The Tolerance Paradox

It’s an accusation I’ve heard several times, almost always from conservative people when they’re called out for bigoted statements or behavior. Perhaps I’ve heard this statement more than most people because I’ve thrust myself into peculiar social circles. Yet it remains ready on the lips of the alt-right and self proclaimed white nationalists.

Boogie men (and women) lurk in the shadows and around every corner for these people. Their beliefs in superiority influence their thoughts and actions. It is their perception of liberals tolerating the things they hate which makes their protest ever more believable. In their minds, tolerance is the main tenet of liberalism. Therefore, any criticism of their beliefs from a liberal person is a display of intolerance out of step with the assumed progressive ethos.

I make no claim to being the representation of everything liberal. Some might call me a zealot but I aim to be more pragmatic in my approach of my personal politic. My bend to progressivism is rooted more in religious imperative than social preference. Considering the region where I live and the leanings of my family, it would have been easier for me to have remained a conservative, resting in the comfort of religious right spaces. Instead, I entered the narrow gate at a terrible cost of ridicule, isolation, slander, and abandonment.

Take my perspective for what it is: an observation. I speak for myself and actual validity among others from the left end of the political spectrum will vary.

The word “tolerant” is a bit misleading. Sure, I know many progressives who pride themselves for their tolerance of minorities whether it’s based on race, religion, or sexuality. But even for then, tolerance isn’t their true intention. They strive for acceptance. They accept queer folks, immigrants, people of color, Muslims, migrant workers, and any other marginalized community. They see the value and beauty in these underrepresented populations and tell them, “You’re welcome here.”

Those harboring bigoted ideals see this loving tolerance from progressive individuals and assume “If they tolerate that person and their deviant ways, they must tolerate me too.” Then they spout off something offensive and cry victimhood because their terrible perspectives weren’t tolerated.

Pure tolerance creates a paradox. It is impossible to be tolerant of all people in all situations because showing tolerance to some automatically treats another with intolerance. Sometimes it’s necessary to pick a side; choosing tolerance for one defaults to oppressing the other.

I’ll start with a completely neutral example. Nobody watches a boxing match and says “I hope they both win.” Such a declaration is absurd. Someone has to lose. It’s OK if you don’t know who to cheer for but you can’t expect two people to repeatedly punch each other and both walk away winners.

What if you have an islamaphobic person spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric? If I chose to tolerate their voice, I would be intolerant of Islamic people. And by default, tolerating the Islam faith means I’m intolerant of anyone who hates Muslims. I can’t play both sides.

This idea that our every thought (no matter how vile) must be tolerated flourishes on social media. We get caught up in the intoxication of reactions and replies. It feeds our dopamine addictions and fuels our selfish needs for admiration. The moment anyone responds critically or expresses disgust, our brains instantly feel discomfort. We have a biological need to explain anything that doesn’t fit the pattern of our preconceptions. One objection to our lesser id breaks away from the solidarity we crave so we rationalize it as someone being intolerant of our values. Someone utters “you probably shouldn’t say that” is met with “respect my freedom of speech.”

There’s irony when intolerant people demand tolerance.

Let’s be real though, I am not a tolerant person. I’m not tolerant of people who brand my disabled friends as lazy. I’m not tolerant of people who promote Russian propaganda. I’m not tolerant of people who describe everything they don’t like as woke. I’m not tolerant of gay jokes. I’m not tolerant of incels. I’m not tolerant of clergy who abuse women and children under the guise of godly authority. I’m not tolerant of people who think drag queens are more dangerous than automatic weapons. I’m not tolerant of book banners. I’m not tolerant of anyone who believes vaccines cause autism.

I am accepting though. I accept my queer friends and family members as wonderful people who were fearfully and wonderfully made. I also accept a homophobic individual’s rights to hate the LGBTQ community. I will not tolerate their bigotry though. I accept women’s place as equal and deserving contributors to all levels of culture. I also accept a misogynist’s grasp on patriarchy. I will not tolerate their arrogance though. Damn the man. I accept the diversity and strength of my non-white friends, celebrating their color and their cultures. I also accept a racist’s predisposition toward racism. I will not tolerate their prejudice though.

