In recent history, mainstream western society has placed a high value on inclusiveness. This preference is evident throughout popular culture.
It is currently considered more worthwhile to be sympathetic than it is to be accurate. There exists a ridiculous social condition where the status quo rests on tolerance. However, this tolerance extends only to others who also share the same “tolerant” values.
Is this true tolerance?
The value placed by society on critical thinking and cautious tendencies is significantly less than that placed on personal preference and tolerance in the present era. This tendency is hindering scientific education and progress, while also casting its dark shadow over the socio-political landscape.
There appears to be a widespread idea that “negativity” is inherently bad, and to be avoided. As a society we often say “yes”, when we should be saying “no”. This is an indication of excessive reliance on being tolerant.
Utilizing political correctness as the ideal for managing society fails to address the many problems actually inherent to our biological and social realities. Such an attitude inherently implies rejecting unpleasant facts, as well as fostering a general avoidance of the negative, an unwillingness to “feel bad”, and a crippling tendency of being unable to bear unpleasant objective experiences that must be endured in order to solve problems.
Objective critical evaluation is crucial to any sort of genuine integrity, and should synergize with the ideals of group advocacy, and the affirmation of individual preferences. These are both very important principles, neither should be neglected or blown out of proportion.
The issue with excessive reliance on tolerance is the spread of an insidious belief that all that is needed to have integrity is to be easygoing, sympathetic, and to proudly display one’s personal preferences.
Perhaps these may be admirable things, as the world definitely needs a reasonable degree of tolerance and self-expression. However, this social tendency has reached such extremes that it encourages insane levels of degeneracy. This tendency is also easily exploited by politicians and pundits, who use it to push aside many issues of profound importance.
There are some who believe themselves to be better and more enlightened than others, simply because they are more tolerant. This surface openness simply conceals a covert intolerance. Such individuals are secretly intolerant towards criticality, towards “no” itself! They affirm themselves and others, but are not willing to accept the need to reject, to forbid, to exclude, and to evaluate the world objectively.
We cannot simply discard that which we do not prefer, without examination, if we wish to have any legitimate understanding of the world. Nature is both nurturing and cruel, allowing personal preference to be expressed, while also balancing such preference with the objective realm of fact and necessity.
We must seek integrity within – a state of awareness that presents an unclouded mirror of Nature to our awareness – in order to truly solve the problems faced by our tribes, communities, nations, and the world itself.
The false integrity of superficial tolerance can only avoid difficult truths, because it would be too painful to address them directly. Likewise, being too critical, playing the “skeptic” (or the nihilist) is simply another trap, one that arises when one avoids subjective advocacy and places excessive reliance on objectivity.
For one to discover this integrity, one must come face to face with the shadow within, and embrace it.
Through this exploration of the hidden biases we hold, we can begin to perceive our “blind spots”, thereby achieving a greater state of wholeness, as well as a more encompassing awareness of the majesty and terror of existence itself.
