olerance is the mantra of modernity.  And offhand, one would have thought that the relationship between tolerance and hate is as follows: The more tolerance increases, the more hate decreases.  For it has been said that it is intolerance that has been the cause of so very much hate.  And there is surely no denying the truth of this latter claim.  But if the latter claim is true, then the question that forcefully presents itself is this: Why has not hate decreased in the wake of increasingly greater tolerance?  I have a simple answer, namely objectivity. 

Objectivity is to tolerance what nourishment is to food.  Food without nourishment will lead to death, no matter how tasty the food might be.  Tolerance without objectivity will lead to disaster, no matter how appealing tolerance alone might first appear. 

The claim that I have just made about food is, of course, beyond dispute.   By contrast, many no doubt the truth of the connection that I have claimed between tolerance and objectivity.  So I need to make the case for that.

To state the obvious, the tolerance in question is moral and social tolerance.  After all, no one is talking about being tolerant with regard to how airplanes or trains operate.  We want these modes of transportation to operate effectively.  And it is manifestly clear what we have to do in order to achieve that.  Again, no one is talking about being tolerant with regard to whether lions are generally ferocious or whether the domestic dog is the elephant’s natural enemy.  The laws of nature with regard to wild animals seem to be a rather settled matter.

But when it comes to human beings, the thought seems to be that there is no right and wrong way to live.  Hence, there are no deliverances from human nature in this regard.  And part of the argument, of course, is that human beings have remained alive across a multitude of radically diverse social practices.  Implicit in the argument is the assumption that human beings would die from the practices if the practices were inimical to human nature.  So, as the rhetorical question goes: Who is to say that one way of life is better than another? 

Slavery quickly becomes problematic for this point of view, since those who insist upon tolerance most certainly do not mean that slavery is just fine in societies that practice it.  And while slavery itself has died out here and there, this is not because sufficiently many of those who were either slaves or slave owners eventually died from the practice that sustaining the practice was no longer feasible.  Nor can it be argued that human nature is such that the being a slave naturally deemed inappropriate and despicable to all who are slaves.  For one this claim is false.  For another, this claims is incompatible with the very thesis advanced by those who demand tolerance, since the claim entails, contrary to what the advocates of tolerance maintain, that human nature does yield some truths about what is good and not good for human beings.

Rightfully mindful of the damage that intolerance has done, advocates of tolerance thus reason that it is better to be tolerant of all views than to be misguided en masse by a mistaken one.  Therein lies the problem.  Being tolerant of all views is not an enemy of hate.  Rather, it is a mighty friend of hate.  And one reason for this is that tolerance silences both criticism and self-criticism. 

All a person has to do nowadays is to claim to be following the traditions of his people in thinking or doing something.  And voilà: The individual almost has free rein to hold any view he damn well pleases.  “Women should be subordinate to men”: My tradition says it is so.  “All whites are racists and deserves to die”: My tradition says it is so.  Tradition bestows moral impunity upon all views.  For that, alas, is what tolerance of others is all about.  Suddenly, being true to one's traditions is a sine qua non of living well.  Whites, of course, are the exception to this principle.   

But unless one is blind, it has to be obvious that tolerance thus understood is extremely fertile soil for the seeds of hatred—the very thing that tolerance is supposed to undermine. 

Remember the idea that it is better to be tolerant than to be in the grips of a mistaken ideology.  Tolerance: Behold thy self.  Advocates of tolerance: Behold the nasty and bitter fruits of your ideology.  Here we are in the 21st Century; and hatred abounds.  And the unmistakable handmaiden of hate has been tolerance.  

My view is that tolerance without objectivity silences criticism and self-criticism.  And where the good for oneself has implications that involve the will and moral standing of another, it is simply not enough to cite tradition as a justification for one’s behavior.  Thus, hatred cannot be justified in the name of tradition.  Nor can the superiority of one’s views be justified simply in the of tradition. 

The distinctive feature of human beings vis à vis other creatures on the face of the earth is that we are capable of self-reflection.  Tolerance is inimical to self-reflection precisely because it allows people to hide behind tradition in advocating some of the most vitriolic views known to humanity. 

There is no denying that there have vicious and horrendous ideologies.  But the very point is that we rightly hold these ideologies to be false.  So the very consideration that animates tolerance is objectivity—not its absence.  The idea has been to avoid false ideologies.  This cannot be done by pretending that tradition suffices to render a view immune to moral and rational criticism. 

It will not be lost on the philosophers reading this page that what I have done is given substance to the view that the idea of tolerance when pushed far enough because incoherent, since it allows that one tolerance intolerance itself.  I have done so by putting a little flesh on the bones of tolerance, namely by drawing attention to the reality of hate. 

Present-day-advocates of tolerance must surely do mean to be supporting hate.  A most poignant truth is that is precisely what they have unwittingly done.  This is why it is has turned out that in the 21st Century the hatred that prevails is radically at odds with the fact of humanity that is known so well to all.  For the present-day-advocates of tolerance have, in the name of tolerating traditions, given their blessings to hatred itself.  No matter how sacred one’s traditions may be, the de-valuing of innocent life is not thereby rendered less morally depraved. 

To the extent that we have allowed tolerance to hijack the reality of moral innocence, we have become accomplices, however unwittingly, of evil itself.