A chasm exists between tolerance and acceptance. You can’t tolerate everything but you can accept all things. Acceptance is possible for the people you love as well as the people you loathe. You can accept viewpoints conflicting with your beliefs. You can accept the practice of any religion, any gender identity, any education level, any political party, any national origin, and still not agree with them. It’s called being a decent human being. But I guess that’s considered “woke” these days.

The Best Advice I Ever Received

A corporate trainer was one of the first grown-up jobs I ever had. The type of work that felt more like a career than a paycheck, weeks filled with meetings and important interactions. I spent four and a half years of my mid-twenties in this position, met a lot of great people, took opportunities for business travel, and networked with colleagues who were predominantly my elders. By the time I transitioned into a new role with the company, I was burnt out. As much as I loved the job, it was clear I could not continue.

During this time, I played supervisor and coach to groups of brand new employees roughly every month and a half. Turnover rate at the company was high enough to ensure we were always hiring which meant there was a constant need for me to do my job. Two big issues contributed to my burnout: the people we hired and the time I was given.

During this new hire class, I had to teach grown adults ranging from fresh out of high school kids to elderly folks approaching retirement who had never used a computer. It was my responsibility to educate this mishmash swath of humanity about the products to sell, bills to read, systems to use, and etiquette of customer interaction. My biggest challenge was half of the people in my classes didn’t want to be there, they just needed a job.

Originally, these classes lasted six weeks, five in the classroom and one in production where they would shadow tenured employees. In an effort to save money, the duration of these courses were trimmed from six weeks, to five, then eventually to four. Also due to budget constraints, the eight hour long class time was cut down to six hours and forty-five minutes. What began with two hundred hours to instill as much skill and knowledge as I could into my students had to be compacted into one hundred one hours and fifteen minutes. I had to create an accelerated course to cover the same curriculum. Speed runs are a fun challenge with video games but tortuous with employment.

One class was my tipping point, the beginning of my end.

I had three weeks to teach soft skills for sales and customer service, demonstrate a dozen different computer systems, and discuss all of the details of five different products. The fifth one was my favorite because it was the one with which I was most familiar. It was also the most complicated for anyone without experience. We spent two whole days (a Thursday and Friday) talking about the fifth product and practicing how to order it. Then they had a weekend off and returned on Monday to start working with a mentor in production.

The fourth week of class was not entirely spent shadowing qualified employees. At the end of every day, we would regroup and discuss any questions they had from what they observed and address any knowledge gaps.

They also had smoke breaks which is where everything fell apart. If you’ve ever worked in a call center, you probably know the designated smoking areas are places for gossip and venting. The more time you spend in the smoking section, the more likely you are to hear someone complaining. Doesn’t matter if you’ve worked there for ten years or ten days. There was one call center I worked it in Sioux Falls (I won’t mention Citibank by name) where this phenomenon was so prevalent, employees referred to the smoking area as the “bitch deck.”

Trainees tend to gather in a circle while taking their cigarette breaks, even during the final week of on-the-job training. That first Monday contained a plethora of lament. I’m not a smoker so I only learned of how this conversation transpired after the fact from people who were involved. It went something like this …

Person 1: “It’s so stressful. I feel like I forgot everything Nic taught us.”
Person 2: “I took a call about product five and couldn’t remember anything about it.”
Person 3: “It’s almost like we didn’t talk about it during training.”
Person 4: “Yeah, I don’t remember Nic saying anything about product five.”

Now, this is all normal stuff. When you spend three weeks taking in large quantities of information, you’re not going to remember everything. That’s why I did the regroup sessions at the end of the day. Also, some people are nervous talking on the phone and being the expert customers expect. It could have all been handled and resolved except the last person in the above conversation started a mutiny. As soon as they said I never covered the fifth product, everyone else joined in claiming “I don’t remember Nic teaching it either” and “yeah, he didn’t talk about product five at all.”

