Ponderings on Tolerance

Once upon a time, my wife and I had teenagers in the house.

It was okay, they were ours and we didn’t have to call pest control.

We liked having our kids bring their friends home. Their energy was infectious. Their appetite ensured we had no stale food in the house, and in talking to them, we got to know a bit about the things that were important to them.

At the time, my wife and I heard a speaker who insisted that the single most treasured value in teenagers was the concept of tolerance. He said that tolerance had permeated the school curriculum and was something for parents of teens to be particularly wary of.

Being skeptical, we decided to put this speaker’s theory to the test.

So in between filling chip bowls and clearing clutter, we asked the troops an open ended question. “What would you say is the main thing you are taught in school today?”

It was as if they had rehearsed the answer. “Tolerance.” They all said in unison.

My wife and I realized that this speaker might be on to something.

When we pressed a bit further, it would appear that the word ‘tolerance’ was used as a catch all word to describe attributes such as inclusivity, peacefulness, friendliness, acceptance, and most importantly, a license to be intolerant of one thing – people who are intolerant - e.g. those who discriminated (a good thing), or those who didn’t embrace and condone behavior that differed from their own belief system (a potentially not good thing.)

There seemed to be no room for dialog and discussion. If I disagreed with something you did, or believed, that made me intolerant, and therefore wrong.

The definition of ‘tolerance’ seemed to be fluid – changing as the situation warranted.

Keep in mind this was 20 years ago. Things might be different today.

As is usually the case, life went on.

I hadn’t thought much about tolerance until the recent series of exchanges on beBee.

So I took a lunchtime walk by the lake with my notebook and started jotting down my thoughts on tolerance.

I could be way off base. 

I could be right on a couple of points.

Mostly I would love to hear what others think.

• Is not blindly accepting other people. While everyone should get the benefit of the doubt, trust is earned.
• Is not condoning any and all types of behavior.
• Is not becoming a proponent of a divisive opinion.
• Allows freedom of expression without persecution.
• Recognizes differences and celebrates those differences.
• Seeks to understand differences.
• Is not about dropping everything into the cultural blender and coming out with a uniform behavior for everyone.
• Is about allowing people to have a different opinion or lifestyle or belief than you without expecting them to become like you, or you to have to become like them.
• Is not about overt or passive aggressive attacks on those who differ.
• Is not about inclusiveness. (See cultural blender above). People are different. Some people are cat people, some are dog people. That’s OK. All the cat people should be able to get together and celebrate cats without being expected to have to change their get togethers to celebrate all animals. This isn’t about excluding dog people… there is a difference. It is critical we learn to differentiate between affinity groups (which beBee is all about) and a world where everything has to be vanilla beige to ensure no one is left out.

So, there are my lakeside thoughts. I would hope dear reader that you have something to say on this topic.

BTW… I am more of a dog person, but I certainly respect the right of cat people to get together and talk about hairballs and kitty litter. That’s their choice, and I’m ok with that.

Image: Licensed under Creative Commons

About the Author:

I'm convinced that IT leadership needs to dramatically change how IT is delivered rather than being relegated to a costly overhead department.

In addition to transforming IT in my role as CIO, I look for every opportunity to talk about this... writing, speaking and now blogging on BeBee ( www.bebee.com/@kevin-pashuk ) , LinkedIn, ITWorld Canada, or at TurningTechInvisible.com.

I also shoot things... with my camera. Check out my photostream at www.flickr.com/photos/kwpashuk