Tolerance

Common sense is said to evolve from that list of prejudices we learn or acquire by the age of 18. Soon after we leave home to experience the outside world, everything is questioned, tried at least once, and almost never meets the standards taught by parents, family, pastors or school teachers. That is how we “grow up.” Another adage, attributed to Winston Churchill, says, “If you are not a liberal in your youth you have no heart. If you are a liberal in old age, you have no brain.” Does our youthful urge to push the envelope require adoption of a less conventional mindset? I would say so.

I know about tolerance. It is not the same as described by Goethe as “a transitional attitude, one which must lead to the acceptance of equality.” No, tolerance is best described in the way my father used the term toward my brothers and me. Any time we used bad language, disobeyed, or displayed a non-conforming attitude he would say, “I will not tolerate it.” It concerned what was acceptable and allowable. His words carried deep meaning about how to think, how to act and that consequences would follow. There was never a presumption of equality or transitional acceptance. There was right and wrong.

But Dad’s military background and strict discipline were tempered by another force. My mother was an alcoholic and from that we learned other lessons about tolerance. There are circumstances and conditions we cannot control. There are people we cannot control. What is left, after many years and much reflection, is a learned method of applying toleration: we must choose what is acceptable or allowable, and under what terms or conditions.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. An enabler feeds the weakness of others (like giving alcohol to a drunk “to ease the pain”), thereby feigning moral superiority. Both appeasers and enablers abound in America. We can and must learn to discern their motives toward determination of what is acceptable.

U.S. District Judge J. Owen Forrester is now maligned as a person of power who has arbitrarily revoked the “favor of tolerance.” Phil McKnight, chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Modern Languages, offered his reasoning in the AJC. Because a judge can rule that freedom of speech cannot be dictated by the school’s rules of tolerance, the moral compass of our educational system (perhaps our entire society) is at risk. He said, “This is a victory for those who are intolerant to exercise their intolerance toward groups they dislike.” The university’s code formerly prohibited attempts to injure, harm, malign or harass a person because of race, religious belief, color or sexual/affectional orientation. (US Constitution: 1, Political Correctness: 0)

This battle erupted because of the school’s selective enforcement of university speech codes. Members of Georgia Tech College Republicans say the school has “de-funded political and religious organizations at the same time it tries to teach us what our religious beliefs should be (to give you a hint: Georgia Tech prefers Buddhists over Baptists).” The College Republicans, Orit Sklar and Ruth Malhotra, defend the law suit because Georgia Tech had banned mainstream conservative speech as “hate speech.” They say the university consistently favored politically charged, leftist speech as part of the intellectual diversity valued by the school. David French, a lawyer for the Christian-based Alliance Defense Fund, said the court ruling is a victory for free speech.

Tolerance cannot be defined through control of our words, unless those words beget specific actions that deprive someone of life or liberty. Our words have power because they are the medium for expression of thought and beliefs. The advent of “hate speech” is simply invalid in the arena of ideas. Falling back onto a broader agenda of equal results, far-out professors and other political activists would deny use of language or freedom of expression to censor and silence their opponents. The mantra of political correctness rests at the core of this debate. Georgia Tech, like most U.S. universities, has overstepped their purpose of education and moved toward indoctrination.

We must acknowledge as untenable the ideal of absolute economic, racial/ethnic and social equality. No person or group has a “right” to institutionalized equality of results. No person has a “right” not to be offended.

Sometimes the smell test cannot be passed. Sometimes the wrenching in your gut cannot be quelled. Both methods of discernment concerning core beliefs of right and wrong are prevalent, and provide the basis for much political discussion. What we should defend is prescribed by our historical, cultural and religious education. What we must defend with all our might is the truth, whether we like it or not.