And How To Be Civil with the Intolerable

In our increasingly polarized and divided society, tolerance and civility can be hard to come by. While we need them both to progress as a society, they’re often misunderstood. In fact, calling someone intolerant or uncivil is sometimes used as a weapon to shut down a conversation. This can make it hard to know when to promote tolerance — and when it’s ok to not tolerate the intolerable.

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What is tolerance?

The word tolerance generally has positive connotations. Tolerance implies being open-minded to people and cultures that are different from our own.  

Now think about the word tolerate.  When you tolerate something, you begrudgingly put up with it.  That doesn’t feel as positive.  And that’s ok.  Because tolerance is also about the willingness to accept someone (or their beliefs, actions, or practices) even when you disagree or find them abhorrent.

Tolerance is not the same as being neutral or even being polite and agreeable. A tolerant person can actively disagree with a person whose beliefs they disapprove of.  What makes tolerance unique is that it involves simultaneously disagreeing with and supporting the rights of the person you disagree with to express those beliefs.  

Tolerance protects diversity.  Tolerant societies do not force people to live a certain way and allow people to be their authentic selves.  Tolerant societies ensure that minority populations can practice their own beliefs even when the majority disagrees.  For example, religious tolerance ensures that Muslims and Jewish people can live without persecution in a majority Christian country.  Tolerant societies also allow for political, social, and cultural disagreement.  Tolerance makes it possible to live in a multicultural society and to coexist despite deep-seated differences.  

Tolerance in a state of polarization

The U.S. is experiencing intense political, ideological, cultural, and moral division.  And, not only are we fiercely divided, but more and more people are moving toward extremism.  To counteract this trajectory, many have called for a focus on unity and bipartisanship.  

To solve the world’s most pressing problems (think: climate crisis, racial and economic injustice, gender inequity), we need bipartisan cooperation.  In other words, we need to work together to achieve the common good.  And for cooperation to work, we need to be able to engage in dialogue and debate in order to find areas of potential agreement.  However, cooperation doesn’t require that we all think or act the same way (aka unity).  It does require us to recognize the right to disagree and acknowledge that our biases may prevent us from seeking common ground.  

For example, studies have found that conservatives tend to be biased against racial and ethnic minorities, atheists, LGBTQ+ people, feminists, Muslims, undocumented people, and people who receive public assistance.  At the same time, progressives demonstrate prejudice against Christian fundamentalists, big business, the Tea Party, men, the military, police, and rich people.   We must find a way to engage with and tolerate people who we may be biased against and/or with whom we disagree. 

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. In a large, multicultural country like the United States, the pursuit of common ground can lead to heated debates and hateful disagreements over injustice, oppression, and persecution. We may find ourselves debating with individuals who hold values and morals that are diametrically opposed to ours - perhaps that we even find reprehensible.

This leads some of us to ask ourselves: does being tolerant include tolerating intolerance?

The tolerance paradox

The right not to tolerate the intolerant 

Philosophers and political scientists have long debated the concepts of tolerance and intolerance.  In 1945, philosopher Karl Popper wrote about the tolerance paradox.  He argued that if a society became purely tolerant, it would end up tolerating intolerance. “Then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them…We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant,” he wrote. “... [W]e should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”  

There are some things that most people agree are socially unacceptable; murder, kidnapping, and slavery are examples.  Problems tend to arise when we disagree on what is tolerable and intolerable.  To help us define what is intolerable, it can be helpful to avoid moralization and utilize the harm principle.  

Avoid moralization 

Moralization turns preferences into values and core beliefs about how people, or even society, should behave.  People who hold strong convictions are more likely to be intolerant of others who have an equally strong alternative worldview.  While it’s good to have firmly held moral beliefs, such strong convictions on every point of disagreement make coexistence impossible.  We need a higher threshold to figure out what is intolerable.  

Utilize the harm principle 

The harm principle states that we should be tolerant of how others want to live, provided that it doesn’t harm anyone else.  But how do you define harm? A broad definition includes psychological harm caused by microaggressions and forms of free speech that could be considered offensive.   A narrower view of harm includes direct physical harm and beliefs or acts that threaten the existence of others.  Regardless of a broad or narrow definition, the harm is often aimed at people with certain historically marginalized characteristics (think: race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, etc.).  Learn more about how to find the balance by watching this short video.

Tolerance as a weapon

These concepts can help us unpack a trend: Some conservatives have tried to weaponize tolerance by claiming that progressives are intolerant when, for example, progressives call conservative ideas racist or “cancel” an offensive speaker.  But refusal to tolerate lies, misinformation, and disinformation is not intolerance.  Refusal to tolerate hate speech and the oppression, discrimination, and marginalization of certain groups based on their characteristics is not intolerance. However, refusal to engage in thoughtful debate with people who don’t share your views can be intolerance.  And refusal to try to understand a perspective that is different from your own can be intolerance.  

Some progressives are unwilling to listen to controversial or offensive viewpoints.  They argue that you are doing more harm than good by giving such people a platform.  And certain perspectives can indeed be very psychologically harmful — especially to the people being targeted by the hate speech or offensive viewpoint. Some speakers have even incited people to engage in physical violence.  Yet, ignoring opposing viewpoints doesn’t make them go away.  And for society to progress, we must be able to challenge our assumptions and understand counterarguments.   

It can be hard to find the line, which is where listening and civility come in.

The case for civility

While we don’t have to tolerate intolerance, we could all probably do a better job at listening to people with whom we disagree. 

Free speech advocate Zachary R. Wood states in his TED Talk, Why It’s Worth Listening to People You Disagree With, that it’s okay to walk away wholly unconvinced when engaging with controversial and offensive ideas.  Even so, listening helps us reach a deeper understanding of our own beliefs and, hopefully, enhances our ability to solve problems.  And, by seeking to understand another viewpoint, we may be able to find common ground with those who have not yet made up their minds or been indoctrinated to the other side.

Although listening to people we disagree with can be infuriating, shutting down the conversation may not be productive.  Problem-solving requires intellectual exchange, civil discourse, and critical debate.  And that’s where civility comes in.  In order to have productive conversations of disagreement, we need civility.

Oftentimes, when we hear the word “civility,” we may think that it means “be polite”— as if all these polarized times required were for people to politely ask for meaningful climate action, reproductive rights, racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, or any other number of critical platforms. Teresa Bejan, a political theorist and author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration, would disagree.  She argues that: 

• Being civil is not and cannot be the same thing as being respectful or polite.  You need civility precisely when dealing with those you find the most difficult or impossible to respect.

• Being civil can't be the same as being nice. Being nice means not telling people what you really think about them or their wrong worldviews.

• Being civil means speaking your mind.  But to your opponent's face, not behind their back.

• Being civil means not pulling your punches.  But not landing all those punches all at once.

• Being civil means disagreeing fundamentally.  But doing so without denying or destroying the possibility of a common life tomorrow with the people that we think are standing in our way today.

“And in that sense,” she states, “civility is actually closely related to another virtue, the virtue of courage.  Civility is having the courage to make yourself disagreeable, and to stay that way, but to do so while staying in the room and staying present to your opponents.”

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Originally published November 16, 2021.

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