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Tolerance

Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 2 months ago to Philosophy
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Over the past generation, the so-called virtue of tolerance has suddenly surpassed all other virtues. Since being in the Gulch, I have become increasingly aware of how tolerance can be a signal to others to trample on you like a doormat.

On the other hand, whereas intolerance of error gets you branded outside the Gulch, here it is often viewed as the correct response. In fact, Ms. Rand was one of the least tolerant people in the last 100 years. I am now beginning to view that as an endearing quality.

Please enlighten me as to whether you consider tolerance and/or politeness are virtuous or not, and of course, explain the basis for your viewpoint.


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  • Posted by $ 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I tried Roark's "I don't think of you." for a while, but it was a denial of reality that could not be tolerated (pun intended).
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  • Posted by $ 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Does "tolerance" now mean that we now are expected to provide "the sanction of the victim" (i.e. ourselves)? I think so.
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  • Posted by $ winterwind 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Nicely put.
    it's just so easy to live and speak your values, rather than "being tolerant" and then having to remember what you were tolerant about to whom.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Wait a damned minute... I better sit down.. I got a compliment in the gulch?? What year is this?
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  • Posted by $ nickursis 10 years, 2 months ago
    Tolerance is the ability to not choke the crap out of a blithering idiot who is trying to ram their misguided belief system down your throat at the same time they have their hand in your pocket. On their side, tolerance is giving up all of your own personal rights so that you will submit to the will of whatever special interest group is paying today, wants. I have no tolerance for tolerance, in that it has lost it's original meaning of "ability to withstand offensive behavior or statements" and has mutated to mean "allow others to do violence to yourself, and sing hallelujah chorus's during the event". Another word that has been mangled for the sake of manipulation and false justification of motive and intent.
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  • Posted by Ibecame 10 years, 2 months ago
    Maybe not virtuous, but a practicality. I generally have a air of tolerance about me because it creates less friction in the world outside of the Gulch. Most of the time I choose to be tolerant. I have noticed like you that a lot of people like to use tolerance as a means of psyco-manuplitation to gain what they want. This has definitely been increasing over the years. If possible I like to withdraw from these people, but when someone tries to use me like a doormat I crush them like the nasty bug that they are.
    I have started reading Ayn Rand's other books and works, and I think what I like about her the most is that she would "suffer no fools".
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  • Posted by Maritimus 10 years, 2 months ago
    As someone pointed out, tolerance is a measure of the range of "acceptability" on either side of the desired value. The range is not at all necessarily symmetrical. Each one of us has, or should have, their own range of tolerance on any value.

    I think that in our current decaying culture, the term is used most frequently to incite acceptance of ignorance, dishonesty, incompetence and worse. Look how many murderers have a long list of previous criminal convictions.

    Personally, I am politely and intensely intolerant of people who violate individual rights and property rights, or promote ideas and policies that do that.

    Because I agree with others here that politeness is a different concept from tolerance, I strive to be polite with everybody: my closest friends and family, as well as totally unknown strangers. My politeness is an expression of my own self-respect (and self-control),

    I do not tolerate willful ignorance or willful carelessness. For me, the subject of judgment is not whether one made an error or a mistake. We all make them. It is what one does after realizing the mistake that is subject to keen scrutiny and judgment.

    Just my opinions.
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  • Posted by frodo_b 10 years, 2 months ago
    Politeness is the grease that smooths the wheels of society.

    Tolerance is a virtue when the other party’s actions/beliefs offer no injury to you or your property and you let them be. That sort of tolerance is also known as “live and let live.”

    But a lot of people use the term “tolerance” as code for catering to idiots, and consider
    politeness to mean suffering the fool and not calling a spade a spade. In that case, tolerance and politeness are an evil.
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  • Posted by Technocracy 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Still unseasonably cool. Snow is more or less gone finally. Still some plow piles here and there.

    Anyone coming up for the Atlas Summit should expect highs between mid 50s to mid 60s. Lows have been mid 30s to 40s. Might be a little warmer by then.
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  • Posted by Watcher55 10 years, 2 months ago
    Tolerance is one of those things where it is a contextual virtue (well, more contextual than others), and it has caused a lot of angst in Objectivist circles. I think most agree that we should be tolerant of innocent error but not tolerate deliberate evasion - the problem is, too many "strict Objectivists" define "deliberate evasion" as "not agreeing with me after I've explained the truth so clearly." Objectivism would be better served if people took the truism "even Ayn Rand was not infallible" and apply it to themselves: no matter how confident you feel, you can still be wrong. I know this is true, for I have seen so many intelligent Objectivists completely confident in a particular contentious opinion, but they're still wrong. Perhaps they should take a similarly generous view and realise that just because I disagree with them, that doesn't mean I'm wrong, let alone that I'm a wicked evader.
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  • Posted by $ 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I was referring precisely to stupidity, the use of force, the lack of the use of reason, and any reference to manmade global warming. Well said, woodlema.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "Sometimes you have to put up with a lot you don't like in pursuit of higher goals (like keeping a job you generally like, or paying high taxes to stay out of jail). But that doesn't mean to abandon integrity or to not evaluate or speak out when and where appropriate."
    Yes. I agree with this and like how the the last paragraph explains it succinctly.

    Can you please try the link again? The link you posted doesn't work for me.
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