most people who have not grown up in a Western country; the attitude underlying it is also historically unprecedented. Historically, human beings did not have the luxury of focusing on their own lives, their own choices, etc. Most people in the world today would love to have our choices, and for that reason they seek to leave the hell holes in which they live. We don't help them by being "tolerant" toward those who wish to put an end to freedom.

As mentioned in the previous post, it has been amusing to observe Donald Trump's "progress." The man has demolished our doctrinaire insistence on not judging, e.g., in the matter of illegal immigrants or whatever. The apoplectic outrage of the bien pensant class indicates that Trump has violated a powerful taboo. There is indeed something anthropological about contemporary tolerance. The chattering class now stands in for the gods who once punished violations of the sacred.

Picture credits: Observations citoyennes; Lone Wolf Base Camp; How to Forgive