I agree that modern Western "tolerance" is fine only if you stay as superficial as possible. Holi is a great Hindu holiday as long as it stays at the "flinging-paint-everywhere" level; there is not much any deeper than that. Christian holidays are stripped of any serious preparation of fasting or study, and are "tolerated" as long as they are a fat man in a red suit delivering presents, or a chocolate bunny. "You're just being so negative... Nooo funn!" is one way to react, another (which I heard a lot at university) is "You don't actually BELIEVE any of that, do you?".. Well, yes, I did then and I do now, and I have this insatiable morbid curiousity about what lies beneath the surface (which is curbed only by a lack of time and resources - but I am still curious).
I do believe that tolerance is a good thing. In building materials, tolerance is set as the amount of variation allowed. It's not unlimited, it's from here to their and not beyond. It can keep 2 different materials in close contact from ripping each other apart... much like "tolerance" in a community prevents fires being set on residential property as a warning, or targeted humans from being torched. The problem is that modern liberal Western tolerance does not have agreed-upon parameters, 'safe zones', or ability to tolerate anything not polarized black & white visions of the world. .. which makes it totally odd that the superficial version of Holi should be popular, with no black or white anywhere.
Thank you for your wisdom, Meg! Tolerance is all well and good until it becomes tolerance of evil, at which point it becomes a sin of omission. The parameters that you mention used to be set by Christianity, and they defined what was intolerable. Now, as you say, there are no agreed parameters at all. And so we end up with the Wildean tolerance of anything except intolerance, which is not working out particularly well.
Thank you, Fr. Plant, for your courageous, acute, straightforward analysis of this troublesome situation
of the so called `western European` world. If only we could have an honest `dialogue` among us,
I mean if these problems could be honestly debated among people with different world views, we could have some hope of real cultural progress. But what causes more concern is the fact that the request of an honest dialogue is violently rejected by some (too many) of these people. Thank you very much for your articles. Fr. Franco Sottocornola (Shinmeizan)
I agree that modern Western "tolerance" is fine only if you stay as superficial as possible. Holi is a great Hindu holiday as long as it stays at the "flinging-paint-everywhere" level; there is not much any deeper than that. Christian holidays are stripped of any serious preparation of fasting or study, and are "tolerated" as long as they are a fat man in a red suit delivering presents, or a chocolate bunny. "You're just being so negative... Nooo funn!" is one way to react, another (which I heard a lot at university) is "You don't actually BELIEVE any of that, do you?".. Well, yes, I did then and I do now, and I have this insatiable morbid curiousity about what lies beneath the surface (which is curbed only by a lack of time and resources - but I am still curious).
I do believe that tolerance is a good thing. In building materials, tolerance is set as the amount of variation allowed. It's not unlimited, it's from here to their and not beyond. It can keep 2 different materials in close contact from ripping each other apart... much like "tolerance" in a community prevents fires being set on residential property as a warning, or targeted humans from being torched. The problem is that modern liberal Western tolerance does not have agreed-upon parameters, 'safe zones', or ability to tolerate anything not polarized black & white visions of the world. .. which makes it totally odd that the superficial version of Holi should be popular, with no black or white anywhere.
Thank you for your wisdom, Meg! Tolerance is all well and good until it becomes tolerance of evil, at which point it becomes a sin of omission. The parameters that you mention used to be set by Christianity, and they defined what was intolerable. Now, as you say, there are no agreed parameters at all. And so we end up with the Wildean tolerance of anything except intolerance, which is not working out particularly well.
Thank you, Fr. Plant, for your courageous, acute, straightforward analysis of this troublesome situation
of the so called `western European` world. If only we could have an honest `dialogue` among us,
I mean if these problems could be honestly debated among people with different world views, we could have some hope of real cultural progress. But what causes more concern is the fact that the request of an honest dialogue is violently rejected by some (too many) of these people. Thank you very much for your articles. Fr. Franco Sottocornola (Shinmeizan)
Thank you as ever, Father.