Constructive Intolerance?
Not accepting another person because of their look, race, color, religion, gender, sex affinity, ideas, or anything else that our five senses and our brain can perceive or conceive from their personality, speech or actions, is called intolerance.
Most thinkers, philosophers, scholars, social pundits, … agree to condemn all kinds of intolerance. This majority confirms that intolerance leads to the refusal and even the elimination of the other person, and it is at the source of totalitarian regimes where any opinion or idea not conforming to the mainstream is condemned and shut down. They also assert that intolerance is a clear sign of xenophobia and idiotic ostracism.
This position is completely understandable at its face value; however, it does contain a significant amount of hypocrisy, some ignorance and a lazy generalization. There isn’t only one kind of intolerance! There are many flavors of intolerance depending on three factors:
The source of the intolerance (the intolerant)
The place, time, and the way the intolerance is expressed and
The receiver of the intolerance (the “intolerated”)
Two kinds of people show the most intolerance: the exceptionally smart and the extremely stupid.
The intolerance of the idiots is destructive and incontrollable. They are intolerant because they don’t know the other or struggle to grasp the situation they are facing. With their limited mental abilities, they are unable to gather the necessary knowledge about the other person differences or to explain and understand the particular circumstances of the situation at hand. As a consequence, fear of this unknown person or situation, which are threatening their “normal” existence, takes hold of them and pushes them to refuse the other in order to protect themselves and the foundations of their usual lives. The expression of this intolerance is usually the deployment of every effort to eliminate the others’ voice, actions or even existence. This leads to discrimination against every person outside of the idiot “norm”. The intolerance of the idiots, aiming to destroy or eliminate the other, is definitely intolerable!
In contrast, the intolerance coming from a smart and good person is very often originating from a thorough understanding of the person or the situation and a genuine need and a desire for faster improvements and quicker progress, towards a better state. The French philosopher Michel Onfray said: “truth need to be told only to those who deserve hearing it”.
So, for those who are willing and capable of hearing and absorbing the smart person’s truth (by no means it is the absolute truth, but it has the value of coming from an intelligent person), and then use this knowledge to better their state of being, the smart person can express his/her intolerance in a rather direct, yet objective, way. At the same time, the content, the style, the words, the tone, the timing and the place should all be tailored to the personality, and to the physical and mental state of the person receiving the feedback. Sensitivity and empathy are paramount to get the message across!
If the receiver takes the feedback in a positive way and he/she finds in it a valuable and free help to move them from a state of confusion to a state of clarity, then the intolerance received produces good outcomes, not the least of them is shortening the receiver’s path towards stability, peace of mind, and eventually joy. When these positive experiences repeat themselves between the intolerant and the “intolerated”, their relationship becomes very strong, simply because, unlike many other relations we build in our lives, this one is built on authenticity and clarity.
If the feedback given creates in the other person a negative reaction, and a refusal of all or parts of its content, contrary to what was expected, and if this negative reaction happens repeatedly, without any logical explanation or convincing justification, then the “smart intolerant” would then switch to a mode of indifference coupled with an unrevealed contempt towards the other “intolerated”. In most of these cases, the “smart intolerant” would end up stopping the relationship with these receivers, as they deem that it is the most appropriate and restful solution for both sides.
In light of this, one question deserves to be answered: “why some of us refuse to accept or take into account (do not tolerate) the smart intolerance (advice/council) of a friend or a family member?”
There are few answers to this important question:
The first possibility could be the lack of confidence in the validity and value of the advice or the advisor.
Another potential reason could be the lack of confidence in our ability to apply effectively this advice.
Sometimes it is merely a lack of understanding of the advice, coupled with a lack of open mindedness and curiosity to try to understand it. And as mentioned previously, every unknown is not accepted, and not tolerated.
Finally, and this happens more often than we think, it could simply be an over confidence and a strong belief of our superiority over the person providing the advice (our oversized ego).
Of course, most of the time it is a combination of any or all of the above.
In summary, when intolerance is coming from an idiot, it is intolerable. When it is coming from an intelligent person, aiming for improvement and progress, using logical and convincing explanation, with a dose of elegance in the style, timing and place, then we could without hesitation say that the “smart intolerance” is tolerated, even wanted, for sure needed, by the ones who deserve it, as it is one of the most effective ways to fight against mental regression and physical deterioration.
I will leave you with two questions to ponder upon:
Is it, as Marquis de Sade said: “Tolerance is the virtue of the weak”? Or
As Yojen T. Veil said: “Has the rareness of truly intelligent people made intolerance evil?”