Taller Ants

I'm just gonna sort of...
climb up on this soap box...
and...

HI GUYS.  Tolerance is dangerous.  Ah—ah—ah!  Hear me out before you string me up by my uncivilized beliefs.  I've got stuff to say.

So let's say you have neighbors, and these neighbors are different than you.  No, they don't have different levels of melanin or denser muscle construction or a condition that leaves them with a height deficit—or rather, if they do have any of these things it doesn't matter for our discussion, because seriously?  They're different because they make different choices with their lifestyle.

Choices you disagree with.

Now there's a couple ways this can go down, depending on whether you care about the choices they're making.  For the purposes of this thought experiment, let's say these folks your neighbors are Meat-Eaters.  Shudder.  Or not shudder.  The experiment's flexible.  Now also for the purpose of this experiment you and your family don't eat meat.

Here's some ways this can be the case.  Your family could have a pretty poor biological disposition towards meat, one that makes it either untenable or merely unpleasant to consume meat, so meat just isn't a thing you do.  Your family could also hold animals of any kind in such high regard that the thought of killing them and stuffing them down your gob leaves you in a case of the sweats.

In the former instance, it's unlikely you would have anything against the choice to eat meat, other than perhaps a lack of the perspective of those who can actually and literally stomach the muscle (and other organs) of beasts.  In the latter instance you have a choice to make.

You can disapprove of your neighbors' Meat-Eating, or you can shrug it away as just a different life choice than yours.  Someone who wants to make things simple would call these the intolerant and tolerant choices, respectively.

And yes, to make it clear, in our culture "tolerance" now refers to whether you disapprove of a life choice you disagree with or just impassively disagree.  If you didn't think that, reanalyze your definition.  It's fine to disagree with that definition of tolerance (and thus intolerance), but just know that—at least as far I as I read the culture—that's what people in a public mean when they're talking about tolerance.

So how is this "tolerance" dangerous?

Our cultural pressure is towards not caring what choices other people make with their lives, even friends and family.  We're not supposed to disapprove of things, except "intolerance."  So the only thing we're really supposed to disapprove of is disapproving of things.

When you don't care about the choices other people are gonna make, you're not going to do anything about it.  When you disapprove, it's entirely possible you'll at least going to say something to them.

But you're not going to go kill them, or cuss them out in their homes, because let's face it kids, that's just unconscionable behavior.  That isn't "intolerance," it's straight-up honest bigotry.

You know what's not bigotry?  Saying, "I think what you're doing is wrong, and I think you should stop."  And if they don't stop, but what they're doing doesn't warrant putting them under house arrest or some such, then you let it go, because that stuff can poison you.

You see, I hate homosexuality.  The lifestyle choice.  The lifestyle itself.  I think it's disgusting and wrong and sinful.  But it's just a different shade of the adulterous lifestyle, which I also hate and think is disgusting and wrong and sinful.  So yeah, there's a couple dozen million people in the US whose lifestyle choices I disapprove of.  And I don't mind saying it.  I also don't mind saying I think what you're doing is wrong, and I think you should stop.

And like other things I disapprove of, it sometimes makes me angry to see people making what I believe are dangerous, harmful mistakes.  But you know what, I'm not gonna kill you.  I'm probably not even going to get in a shouting match with you unless you press the issue with me, because I'd rather not have this get to be a big hairy mess that ruins the things we've got going.

I'm a middle child.  People pleaser and all that.

But okay, so you can get harassed for "intolerance" if you tell someone you think what they're doing is wrong and you think they should stop.  You know what that discourages?  Standing up for causes.

So let's say your neighbors are Meat-Eaters, but the meat they happen to be eating happens to be people.  And you really, really don't like that.  You think it pretty well desecrates the dignity of human beings, and that's just not okay.

But what if our culture says, "Eh, we've got a population surplus anyway."  Remember, this is a thought experiment.  I'm not saying our culture has espoused this unthinkable position, but I am saying that groups of people have decided to approve (or at least look the other way from) terrible things in the past, and it's probably going to happen again.  So culture's like:  "Let them eat their people, since they aren't actually killing anyone, they're just getting hobo meat from the morgue."

And you're still thinking not okay.

What do you do?

I'm gonna put my foot down here and say that cannibalism is never okay.  I've got really good, Christian friends who disagree with me—or at least I think they do.  There is a sort of debate about what happens in extreme conditions.  Now for me, if we're all caught in the wilderness and the only hope for survival is for a person to eat a person, I honestly believe it's better for everyone to die.  That is one quantification of the value I put on human life and the human body.

So in this hypothetical scenario, I'm gonna say it's definitely wrong for your neighbors to be eating people, and they need to stop doing it.  I don't care how old their tradition is or how well-ingrained into their cultural psyche it has become.  You don't eat people.  Stop it.  In fact, I think it's probably something they should be forced to stop doing.

I mean, I'm not going to go kill them in their sleep or cuss them out in their homes, because that's just unconscionable behavior.  But I might organize a group of like-minded people who are horrified by these neighbors' behavior, and we would use proper channels and social pressure to make the neighbors stop eating people.

Is that fair, whether or not we succeed?  Even though these people-eaters might be devastated by what happens—even though it ruins their way of life?  Or is that intolerance, and thus unacceptable?

Now you're probably thinking "there's a world of difference between people-eaters and homosexuals."  Yeah, and killing babies before they're born.  It's a great big world of difference.  Sure.

Not everyone agrees with how much distance there is between adultery and murder.  And if you espouse "tolerance" there isn't much room for you to disapprove of that disagreement.  I hope I've made clear that it isn't right to go campaigning against the rights of people for shelter and food, but I don't believe the pursuit of happiness gives you permission to do everything that makes you happy.

We're sick, humanity.  We like things that break our minds and our spirits.  We self-destruct as a force of habit.  It makes us "happy."  Especially when we don't know a better happiness.

I think the pursuit of happiness is a little more about the search, about weighing what is good and what is bad, and a little less about doing whatever you first think is good for you.

So yeah, you may not be convinced that tolerance is a dangerous thing to espouse, but that's okay.  I'll let you keep believing in the idea so long as you don't cram it down my throat.  In fact, let's just not cram things down peoples' throats, okay?

Feel free to comment either at the bottom of this post or on The Facebook, so long as you can keep a civil tongue.  Let's disagree, even disapprove, without resorting to maliciousness.

I'm probably gonna soap box about something else again tomorrow, in case this really wasn't your cup of tea.  Don't worry, this isn't gonna go on as long as Forget and Not Slow Down did.  I honestly don't have that much to rant about.

Okay that was a lie.  But I'm still not gonna go on about this kinda stuff too long.

Also, I have a job interview today.  Woo.

-shrugs-