Proper Balance Can Sweeten Your Life

TOLERANCE is like sugar in a cup of coffee. The right measure can add a touch of sweetness to life. But while we may be generous with sugar, we are often miserly with tolerance. Why?

“Human beings do not want to be tolerant,” wrote Arthur M. Melzer, an associate professor at Michigan State University. “What comes naturally is . . . prejudice.” So intolerance is not simply a character flaw that affects only a minority; being narrow-minded comes naturally to all of us because all mankind are imperfect.—Compare Romans 5:12.

Potential Busybodies

In 1991, Time magazine reported on the growing narrow-mindedness in the United States. The article described “life-style busybodies,” people who try to impose their own standards of conduct on everyone. Nonconformists have been victimized. For instance, a woman in Boston was removed from her job because she refused to wear makeup. A man in Los Angeles was fired because he was overweight. Why the zeal to make others conform?

Narrow-minded people are unreasonable, selfish, stubborn, and dogmatic. But are not most people unreasonable, selfish, stubborn, or dogmatic to a degree? If these traits find a firm foothold in our personality, we will be narrow-minded.

What about you? Do you shake your head at someone else’s taste in food? In conversation, do you normally want the last word? When working with a group, do you expect them to follow your way of thinking? If so, it might do some good to add a little sugar to your coffee!

But, as was mentioned in the preceding article, intolerance can come in the form of hostile prejudice. One factor that can make intolerance escalate is severe anxiety.

“A Deep Feeling of Uncertainty”

Ethnologists have looked into mankind’s past to discover when and where racial prejudice has been evident. They found that this sort of intolerance does not surface all the time, nor is it manifest in every land to the same degree. The German natural science magazine GEO reports that racial friction surfaces in times of crisis when “people have a deep feeling of uncertainty and sense that their identity is threatened.”

Is such “a deep feeling of uncertainty” widespread today? Definitely. As never before, mankind is beset by one crisis after another. Unemployment, the spiraling cost of living, overpopulation, depletion of the ozone layer, crime in the cities, pollution of drinking water, global warming—a nagging fear of any of these increases anxiety. Crises breed anxiety, and undue anxiety opens the door to intolerance.

Such intolerance finds an outlet, for instance, where different ethnic and cultural groups become intermingled, as in some European lands. According to a report by National Geographic in 1993, Western European countries were then host to more than 22 million immigrants. Many Europeans “felt overwhelmed by the influx of newcomers” of a different language, culture, or religion. There has been a rise in antiforeign sentiment in Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden.

What about world leaders? During the 1930’s and 1940’s, Hitler made intolerance a government policy. Sadly, some political and religious leaders today use intolerance to gain their own ends. This has been the case in such places as Austria, France, Ireland, Russia, Rwanda, and the United States.

Avoid the Trap of Apathy

Too little sugar in our coffee and we sense that something is missing; too much sugar and we have a sickeningly sweet taste in our mouth. It is the same with tolerance. Consider the experience of a man who teaches in a college in the United States.

Some years ago, David R. Carlin, Jr., found a simple yet effective way of stimulating class discussion. He would make a statement designed to challenge the views of his students, knowing that they would protest. The result was a spirited discussion. In 1989, however, Carlin wrote that the same method no longer worked well. Why not? While students still did not agree with what he said, they no longer bothered to argue. Carlin explained that they had adopted the “easy tolerance of the skeptic”—a carefree, couldn’t-care-less attitude.

Is a couldn’t-care-less attitude the same as tolerance? If nobody cares what anybody thinks or does, there are no standards at all. The absence of standards is apathy—a complete lack of interest. How can such a state of affairs come about?

According to Professor Melzer, apathy can spread in a society that accepts many different standards of behavior. People come to believe that all manner of conduct is acceptable and that everything is simply a matter of personal choice. Instead of learning to think and to question what is acceptable and what is not, people “often learn not to think at all.” They lack the moral backbone that moves a person to stand up to the intolerance of others.

What about you? Do you occasionally catch yourself adopting a couldn’t-care-less attitude? Do you laugh at jokes that are lewd or racist? Do you allow your teenage son or daughter to view videos that advocate greed or immorality? Do you feel it is OK for your children to play violent computer games?

Tolerate too much, and a family or society will reap anguish, since no one knows—or cares—what is right or wrong. U.S. Senator Dan Coats warned about “the trap of tolerance as apathy.” Tolerance can lead to being open-minded; too much tolerance—apathy—to being empty-headed.

So, what should we tolerate and what should we reject? What is the secret to achieving the proper balance? This will be the subject of the following article.

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Strive for balanced reactions to situations