Real Tolerance and Real Respect

Political correctness claims to teach tolerance. Whether or not that is their actual goal, they are going about it in a completely wrong way. Real tolerance is not achieved by telling people a party line. Real tolerance comes from understanding where the other person is coming from. There were any number of things that I did not tolerate at all when I was younger, that I have learned to tolerate when I found out their perspective. Telling people what to think and how to feel does not begin to achieve that. Genuinely understanding the next person does.

What political tolerance has achieved is not tolerance, but insincerity. People are pretending to tolerate one another while actually wanting to kill one another. And insincerity is a horrible thing to inflict upon a population. It makes Americans look to everyone else like scammers. Even I, who have fought this state of affairs since a very early age, did not escape that stereotype when I went abroad.

Before political correctness there were the Southern culture and the Japanese culture that did the same thing. The Southern belles act nicey-nice but are carrying a dagger behind their backs. The Japanese are super-polite but do not have genuine goodwill toward just about anyone. In case of the South, it appears to be a survival adaptation. They were conquered by the North and learned lying as  a way of life in order to survive. In Japan, it appears to be an outgrowth of their spiritual beliefs. If you believe that you get what you send out, you will not say – or even dare to think – anything negative. But there are situations where you very much do have to say things that are negative. If a nuclear reactor explodes, you have to inform the people of what has actually happened; and doing anything else is not enlightenment, it is lying.

It says in the Bible that “many are the blows of a friend, many are kisses of an enemy.” There are many people who equate politeness with respect, but that is wrong. If you actually respect someone, you will give them your honest opinion. If you pretend to be nice to them while actually wanting to kill them, you are not being respectful; you are lying to them. If someone believes that Jews or Russians are evil, I would rather hear that than have them pretend to be nice to me while actually wanting to kill me. That way I know what I am dealing with, and I can find out workable ways to deal with it.

Genuine tolerance is not – nor can it ever be – something that is taught by a party line. It is something that people develop when they find out one another’s perspective and understand one another's experience. And this requires for people to be able to actually express their real opinions, instead of having the idea of what their opinions should be imposed upon them by either the academia or the government.

I have use for actual tolerance, and I have use for actual respect. I have no use for a party line, nor do I have a use for a pretense. If you want people to be actually tolerant to one another, you would not be imposing upon them a false solution. You will allow them to be honest with one another. And then they will negotiate real solutions by themselves.

Tolerance is therefore not something that is imposed from without. Tolerance is something that is developed from within. If I know the perspective of the person from Southeast DC, I am going to extend to such a person a genuine tolerance, even if his perspective completely contradicts my upbringing and education. If I am instead told to mouth the politically correct party line, I will never find out such a person’s actual perspective. And that means that I will not have toward such a person either a genuine tolerance or a genuine respect.

So that while tolerance is a laudable goal, political correctness is in no way a rightful solution. The real solution is for people to find out about one another so that they can understand where they are coming from. That being done, it will be able for these people to practice, not a pretense of respect and tolerance, but actual tolerance and respect.