Patience

Now Serving More Vitriol

If you think philosophy is bunk, you're crazy.

A strong worldview is as unique as a fingerprint, unfortunately. That's why tolerance isn't just a buzzword - it's a human social skill that we've depended upon for centuries to avoid tearing apart the fabric of civilization.

And tolerance is fucking hard. Here's an example.

That story might not be specifically about tolerance, but my point is that I would have a hard time tolerating the company of anyone who thinks that woman deserves jail. "Disagreement" sounds like such a civil word, but we disagree about ethical questions. Ethics are about good and evil. I can't stand to be around people who express, for lack of a better word, evil opinions.

Well, doesn't that just ring our free-speech alarms! But yes, there are evil opinions. If you don't like it, you can go respectfully disagree with me.

If you believe that homosexuals shouldn't marry, for example, you harbor an evil opinion. (I'm talking about objective truth, here: "evil" is a characteristic of that opinion, just as plain as an apple is red and an hour has sixty minutes.) And I don't want to hear any bullshit about subjectivity. I'm about as willing to believe that "gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry" as I'm willing to believe "the sun won't rise tomorrow." If someone tells you otherwise, they're not "expressing an opinion," they're fucking lying.

The same isn't true of every political dispute, but it is for many. Susan Lefevre, subject of the story I linked above, has become one such dispute. If I were so much as polite to the douchebags who think she should go to jail, I would be dishonest - but I'm usually polite anyway (in person, at least). And that's tolerance at work, ultimately in some ways a benevolent dishonesty, allowing me to function in society without getting myself into fisticuffs and probably jail.