As to the negative connotations associated with "tolerance", the primary ones seem straightforward enough; for example, "tolerance" of such things as cruel and brutal treatment of women in some extreme segments of Islam. (Anyone who's spent any time arguing with right wing, "let's-bomb-Iran-and-spread-democracy-with-M16's" zealots knows about this type of hysteria, first-hand).
Secondary connotation is more subtle, having to do with perceived nature, or basis of tolerance. For example, one can say that they "tolerate gay people", and this can be taken positively to mean that the speaker is tolerant of human differences generally, or it can be perceived from the speaker's words that he takes the condition of gay-ness as some sort of non-optimal state which he shall nevertheless "tolerate".... I think this is what Joel was getting at, if I understood correctly.
Albus Dumbledore is Gay!
S: (n) tolerance (willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others)
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tolerance
well, we all know that words are alive beyond the dictionary´s definitions but it´s sometimes a good job to confront our own definitions with the dic´s ones. I like the upper one that s-t posted: the word willigness with all its tricky side!. No idea what the Real Academia Española said about the word tolerance, I´ll search about it.
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tolerance
well, we all know that words are alive beyond the dictionary´s definitions but it´s sometimes a good job to confront our own definitions with the dic´s ones. I like the upper one that s-t posted: the word willigness with all its tricky side!. No idea what the Real Academia Española said about the word tolerance, I´ll search about it.
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izeveryboyin
- Posts: 1112
- Joined: August 30th, 2004, 2:18 pm
- Location: Chicago
- Contact:
As a parent, I don't give a flying fuck that Albus Dumbledore is gay b/c he is FICTIONAL. As a avid Harry Potter reader and diehard fanatic (pre-order the last 3 books) I am very disappointed in his homosexuality only b/c it means that even if he had've lived, I wouldnt have been able to date him. TOTAL BUMMER. I think what she did was great though, however "subversive". I love a good surprise. And why not get people talking about my favorite character from the book? Dumbledore rocks. Gay or un-gay.
--k
p.s kudos on yyour Harold & Maude avatar. I LOVE that movie.
--k
p.s kudos on yyour Harold & Maude avatar. I LOVE that movie.
sometimes I just like to breathe.
www.technicolorfraud.blogspot.com
www.technicolorfraud.blogspot.com
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stilltrucking
- Posts: 20607
- Joined: October 24th, 2004, 12:29 pm
- Location: Oz or somepLace like Kansas
Bohonato
Do colleges still grade on the curve?
It was all the rage when I was in college.
the bell curve flattened
I been thinking about the bell curve a lot lately, almost a mystical symbol for me but I can't do the math
my biggest regret about college was not taking calculus.
Under the compassionate bell curve we all have so many variations, most people under the big hump in the middle will be heterosexuals I think. I think it is a good thing for the majority, the societal norms to be tolerant of those that are different.
I am going to stick with humpty dumpty's definition of tolerance.
Do colleges still grade on the curve?
It was all the rage when I was in college.
the bell curve flattened
I been thinking about the bell curve a lot lately, almost a mystical symbol for me but I can't do the math
my biggest regret about college was not taking calculus.
Under the compassionate bell curve we all have so many variations, most people under the big hump in the middle will be heterosexuals I think. I think it is a good thing for the majority, the societal norms to be tolerant of those that are different.
I am going to stick with humpty dumpty's definition of tolerance.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.
interesting
my college roommate during my sophmore was gay
annd i didn't have a clue
infact
we were also roommates my junior year in an apartment we shared with two other guys
he moved to sanfransisco
he once told me thhat he was never gonna get married
plus we had parties with ladies and booze
but when i trucked thru san fransisco coming down from the rainbow gathering, i got drunk and called him up
he was a typical bourgeois middleclass person
a nice liberal
this is more important to me than his partnering
the other guy in our apartment was a fiery headed jewish athiest majoring in religion and chinese
he always ridiculed me as a conservative rotc student
later when i re-contacted him i found out that he had spent twice the time in the military that i did
then went to sillycone valley, said thhat we shoulda bombed russia and china
putting me off
the homosexuality issue is scary for conservatives because it opens up windows into other worlds
but once this domain has been crossed, one realises that it is an illusion of relatively no importance, because we still got problems of disrespect all around.
i would hope some wizard would cast a spell
and send the war profiteers straight to hell
and you can be assured that there are gay war profiteers
who don't give a shit about commn folk.
Does gayness impell anyone towards morality?
