The Rational Argumentator

A Journal for Western Man

 Tolerance Rightly Understood

A great Indian sage of the 20^th century, Ramana Maharshi, once said that wanting to reform the world without first knowing oneself is “like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns.  It is much simpler to wear shoes.”^[1]

            Tolerance is a word bandied about a lot in this age of diversity, and everyone seems to agree that it is good and important, but few stop to consider what it actually means.  What, why, and in what manner ought we to tolerate, and, most importantly, at what point does toleration end? 

            Of the many different respects in which we may think of tolerance, I should like to address academic tolerance.  I will assume everyone knows that to restrain men from injuring one another is one of the first purposes of government; and let the question of what degree of injury is to be tolerated before intervention, though important, be a discussion better reserved for our courts and other institutions of civil law.  By academic tolerance, I mean the type most suited to a university setting, where young men and women convene to train their minds and reform their heart -- sas Shakespeare says, “to seek the light of truth”.^[2] What spirit of tolerance will best enable them to seek that light, and to find it? 

            Tolerance in this sense is a virtue, and like all virtues has no just limits beyond our human weakness in the practice of it.  Its limits are complete in what it is and what it is not, and when rightly understood, you can no more have too much of tolerance than you can of prudence, or of the golden rule.  Tolerance understood wrongly, however, when not kept within the limits of a proper understanding, can be pernicious -- even fatal -- to a civilization.  I am concerned, then, not with the practice, which depends on the individual will alone, but the theory -- the stars by which we steer ourselves through the gale of worldly imperfection. 

            The first of those stars I will consider is human receptivity to truth, the next is the responsibility of self-governance, and finally, I will argue that tolerance, when not understood rightly, tends toward relativism, and that there is a grave danger in confusing the two. 

            First, then, we may gain great wisdom on the matter by looking to the great thinkers of the West, for the question of what to tolerate is nothing new.  St. Augustine of Hippo faced it in the 5^th century when, amidst the crumbling ruins of the Roman Empire, the problem arose among Christians of what to do with the seemingly seductive treasures of pagan learning.  Augustine’s answer was that we ought not only to tolerate, but to positively enjoy, apply, and assimilate that learning, to seek out truth wherever it may be found, for all Truth is God’s Truth.^[3]  St. Thomas Aquinas took this idea a step further in the 13^th century when, amidst a newly-revived admiration of Aristotle, the question arose of what to do when faith and reason contradict.  Aquinas’s answer was that they cannot.  Just as Aristotle fifteen centuries earlier had maintained that truth can never contradict truth, so Aquinas maintained that truth found by one means -- faith -- cannot contradict truth found by another -- reason.^[4]  St. Thomas went on to give us another great piece of wisdom, one which was the watchword of the Scholastics, and should be of every college student: “In argument, never deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish.”  This sentiment rests in the idea that there exists within the Created order a universal Law, perceivable by human intelligence, and that therefore we can find a piece of truth in every error.  Not only, then, is there neither truth nor error to be feared, so long as we carefully distinguish at what point each goes wrong, but we may actually learn much from others' errors, by examining how they came to their conclusions.  So Augustine and Aquinas were very clear about a way of approaching truth which I think captures the spirit of tolerance marvelously:  first, to be receptive to all truth no matter where it be found, and second, to acknowledge partial truth in another’s error.  To make this imaginative effort, then, is one of the keys to tolerance, since truth is to be courted, not commanded. 

            Our founding fathers also addressed the question of tolerance, when considering the best system for men to be governed.  Listen to the words of Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address, 1801: “If there be any among us who wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”^[5]  As much as Jefferson loved the Union, which he had invested much of his life in procuring, he was willing to let stand those who disagreed with him, even if they were wrong, confident in the knowledge that, in time, reason and truth prevail over folly and error.  The very system of government they set up was itself a testament to the power of tolerance.  By shifting the method of rule from bullets to ballots, putting the ruling power into the hands of the majority, and separating the powers of government into distinct branches and levels, they intended that any decision to be given the force of law would truly be the persuaded will of the people.  The idea behind this is stated again beautifully by Jefferson: “Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself.  Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.”^[6]  We have strayed a long way from this sentiment today, in our age of bureaucratic government, for the rule not only of kings but of bureaucrats is rooted in the idea that man cannot govern himself.  Even if he could not, the statement of Shakespeare’s would still be true, that “…gentleness [shall] force, more than force move [one] to gentleness”;^[7] but the founders were convinced that he can, and that it is best he do so.  Even Aristotle writes that example is the best teacher, and this is another practical reason to focus one’s attention on reforming oneself before others.  When we do so, we will find, as Benjamin Franklin did, that we have many more faults than we thought, and that to mend them is more than enough work for one person.  And as the opening quotation from Maharshi suggests, changing the world is impracticable compared to changing oneself. 

