FundamentallySound Blog

Arthur Japin, a Dutch writer, has written a new book about the Dutch and their relationship to the concept of tolerance. In it, the main character makes observations such as

"Tolerance is not the same as acceptance. It is actually closer to the opposite: tolerance like this is a clever means of repression. If you accept others as equals, you embrace them unconditionally, now and forever. But if you let them know that you tolerate them, you suggest in the same breath that they are actually an inconvenience, like a nagging pain or an unpleasant odour you are willing to disregard."

I've had similar thoughts as this, especially while living in Japan wherein complete acceptance really isn't a goal to strive for as it is de facto an impossibility. But the Japanese are tolerant, no question about that, but the tolerance is as described above, a way of delineating the outsider from the insider, of reminding them how different they are from the norm. But maybe the Japanese (and the Dutch) are only being realistic, maybe tolerance is the best we have on this planet. Total acceptance of the outsider might be beyond the realm of our potential as a species.

Americans tend to espouse the idea of acceptance every other breath, but I can't help but notice that acceptance, in the American sense, means that one should adapt completely to American culture. And then I do think a kind of acceptance does occur, the stranger is now one of us. But it's of a type that comes with such a high price tag that it's startling to notice how so many people buy into it. (Dogville brutally made this point quite well). But in defense of this country, I do think the only way we'll ever get anywhere is by doing something I've seen here more than in other parts of the world. It happens especially in cities like Oakland or New York, everybody just gets mixed up with everybody else in a small little space then we're all forced to get to know one another, we learn both the nice and the and the not so pretty.