International Relations Blog Posts

Chris Danielson

PSC 222

Op-Ed Week #6

The Irony of American Tolerance

Recently I read an article that gave background information on the recent flare up of hostility between Israel and Palestine, and it quickly became apparent that both sides were firmly planted in their positions and completely unwilling to compromise with one another. It was evident that both sides were taught to hate each other, which brought the idea into my mind if there was anything that we, Americans, were brought up to hate. I could only come up with one answer, and that was, intolerance.

Over the past few decades, the United States has made great strides in improving social equality among its citizens. Although it's not perfect, and racism, sexism, and homophobia are still in existence, a large social stigma has been created against vocalizing disagreements with one of these minority groups. This made me wonder if that if the US as a society has become intolerant with the goal of attaining tolerance.

The answer to this is, like most questions, “both”. Domestically, I think a lot of American individuals are afraid to speak their minds because they're worried about receiving unwanted diatribes. This is problematic, because it curbs speech. While it may do away with a lot of hurtful speech, it does away with a lot of speech that may be necessary in order to further educate the public, as well. I think of the recent sex change of Caitlyn Jenner and how it was spammed all of the news for weeks about how much of a hero she was, and if you didn't agree, you'd be called a bigot.

This issue also makes me think of America's intolerance in the name of tolerance, relating to foreign affairs. The United States was intolerant of the way the Soviet Union was treating their people and running their country, therefore, the US and the USSR became interlocked in a struggle that lasted the course of several decades and threatened to exterminate the world.

Again, in Afghanistan, the US was intolerant of how the Taliban was treating their people and invaded. The result is that the US has spent billions of dollars and lost thousands of troops trying to stabilize a region that they only ended up disrupting further.

My point throughout all of this is not that tolerance itself is bad, but that, like anything else, if taken to its extreme, it can become problematic. If we know anything about the American public, it's that they like things simple, black and white, which usually ends up in the oversimplification of very complex situations. While dumbing down the issues may be helpful for a candidate to win the support of the American public, it's absolutely disastrous for our country as a whole, because the people lose power when they're ignorant, which allows a small elite to make decisions without checks and balances.

The ingraining of tolerance among the past couple of generations has allowed the US to hurdle threatening obstacles that have plagued its history. However, balance is key, and we must be vigilant not to become intolerant with the goal of gaining tolerance.