I think this suggests a problem on how we use the same word to tolerance to describe accepting people and accepting ideas. And it's unfortunate that this word suggests an almost begrudging acceptance.
Obviously we should all make every effort to include people who are different from us. I think most intelligent people recognize that it's wrong to exclude or mistreat people because of race, religion, gender, sexuality etc. We should treat people with empathy and ensure that we accommodate their differences.
Ideas, in my mind, don't deserve the same standard of respect as people. In fact I don't think ideas deserve any sort of special treatment. Wrong ideas should be challenged and excluded and good ideas should be brought to light.
The problem with using the word tolerance to describe accepting people and ideas is that too often we conflate the two. I think the best example of this was when someone punched Richard Spencer and the internet broke out into debate on whether it's okay to punch a nazi. It seemed a misconnect between accepting people and ideas, like people couldn't recognize that we should be intolerant of Richard Spencer's ideas but still be tolerant of Richard Spencer the human being. And while it's good to attack his ideas, it's wrong to attack and harm the person.
Obviously we should all make every effort to include people who are different from us. I think most intelligent people recognize that it's wrong to exclude or mistreat people because of race, religion, gender, sexuality etc. We should treat people with empathy and ensure that we accommodate their differences.
Ideas, in my mind, don't deserve the same standard of respect as people. In fact I don't think ideas deserve any sort of special treatment. Wrong ideas should be challenged and excluded and good ideas should be brought to light.
The problem with using the word tolerance to describe accepting people and ideas is that too often we conflate the two. I think the best example of this was when someone punched Richard Spencer and the internet broke out into debate on whether it's okay to punch a nazi. It seemed a misconnect between accepting people and ideas, like people couldn't recognize that we should be intolerant of Richard Spencer's ideas but still be tolerant of Richard Spencer the human being. And while it's good to attack his ideas, it's wrong to attack and harm the person.