Tolerating the Intolerant
Free-market fanatics, racist bullies, and techno-elites all see nature as a cruel competition
Does everyone get to be on Team Human? How do we practice social inclusion with those who don’t want to be included?
If we can summon enough of our own humanity to really listen, we’ll find that most of our counterparts are not truly violent or irredeemably mean-spirited. Understanding their fears and then working together toward our common goals is far more constructive than pretending that entire populations have no humanity at all. This means venturing as far back into their emotional logic as it takes to find something we can identify with — the valid feelings they hold, before they are transformed into their more destructive expressions.
The enemies of a tolerant, inclusive culture don’t see their position as inhumane or racist. They see the history of the world as a competition for dominance, and their own race and civilization as the rightful, if unrecognized, winner. What some of us understand as the aggressive, colonial expansion of white European nations, they see as the growth and spread of civilization itself. Might makes right. So, in their view, those of us who are attempting to promote the cultures, values, and languages of defeated peoples are retrieving failed approaches…
