Tolerance and Being Offended
Something the most recent round of college protests brought home to me is that increasingly in our culture, behaviors are tolerated, but ideas are not. In addition to the behaviors we usually think about that are tolerated, impolite and outrageous behaviors, as well as those behaviors which increase your own power or rights at the expense of others, are also tolerated. Ideas, however, especially those which differ from a small set of acceptable narratives, are shouted down, ignored into oblivion, or scourged from records with a frightening tenacity and thoroughness. Tolerance as it is practiced nowadays no longer can be tolerant of the things which it was once most important to be tolerant about - the rights and thoughts of those who disagreed with you. Indeed, the reigning assumption now is that in order to be tolerant, one cannot hold to ideas other than the approved ones, or support the rights of those who hold unapproved ideas. We have in all this removed one of the main benefits of tolerance - the recognition that our own ideas and behaviors may be wrong.
Similar to the ideas of tolerance is the state of being offended - this is our world’s new carte blanche. Nowadays, being offended means that all civility, mercy, and morality may be superseded until vengeance for the offense is achieved. The offender need not be an actual person, and the offended need not be the person taking offense, but the person taking offense is assumed to be fully entitled: to seek any recourse- with no value out of bounds, and at any time- including centuries after the offense occurred, and from any person or organization or institution- regardless of the burdens imposed. Strangely enough, contrary to the stated goals of many persons who have taken offense, this marginalizes minority views and organizations, thus reducing diversity, and consolidates power for those who already have resources. The state of being offended ensures it is not the truth or strength of one's arguments which prevail, but instead whoever has enough connections and power to tilt the machinery of popular opinion and government.
Perhaps all of this helps to explain why our ability to get along with people around us, or at least tolerate them, seems to have been degrading lately. We should be thankful that we still do it as well as we do. We should also consciously choose whether the future will hold a world where we may speak, live, and inquire freely, or instead one where ideas of tolerance and the state of being offended hold sway.