Of Tolerance and the Lessons We've Learned

Yesterday, I watched the film Arranged(2007), written by Stefan Schaefer, co-directed by Stefan Schaefer and Diane Crespo, and inspired by the experiences of Yuta Silverman, an Orthodox Jewish woman. An Orthodox Jewish woman and a muslim woman are two teachers in the same class in a school in Brooklyn. They become close friends, strengthened by their parallel experiences of discrimination and challenges of arranged marriages (see the trailer below, read more on the website here).




I had not expected my own prejudices surface in the form of the misinformed principal of the school, who seeks to "free" the girls of their religious cages. My questions of how and whether gender equality exists in these longstanding religions arose and I began to feel torn, how to come to terms with something that one does not understand.

I talked a while with my boyfriend about it at night and it became clear that these tight-knit communities had clear positives and negatives, and that, so long as one felt that the negatives did not outweigh the positives, then a lot could be gained by being part of these communities.

As someone agnostic, I can see the personal wholeness that some gain from religion, that sometimes, otherewise, all the gains and losses are internalized and can create a stormy navigation of the world. I also recognize some of the fundamental morality in religions to hold high standards, to expect people to be good in a sense higher than the governing laws, albeit sometimes lacking for the current times. In these generalizations, I felt I was losing myself in circles and so this morning I decided to read some ethical essays on the topic, both from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Equity Matters blog (see it here).


On tolerance, the ethos of intolerance, and intellectual courage
(read it here)
by Frank Furedi, Kent University-Canterbury

Here, Furedi argues that intolerance is not a virtue that should be celebrated and that to be intolerant is to be an intelectual coward. He says of John Stuart Mill and pseudoscience:

In 1836, he wrote about a ‘flowering of quackery and ephemeral literature’, all manipulated by the new ‘arts for attracting public attention’. Mill was no less hostile to the confusions sown by quacks and by ‘mock science’ than genuine scientists are today. But what distinguished Mill from someone like Beddington was his view on how to deal with erroneous ‘science’.

Mill adopted a consistent and courageous orientation towards tolerance, for many reasons. One reason was his sensitivity to the fact that uncertainty had become a condition of life in the modern world. Mill believed that, aside from the need to uphold freedom of speech and belief, uncertainty demanded tolerance. It is precisely because we cannot be certain of truth that we must allow for great openness and give people the right to express their beliefs and opinions. Uncertainty demands that people should be free to pursue their quest for truth.

Further, he says that "Mill believed that the ‘evil of silencing the expression of opinion’ is that it robs society, and future generations, of the potential insights that can emerge from a clash of views."

He finishes the article with:

There are many reasons for this defensive moralistic turn in sections of the scientific community. The principal driver of the re-emergence of intolerance as a moral virtue is Western culture’s aversion to engaging with uncertainty. This is best captured by that unattractive term ‘zero tolerance’ – a concept which presents the world in the language of black-and-white and either/or. It spares the intolerant the trouble of having to fight for their views. It is far easier to resolve disagreement and confusion through shutting down discussion than to practise true tolerance.

Tolerance demands courage – intolerance, the outlook of the intellectual coward, merely requires a censor’s pen.

Reflections on culture, identity and human dignity
(read it here)
by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Princeton University

Here Appiah reminds us of the diversities that exist within and between cultural groups. That one must remember that each individual has their own identity, their own agency within a group.
Appiah says:

It comes down to this: When the state stops you from engaging in practices rooted in your identity, it shouldn’t be because it has contempt for who you are. Jehovah’s Witnesses think that getting a blood transfusion will condemn you to everlasting damnation. Should the government let a 14-year-old die because she needs a transfusion and her parents object on those religious grounds? Certainly not, but everyone has to be clear that it’s not because we’ve got a grudge against Jehovah’s Witnesses.

and

If cultural difference isn’t the heart of the problem, then teaching people to respect other cultures won’t be the solution. What will be? Creating an overlay of a common culture – a civic culture – where everyone recognizes that people are entitled to respect whatever their gender or sexuality, their race or religion, and wherever they came from.

and further:

So let’s retire a rhetoric that makes it sound as if culture, all by itself, justifies and legitimates whatever it is that people do. An old exchange from colonial India makes the point clearly, if a little crudely: An Indian defending suttee tells the British official who tries to stop the fiery proceedings, “But it’s our custom to burn widows.” To which the official gives the perfectly reasonable rejoinder, “And it’s our custom to hang murderers.”