We know that it is not immoral as such,
but sexual orientation is no guarantee of greater morality.
my college roommate during my sophmore was gay
annd i didn't have a clue
infact
we were also roommates my junior year in an apartment we shared with two other guys
he moved to sanfransisco
he once told me thhat he was never gonna get married
plus we had parties with ladies and booze
but when i trucked thru san fransisco coming down from the rainbow gathering, i got drunk and called him up
he was a typical bourgeois middleclass person
a nice liberal
this is more important to me than his partnering
the other guy in our apartment was a fiery headed jewish athiest majoring in religion and chinese
he always ridiculed me as a conservative rotc student
later when i re-contacted him i found out that he had spent twice the time in the military that i did
then went to sillycone valley, said thhat we shoulda bombed russia and china
putting me off
the homosexuality issue is scary for conservatives because it opens up windows into other worlds
but once this domain has been crossed, one realises that it is an illusion of relatively no importance, because we still got problems of disrespect all around.
i would hope some wizard would cast a spell
and send the war profiteers straight to hell
and you can be assured that there are gay war profiteers
who don't give a shit about commn folk.
Does gayness impell anyone towards morality?
We know that it is not immoral as such,
but sexual orientation is no guarantee of greater morality.
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]
ah yes i just used "tolerance" in hester's post in culture on Pakistan
about a recent article by thomas friedman comparing india, with a large muslim population, to pakistan, with a large muslim majority.
india has it's intolerant moments, mostly tho there is tolerance between the various cultural identitiies there and so this is a stimulous towards democracy, whilst an intolerance for diversity is a characteristic of the more aurhoritarian pakistan.
all the more reason to celebrate diversity, finding commonality.
congrats to joel for his burgeoning ministry.
about a recent article by thomas friedman comparing india, with a large muslim population, to pakistan, with a large muslim majority.
india has it's intolerant moments, mostly tho there is tolerance between the various cultural identitiies there and so this is a stimulous towards democracy, whilst an intolerance for diversity is a characteristic of the more aurhoritarian pakistan.
all the more reason to celebrate diversity, finding commonality.
congrats to joel for his burgeoning ministry.
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]
From The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, by Rainer Forst:
(emphases mine)
The term “toleration” — from the Latin tolerare: to put up with, countenance or suffer — generally refers to the conditional acceptance of or non-interference with beliefs, actions or practices that one considers to be wrong but still “tolerable,” such that they should not be prohibited or constrained. There are many contexts in which we speak of a person or an institution as being tolerant: parents tolerate certain behavior of their children, a friend tolerates the weaknesses of another, a monarch tolerates dissent, a church tolerates homosexuality, a state tolerates a minority religion, a society tolerates deviant behavior. Thus for any analysis of the motives and reasons for toleration, the relevant contexts need to be taken into account.
2. Four Conceptions of Toleration
The following discussion of four conceptions of toleration is not to be understood as the reconstruction of a linear historical succession. Rather, these are different, historically developed understandings of what toleration consists in that can all be present in society at the same time, so that conflicts about the meaning of toleration may also be understood as conflicts between these conceptions.
1. The first one I call the permission conception. According to it, toleration is a relation between an authority or a majority and a dissenting, “different” minority (or various minorities). Toleration then means that the authority gives qualified permission to the minority to live according to their beliefs on condition that the minority accepts the dominant position of the authority or majority. So long as their being different remains within certain limits, that is, in the “private” realm, and so long as the minority groups do not claim equal public and political status, they can be tolerated on pragmatic or principled grounds — on pragmatic grounds because this form of toleration is the least costly of all possible alternatives and does not disturb civil peace and order as the dominant party defines it (but rather contributes to it); and on principled grounds because one may think it is morally problematic (and in any case fruitless) to force people to give up certain deep-seated beliefs or practices.
The permission conception is a classic one that we find in many historical writings and in instances of a politics of toleration (such as the Edict of Nantes in 1598) and that — to a considerable extent — still informs our understanding of the term. According to this conception, toleration means that the authority or majority, which has the power to interfere with the practices of a minority, nevertheless “tolerates” it, while the minority accepts its inferior position. The situation or the “terms of toleration” are hierarchical: one party allows another party certain things on conditions specified by the first one. Toleration is thus understood as permissio negativa mali: not interfering with something that is actually wrong but not “intolerably” harmful. It is this conception that Goethe (1829, 507, transl. R.F.) had in mind when he said: “Tolerance should be a temporary attitude only: it must lead to recognition. To tolerate means to insult.”