Unfortunately for me, one of the supervisors happened to be outside smoking at the same time. She was standing apart from the group but close enough to hear the conversation. Since product number five was a huge source of revenue, she panicked. Instead of coming to me and asking what happened, she went straight to my boss and let him know I skipped a section of the curriculum. Then he, without confirming what did or didn’t happen with me, scheduled a day for that supervisor to come teach a section of curriculum I already spent two days teaching.

I was also put on a performance plan to correct my error despite the fact I made no error. My boss’s argument was “You said you taught it but she says you didn’t and she’s a supervisor so I have to take her word over yours.” A few months later, I was forced out of the learning and development team.

Not everyone in the class lost their minds. A few level headed participants expressed frustration losing a day in production to review something that had already been taught. One of them was roughly fifteen years older than me, an old school metal head all grown up and gentrified. He was a military veteran who liked guns but loved his kids more. He had a scathing sense of humor yet took his responsibilities seriously. I’ve never been adept at hiding my emotions and he recognized the grief I was feeling in the moment. He pulled me aside to give me a pep talk.

After listening to my tale of woe, how a few smokers looking for something to whine about made me look bad and placed my job at risk, he told me something I haven’t forgotten.

“You can’t make a rock do back flips.”

My job was to teach classes of adults to jump through hoops necessary to sell and perform customer service in an environment where customers might not want to do one and is unhappy with the other. The individuals causing my trouble were a bunch of rocks. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how well other people from the same class performed, those rocks were never going to do back flips.

Nearly two decades have passed since that conversation. I wasn’t happy to end my time as a trainer but in hindsight it was the best thing for me. Like I said, I was burnt out. I was tired of trying to teach people who didn’t want to be taught. I was tired of cramming content into an inadequate time frame. I was tired of trying to make rocks do back flips.

I changed departments and continued working for the same company. I remained there far longer than I should have. Things worked out and I’m happy doing what I do now. Still, rocks abound. Rocks are everywhere these days.

There’s a Bible verse my dad quoted a lot when I was growing up. It’s from the prophet Isaiah when God tells the people “Come let us reason together.” The God my dad taught me about is one who gave us brains, fully intending us to use them. Dad passed on the idea of a God who wanted us to study and learn about everything from the microscopic structure of the cells inside our bodies to the cosmic sights in the furthest reaches of our universe. I fell in love with a God who wanted me to appreciate the details, to navigate discourse with logic, and communicate with reason. Knowledge was sacred. Its pursuit was holy.

Looking back, I realize I was raised in a dichotomy. While my father imprinted God’s desire for us to reason together, I was also raised in the heyday of the satanic panic. I made my transition from high school into adulthood as purity culture began to flourish in evangelical churches. These two eras were not defined by truth and sound reasoning; rather they were born of innuendo and fear. Unfortunately, sex and witchcraft weren’t the only demons lurking around the corners of Christian imaginations: science was treated like the devil itself. I remember a youth leader letting me know biology teachers were going to teach me fancy stories of evolution with malicious intent and it was OK for me to pretend I believed them so I could pass their class safe with the real truth that evolution was a hoax. The wholesale distrust in public education we see today were seeds planted decades ago.

It should be no surprise our collective ability to reason together is sorely lacking, not just in evangelicalism but among the general public. This is what happens when society elevates ignorance as a virtue. For a while, I foolishly thought I could bring people to enlightenment with reason. I figured facts, evidence, and logic would convince others to see the flaws in their own understanding. I was wrong.

The older I get the more it becomes evident you can’t reason with the unreasonable. While I still crave the God who called us to reason together, I’m confronted with the sage advice I was given seventeenish years ago: you can’t make a rock do back flips. And there are a lot of rocks out there.