After understanding the complexity of the topic of tolerance through discussions with Ms. Bendall and Gemma, I decided to interview four members of the Emma community—two teachers and two students (one freshman and one senior). Below are the partial transcript and highlights of the interviews. Gemma is marked as T1, Mr. Hatala is marked as T2, student 1 (freshman) is marked as S1, and student 2 (senior) is marked as S2. While the majority of the transcript is my paraphrase of the interviewees’ ideas, the quoted portions are words the interviewee had said.
What is tolerance to you? What components must it include?
T1: Tolerance is the conscious decision to coexist with an external force or element that one would not intentionally seek out to enhance one’s life.
T2: “I think of tolerance particularly in the twentieth century, in light of… Karl Popper, who wrote [about] the paradox of tolerance. He was writing after the Second World War, and at that time… there was a real fear that developed…metanarratives—big picture stories about what the world is… The reason for that fear is because of what they saw happening in Nazi Germany in particular, and in the rise of Soviet totalitarianism…” Karl Popper was making the case that “you can take tolerance so far that you allow for a type of intolerance that would ultimately destroy tolerance…”
“On the individual level, tolerance is having the ability to sit with and engage with topics and perspectives that one disagrees with…, that one finds uncomfortable, and that one may find a little threatening.”
S1: Accepting others' beliefs and having empathy, despite possible disagreement. It is “keeping your own ground, but learning about others.”
S2: “I am reminded of endurance, of strength, and of emotional intelligence and maturity… I also think of people who have endured hardship and are able to learn from what they’ve been through and are able to teach other people those same lessons.”
Tolerance requires the recognition of differences by at least one party, but not necessarily the explicit communication of differences.
When you hear the word “tolerance,” what context do you think of it in?
T1: In the context of diversity and inclusion, as a stand-in word for acceptance. I agree that we tend to define others by our differences instead of our similarities. The concept of “other” exists whether it implies bad, good, or neutral.
T2: The shutting down of conversations because of differences. For instance, speakers are shunned away from speaking at certain universities because their ideas are different from those of the students. I am more focused on political tolerance, on “what should the law say and do.”
S1: Political polarization and “the absolute hate for the other side.”
S2: Political polarization connected with LGBTQ+ issues and the Trump presidency.
Why is tolerance important or not important?e
T1: It is important because “it has to exist in order for… other things to build upon it. It is the lowest bar of coexistence… But there has to be a higher standard of how we connect as humans [that] focuses more on compassion, empathy, and listening, and understanding that everyone has a different lived experience.” On the other hand, tolerance to inhuman elements such as bad weather helps us build resistance.
T2: “Tolerance can be a great tool to build understanding and…change others' perspectives.”
S1: Very important! “Throughout history, there have been people with different beliefs. But it is not bad, it actually gives you insight into what could be bettered. There are also nuggets of goodness everywhere, you just have to pick them out.”
S2: It is integral to avoiding policy gridlock!
How do you tolerate people?
T1: Calling-in vs. calling-out: inviting others to a conversation instead of shutting them down. “Thinking about getting through it and…the benefits of tolerating [unpleasant elements], if it is going to help me in the long run…”
“I think [one’s] tolerance increases the more experiences [one] has, the more people [one] meet, the more circumstances [one] navigated in [one’s] life.”
T2: “As I’ve gotten older, [I have] come to realize that [my] ideas and perspectives are sometimes wrong. When this happens enough times, [I] start to think ‘am I right this time? How sure should I be that the perspective I have right now is absolutely correct?’” I became humble and started to think about how I got those ideas in the first place, some of the ideas I have might have been socially constructed.
Moreover, if I do not seek to understand where others are coming from, they are not going to care about me and, in so doing, change. If my goal is to change others’ perspectives, that is much more likely to happen if I first seek to understand them.
S1: Understand that everyone is living their own life and not giving others a hard time about it.
S2: I sometimes have to passively tolerate others because they are my family, and I cannot forever distance myself from them. However, sometimes I just have to walk out of the room because the conversation was getting so heated and “it is harder for me to stay in the room.”
To what extent is something not tolerable?
T1: Anything that takes away other people’s ability to thrive is intolerable. Anything that causes unnecessary pain should not be tolerated (eg. violence).
T2: Yes, but “deciding where the limit is is very hard…While almost all speech should be tolerated on a governmental level, those who make or have articulated speech should expect to be met with public resistance from those that are opposed to them.”
S1: “[Some people’s] blatant blindness to factual evidence.”
S2: “When I hear somebody else judging a person based on their weight or their physical appearance because that is something they cannot easily change.”