2. The second conception, the coexistence conception, is similar to the first one in regarding toleration as the best means toward ending or avoiding conflict and toward pursuing one's own goals. What is different, however, is the relationship between the subjects and the objects of toleration. For now the situation is not one of an authority or majority in relation to a minority, but one of groups that are roughly equal in power, and who see that for the sake of social peace and the pursuit of their own interests mutual toleration is the best of all possible alternatives (the Augsburg Peace Treaty of 1555 is a historical example). They prefer peaceful coexistence to conflict and agree to a reciprocal compromise, to a certain modus vivendi. The relation of tolerance is no longer vertical but horizontal: the subjects are at the same time the objects of toleration. This may not lead to a stable social situation in which trust can develop, for once the constellation of power changes, the more powerful group may no longer see any reasons for being tolerant (cf. Rawls 1987, 11, Fletcher 1996).
3. Different from this, the third conception of toleration — the respect conception — is one in which the tolerating parties respect one another in a more reciprocal sense (cf. Weale 1985, Scanlon 1996). Even though they differ fundamentally in their ethical beliefs about the good and true way of life and in their cultural practices, citizens recognize one another as moral-political equals in the sense that their common framework of social life should — as far as fundamental questions of rights and liberties and the distribution of resources are concerned — be guided by norms that all parties can equally accept and that do not favor one specific ethical or cultural community (cf. Forst 2002, ch. 2).
There are two models of the “respect conception,” that of “formal equality,” and that of “qualitative equality.” The former operates on a strict distinction between the political and the private realm, according to which ethical (i.e., cultural or religious) differences among citizens of a legal state should be confined to the private realm, so that they do not lead to conflicts in the political sphere. This version is clearly exhibited in the “secular republicanism” of the French authorities who held that headscarves with a religious meaning have no place in public schools in which children are educated to be autonomous citizens (cf. Galeotti 1993).
The model of “qualitative equality,” on the other hand, recognizes that certain forms of formal equality favor those ethical-cultural life-forms whose beliefs and practices make it easier to accommodate a conventional public/private distinction. In other words, the “formal equality” model tends to be intolerant toward ethical-cultural forms of life that require a public presence that is different from traditional and hitherto dominant cultural forms. Thus, on the “qualitative equality” model, persons respect each other as political equals with a certain distinct ethical-cultural identity that needs to be respected and tolerated as something that is (a) especially important for a person and (b) can provide good reasons for certain exceptions from or changes in existing legal and social structures. Social and political equality and integration are thus seen to be compatible with cultural difference — within certain (moral) limits of reciprocity.
4. In discussions of toleration, one finds alongside the conceptions mentioned thus far a fourth one which I call the esteem conception. This implies an even fuller, more demanding notion of mutual recognition between citizens than the respect conception does. Here, being tolerant does not just mean respecting members of other cultural life-forms or religions as moral and political equals, it also means having some kind of ethical esteem for them, that is, taking them to be ethically valuable conceptions that — even though different from one's own — are in some way ethically attractive and held with good reasons. For this still to be a case of toleration, the kind of esteem characteristic of these intersubjective relations is something like “reserved esteem,” that is, a kind of positive acceptance of a belief that for some reason you still find is not as attractive as the one you hold. As valuable as parts of the tolerated belief may be, it also has other parts that you find misguided, or wrong (cf. Raz 1988, Sandel 1989).
(end)
In view of this, I suppose that I was using 'tolerance' in terms of the esteem conception. However, it seems that regardless of the four conceptions outlined above, there is always an implication that the opposing viewpoint somehow wrong or should be kept private. Even though homosexuality is not a 'belief' insomuch that it is not a choice, such as religion or a political position, the concept of toleration would imply viewing it as somehow inferior. If it did not, it wouldn't be tolerance but acceptance. This concept of acceptance does not involve assimilation, but rather an acceptance of diversity as it is. So I agree, we should aim for something more than just tolerance. Nonetheless, tolerance can be a useful stepping stone towards acceptance.
(emphases mine)
The term “toleration” — from the Latin tolerare: to put up with, countenance or suffer — generally refers to the conditional acceptance of or non-interference with beliefs, actions or practices that one considers to be wrong but still “tolerable,” such that they should not be prohibited or constrained. There are many contexts in which we speak of a person or an institution as being tolerant: parents tolerate certain behavior of their children, a friend tolerates the weaknesses of another, a monarch tolerates dissent, a church tolerates homosexuality, a state tolerates a minority religion, a society tolerates deviant behavior. Thus for any analysis of the motives and reasons for toleration, the relevant contexts need to be taken into account.
