‘Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.’
The above is a quote famously attributed to John Stuart Mill from his seminal essay On Liberty. As with any quote divested of its origin, it misses some context – but it is famous for what meaning can be derived from it, and it is at the heart of many people’s conceptions of tolerance in the modern world.
Tolerance, I would argue, is an interesting concept. It is interesting because it is both generally seen as a beneficial thing, and yet it also inherently implies some conflict on the part of two parties. To tolerate something isn’t to approve of it – it is to live with it, against what objections you may have to it. Despite the seemingly positive connotations of ‘tolerance’, in practice, it only arises precisely because there is a problem an individual has that must be reconciled. Tolerance is the means of reconciliation, taking place wholly within the individual.
Most people would agree that tolerance is a strictly necessary function of the modern, civilised world. We are no longer living in small, cordoned-off tribes where our own echoes are our only company. We exist among billions, in a world connected from each end of the globe with no barrier greater than a few clicks. No one can go through life without finding something in someone else that they disapprove of. So too, can no one go through life without needing to accept, eventually, that their disapproval alone does not (always) change another individual, and that it probably sometimes shouldn’t.
But it would be inaccurate as well to claim that our disapproval could only lead us to reconciliation through tolerance. Most of us would place some moral weight on being seriously wronged by another individual – to turn the other cheek is sometimes espoused as a virtue, but such can only be taken so far before we must question what value is garnered from it. We only have two cheeks to turn, after all. The fact remains that we would sometimes feel it is best not to live and let live, but rather, to change things in the way that we would have them be.
And of course, any discussion of tolerance should not fail to mention the famous paradox of tolerance. In most modern societies, espousing democracy and free speech, all are given a chance to express their views – and furthermore, to seek change in line with their views. We idealise this form of tolerance, yet it can only be upheld to such a degree before the fundamental notion of tolerance collapses in on itself. If you are in the presence of moralising types, who would seek to demand extraordinary control over your life and livelihood, to tolerate them has all the same effect as intolerance. Such tolerant constructions of the social world are doomed, by their nature, to move towards the opinions of the most intolerant – in much the same way that lawlessness would give room to those who wish to impose laws.
So where must the line be drawn? Evidently, it is neither a solution to enable all tolerance nor to deny it entirely.
John Stuart Mill, as alluded to above, had certain thoughts on this topic that extend beyond the confines shown thus far. To outline another quotation of his:
Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.
Taking his words at face value, we would say he had a strong opinion on where the line should be drawn. Disapproval is insufficient to cease tolerance of another’s actions; tolerance should cease only when harm is caused by the action. I would argue most opinions on the matter, though not necessarily refined to such a degree, would meet that standard.
But one could easily argue, too, that this is an insufficient account. For what does it mean for something to ‘harm’? When the religious baker refuses to make a cake for a wedded homosexual couple – who is being harmed, and who must be tolerated? Do we find our answer in the liberty of religious expression and the baker’s earnest belief in the hurt they will experience for not upholding their divine law? Or do we find it in the opposite – in the prejudice and scorn experienced by those living a different life to those of others, and their right to a world that they can live in with dignity and respect all the same?
It is, in a strange sense, an easy question for most of us. Most of us would look at the example above and immediately know our own thoughts, even if you would need further thought to explain them. If I may be so blunt: I would be readily be providing the baker with some obscenities that I had ought not to share here and now. But it is also, somehow, a very hard question. We would all like a world with some level of tolerance, and some level of intolerance – where some people are tolerated, and some are not – and the queer thing about it is that it something we all want, and thus a proving ground in which we will inevitably collide.
But maybe, despite the troubles of communication and conflict in the modern world, some insights can be drawn out of this line of thought nonetheless. Or, if I may be so overtly opinionated: I believe we can at least answer the start of that question with what we already know. From there, we can work out the rest.
I would argue, if nothing else, that it is desirable if tolerance can protect itself. John Rawls famously used the original position as an analogy for the fair construction of a society’s laws. To borrow his analogy: if we were all told to make the world as we desired it, and we had to do so knowing nothing of who we would be in the new world – a king or a peasant, a celebrity or an orphaned child, a CEO or a blue-collar – how would we choose to design that world?
I would argue that we would want to be guaranteed a world in which we are allowed to express ourselves, even were we to know that such a right would have to be ensured for others. Yet I don’t think we would want to be guaranteed a world in which we can force others to live by our expressions, knowing we too would have to live by theirs, whatever they might be. In other words, we would want a world where we can be assured tolerance, and a world in which we would need to tolerate others – a world in which the most intolerable thing is intolerance itself.
Perhaps this is the real value in tolerance, despite its connotations, being implicative of conflict. To tolerate something is not to have no objections to it, but the opposite – to live with it, despite what objections you have. It is, as suggested previously, an act of reconciliation that takes place wholly within the individual. And so if we can all tolerate, and be intolerant to intolerance, then we necessarily have a world we can all live with. Perhaps that is all we need.