            Lastly, then, a word on the limits of tolerance, or, rather, what tolerance is not.  We are particularly used to talking about tolerance because our age is so diverse.  Immigration has played a great role in American history from its first beginnings, and as we persist in the idea that all men are created equal, we continue to receive men and women from all over the globe who seek to escape the oppression of their homelands for freedom and opportunity.  But there is a grave danger that creeps up under the guise of tolerance, and that is the idea that not only all races are to be considered equal before God and before the law, but also that all cultures, opinions, books, ideas are of equal merit.  Nothing could be more false.  We are told not to judge others, either because their idea is, from the start, just as good as ours, or because they have no control over their own opinions.  Nothing could be more destructive.  For it is precisely the fact that some ideas are better than others, and that we can change our opinions by seeking the truth, that gives us reason to use our minds in the first place. 

            Now let no one think that in saying we must be able to judge others, I mean that we ought to bully them or yell or lock them up.  I have just finished an encomium of praise for gentleness, patience, acceptance, and persuasion, over force, narrow-mindedness, and bigotry.  I am only defending our right to judge in the sense of distinguishing, of perceiving the relative merits of things, and of speaking of these things publicly.  In a course with the historian Victor Davis Hanson last term on the modern problem of terrorism, one of the great lessons I learned was what a hazard it is to a society when it cannot say unpleasant facts openly.  As Dr. Hanson used to say, if there is a bombing tomorrow in some major Western city, I’ll bet you nine times out of ten it will have been done by someone named Mohammed.  But if anyone says that publicly, they are immediately labeled as racist, bigoted, and imperialist.  Have we, in our age, become so conditioned to a false understanding of tolerance, so afraid of judging, so afraid of dissent, that we no longer have the courage to make value judgements publicly?  If so, this is nothing other than the surrender of the use of our minds, upon which civilization rests.  What kind of absurdity would it seem to historians, perhaps studying our civilization a few thousand years from now, to find a people who gave up their ability, or rather their willingness, to know the good, the true, and the beautiful? 

            In the end, then, what the wisdom of the ancients and the founders urges is this -- that, in our outward behavior, and in correcting our fellow man, we should be gentle, loving, and civil; but, inwardly, the life of the mind must be preserved, that is, it must be making value judgements ceaselessly.  It is not enough just to know facts; we must analyze, compare, and establish the relations between facts. 

            Let me end with a reflection of the Christian philosopher Josef Pieper which does just that, and which sums up succintly, precisely the kind of tolerance I have been articulating.  The four cardinal virtues have been among the highest of values in the West for centuries; but as Pieper points out in his book Ueber das Christliche Menschenbild, those virtues are neither randomly selected nor randomly ordered.^[8]  First, the virtuous man must have prudence---the simple ability to see things as they are; next, he must cultivate justice, which both understands and loves the Good, and acknowledges a hierarchy among goods; then, he must have the courage to act in a way that promotes those goods according to their true merits; and lastly, he must do so in a manner of temperance which draws attention not to the doer but the value behind the thing done.  This, then, is the sum of what tolerance ought to mean, and may we all embrace it heartily, for without it, no nation can endure. 

hen it cannot say unpleasant facts openly.  As Dr. Hanson used to say, if there is a bombing tomorrow in some major Western city, I’ll bet you nine times out of ten it will have been done by someone named Mohammed.  But if anyone says that publicly, they are immediately labeled as racist, bigoted, and imperialist.  Have we, in our age, become so conditioned to a false understanding of tolerance, so afraid of judging, so afraid of dissent, that we no longer have the courage to make value judgements publicly?  If so, this is nothing other than the surrender of the use of our minds, upon which civilization rests.  What kind of absurdity would it seem to historians, perhaps studying our civilization a few thousand years from now, to find a people who gave up their ability, or rather their willingness, to know the good, the true, and the beautiful? 

            In the end, then, what the wisdom of the ancients and the founders urges is thisthat, in our outward behavior, and in correcting our fellow man, we should be gentle, loving, and civil; but, inwardly, the life of the mind must be preserved, that is, it must be making value judgements ceaselessly.  It is not enough just to know facts; we must analyze, compare, and establish the relations between facts. 

            Let me end with a reflection of the Christian philosopher Josef Pieper which does just that, and which sums up succintly, precisely the kind of tolerance I have been articulating.  The four cardinal virtues have been among the highest of values in the West for centuries; but as Pieper points out in his book Ueber das Christliche Menschenbild, those virtues are neither randomly selected nor randomly ordered.^[8]  First, the virtuous man must have prudence---the simple ability to see things as they are; next, he must cultivate justice, which both understands and loves the Good, and acknowledges a hierarchy among goods; then, he must have the courage to act in a way that promotes those goods according to their true merits; and lastly, he must do so in a manner of temperance which draws attention not to the doer but the value behind the thing done.  This, then, is the sum of what tolerance ought to mean, and may we all embrace it heartily, for without it, no nation can endure. 

Abraham Armstrong is a contributor to The Rational Argumentator. He can be contacted at aarmstrong@hillsdale.edu.

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