2. Four Conceptions of Toleration
The following discussion of four conceptions of toleration is not to be understood as the reconstruction of a linear historical succession. Rather, these are different, historically developed understandings of what toleration consists in that can all be present in society at the same time, so that conflicts about the meaning of toleration may also be understood as conflicts between these conceptions.
1. The first one I call the permission conception. According to it, toleration is a relation between an authority or a majority and a dissenting, “different” minority (or various minorities). Toleration then means that the authority gives qualified permission to the minority to live according to their beliefs on condition that the minority accepts the dominant position of the authority or majority. So long as their being different remains within certain limits, that is, in the “private” realm, and so long as the minority groups do not claim equal public and political status, they can be tolerated on pragmatic or principled grounds — on pragmatic grounds because this form of toleration is the least costly of all possible alternatives and does not disturb civil peace and order as the dominant party defines it (but rather contributes to it); and on principled grounds because one may think it is morally problematic (and in any case fruitless) to force people to give up certain deep-seated beliefs or practices.
The permission conception is a classic one that we find in many historical writings and in instances of a politics of toleration (such as the Edict of Nantes in 1598) and that — to a considerable extent — still informs our understanding of the term. According to this conception, toleration means that the authority or majority, which has the power to interfere with the practices of a minority, nevertheless “tolerates” it, while the minority accepts its inferior position. The situation or the “terms of toleration” are hierarchical: one party allows another party certain things on conditions specified by the first one. Toleration is thus understood as permissio negativa mali: not interfering with something that is actually wrong but not “intolerably” harmful. It is this conception that Goethe (1829, 507, transl. R.F.) had in mind when he said: “Tolerance should be a temporary attitude only: it must lead to recognition. To tolerate means to insult.”
2. The second conception, the coexistence conception, is similar to the first one in regarding toleration as the best means toward ending or avoiding conflict and toward pursuing one's own goals. What is different, however, is the relationship between the subjects and the objects of toleration. For now the situation is not one of an authority or majority in relation to a minority, but one of groups that are roughly equal in power, and who see that for the sake of social peace and the pursuit of their own interests mutual toleration is the best of all possible alternatives (the Augsburg Peace Treaty of 1555 is a historical example). They prefer peaceful coexistence to conflict and agree to a reciprocal compromise, to a certain modus vivendi. The relation of tolerance is no longer vertical but horizontal: the subjects are at the same time the objects of toleration. This may not lead to a stable social situation in which trust can develop, for once the constellation of power changes, the more powerful group may no longer see any reasons for being tolerant (cf. Rawls 1987, 11, Fletcher 1996).
3. Different from this, the third conception of toleration — the respect conception — is one in which the tolerating parties respect one another in a more reciprocal sense (cf. Weale 1985, Scanlon 1996). Even though they differ fundamentally in their ethical beliefs about the good and true way of life and in their cultural practices, citizens recognize one another as moral-political equals in the sense that their common framework of social life should — as far as fundamental questions of rights and liberties and the distribution of resources are concerned — be guided by norms that all parties can equally accept and that do not favor one specific ethical or cultural community (cf. Forst 2002, ch. 2).
There are two models of the “respect conception,” that of “formal equality,” and that of “qualitative equality.” The former operates on a strict distinction between the political and the private realm, according to which ethical (i.e., cultural or religious) differences among citizens of a legal state should be confined to the private realm, so that they do not lead to conflicts in the political sphere. This version is clearly exhibited in the “secular republicanism” of the French authorities who held that headscarves with a religious meaning have no place in public schools in which children are educated to be autonomous citizens (cf. Galeotti 1993).
The model of “qualitative equality,” on the other hand, recognizes that certain forms of formal equality favor those ethical-cultural life-forms whose beliefs and practices make it easier to accommodate a conventional public/private distinction. In other words, the “formal equality” model tends to be intolerant toward ethical-cultural forms of life that require a public presence that is different from traditional and hitherto dominant cultural forms. Thus, on the “qualitative equality” model, persons respect each other as political equals with a certain distinct ethical-cultural identity that needs to be respected and tolerated as something that is (a) especially important for a person and (b) can provide good reasons for certain exceptions from or changes in existing legal and social structures. Social and political equality and integration are thus seen to be compatible with cultural difference — within certain (moral) limits of reciprocity.
