2.6 Tolerance (1)



Tolerance: Definition

Tolerance is the willingness to accept actions we believe to be inappropriate or even wrong because it would be worse to take action against them. Tolerance is community-oriented. Ideally, all bad behavior should cease, but it is unrealistic to think that society could succeed in enforcing this ideal. Tolerance understands this.

Determining what should and what should not be tolerated takes experience and prudence. Every society must tolerate some wrongdoing, because the price of eliminating it might be greater than the price of allowing it. For example, so long as private wrong doing does no serious harm to the public, tolerance is required; for the invasion of privacy necessary to correct every personal fault would likely be worse than the fault itself.

However, it cannot be that serious wrongdoings should be tolerated for social order. Some situations warrant the toleration of some wrongdoing, but no situation makes every act permissible. We should, as a society, tolerate a certain amount of rudeness in the name of free speech and arrogance in the name of individual expression. But to tolerate crimes such as rape and murder would be wrong, since tolerating them would do greater harm to the humanity as a whole.

Importance of Tolerance in society

Tolerance is important term of coming into compromise (agreement) and solving arguments; it’s essential to find out a solution to the question that states how is the nature of tolerance which arises from saying impatience brings humanity to hell. We can point out from the aforementioned opinions that tolerance is formed as a result of reverse moral effect against incidents which appear because of different worldviews and create foundation for religious wars. Tolerance under the protection of the government does not consider being forbearing and patient towards all social events and actions as lawful. Giving tolerance legal image across the country creates necessary conditions for the formation of democratic governance. Nowadays, tolerance which is being passionately promoted is not limited only by showing empathy to people of alien nations and religions or detecting incidents of violation of human rights in specific country. Such an empirical position can lead to confusion between the concept of tolerance and discrimination. Tolerance needs to be regarded as positive integral phenomenon of social life. And the perfect meaning of tolerance can be achieved by understanding its integrity. Therefore, tolerance is realizing deeply that diversities, different merits and characteristics are integral and important part of one whole universe. Intolerance is ignoring reality of social life.

There is a specific technique for solving the meaning of tolerance. Each citizen realizes his own personal dignity and position, and consequently designates his political culture by showing respect to a different subject. There is also a moral side in this issue: social status, dignity is not taught in family, and also not formed in education system. As a result, citizen makes conclusions from his natural and social distinction and acts according to them. Depending on which social consciousness dominates (in high degree) in a person’s mind, different types of tolerance are formed. Independent society composed of free social and cultural structure, and different origins needs tolerance to ensure its own prosperity. And the efficiency of tolerance depends on how suitable can be dominant mythological, religious, and scientific types of consciousness.

Tolerance is manifested as a social phenomenon by shown attitude in social communications between people, and government and social organizations. Such kinds of attitude, in the sense not being pressure, consist of attracting the attention of government and social organizations to a specific important issue and suggestions that appeared from the concerns of people regarding the issue. Sciences, deliberate nurturing, discussions, and freedom of opinion, conscious, and beliefs help the formation and the establishment of tolerance in national consciousness. Training tolerance is one of the important conditions of developing civil society.