4. In discussions of toleration, one finds alongside the conceptions mentioned thus far a fourth one which I call the esteem conception. This implies an even fuller, more demanding notion of mutual recognition between citizens than the respect conception does. Here, being tolerant does not just mean respecting members of other cultural life-forms or religions as moral and political equals, it also means having some kind of ethical esteem for them, that is, taking them to be ethically valuable conceptions that — even though different from one's own — are in some way ethically attractive and held with good reasons. For this still to be a case of toleration, the kind of esteem characteristic of these intersubjective relations is something like “reserved esteem,” that is, a kind of positive acceptance of a belief that for some reason you still find is not as attractive as the one you hold. As valuable as parts of the tolerated belief may be, it also has other parts that you find misguided, or wrong (cf. Raz 1988, Sandel 1989).
(end)
In view of this, I suppose that I was using 'tolerance' in terms of the esteem conception. However, it seems that regardless of the four conceptions outlined above, there is always an implication that the opposing viewpoint somehow wrong or should be kept private. Even though homosexuality is not a 'belief' insomuch that it is not a choice, such as religion or a political position, the concept of toleration would imply viewing it as somehow inferior. If it did not, it wouldn't be tolerance but acceptance. This concept of acceptance does not involve assimilation, but rather an acceptance of diversity as it is. So I agree, we should aim for something more than just tolerance. Nonetheless, tolerance can be a useful stepping stone towards acceptance.
Yes indeed.It is this conception that Goethe (1829, 507, transl. R.F.) had in mind when he said: “Tolerance should be a temporary attitude only: it must lead to recognition. To tolerate means to insult.”
I remember my own evolution towards a recognition of gayness as an integral aspect of being awake, in terms of realising that cultural mores are subjective and arbitrary definitions that can be stepped outside of and alternative viewpoints/opinions can be realised. It was at first a phobia, then a tolerance, then an acquaintance, and now a celebration. After the hooplas have died down, there will be ongoing issues of other aspects of humanizing as well. This included being able to step outside of my conservative conditioning and to be able to disagree with the Vietnam War.
We got married by a lesbian Unitarian minister, who got booted out by the congregation eventually, don't know why, we left as my wife had problems with secular humanism and they were the strongest element in that particuular congregation. I consider myself to be a Buddhist-Universalist.
Hopefully the wizard will make a reappearance now that he has been liberated. Albus Dumbledore where are you when we need you?
And for you, Bonohato amigo, a strong affirmation in your empowerment, inner happiness, and resilience. I sufferred a long while without a real sense of autonomy or trust. Now I have them and know how important these essential qualities are.
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]
I´ll read the tolerance definitions later, I´m tired now to think too much.
I was surfing again the internet. Ah... the ingenio popular!!!
Does toleration had something to do with it? sorry, maybe a little out of topic:
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tUDGo8IKFQc&re ... ram><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tUDGo8IKFQc&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
"why don´t you shut up"? (por qué no te callas? in Spanish from Spain) told by Spain´s king to Venezuela´s president in the Cumbre Iberoamericana (a ´90 invention...)... weird situation.
I was surfing again the internet. Ah... the ingenio popular!!!
Does toleration had something to do with it? sorry, maybe a little out of topic:
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tUDGo8IKFQc&re ... ram><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tUDGo8IKFQc&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
"why don´t you shut up"? (por qué no te callas? in Spanish from Spain) told by Spain´s king to Venezuela´s president in the Cumbre Iberoamericana (a ´90 invention...)... weird situation.
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Zlatko Waterman
- Posts: 1631
- Joined: August 19th, 2004, 8:30 am
- Location: Los Angeles, CA USA
- Contact:
Triva bit:
( interesting to me-- a person who knows nothing of the Harry Potter books, but who saw the first movie-- at a friend's prompting . . .)
Michael Gambon, who plays Dumbledore, is heterosexual . . .
Sir Ian McKellan, who was offered the role but turned it down, is openly gay . . .
( link-- to a gossipy, somewhat silly article . . .)
http://www.cinematical.com/2006/02/14/i ... ay-in-hol/
--Z
( interesting to me-- a person who knows nothing of the Harry Potter books, but who saw the first movie-- at a friend's prompting . . .)
Michael Gambon, who plays Dumbledore, is heterosexual . . .
Sir Ian McKellan, who was offered the role but turned it down, is openly gay . . .
( link-- to a gossipy, somewhat silly article . . .)
http://www.cinematical.com/2006/02/14/i ... ay-in-hol/
--Z
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