Only the tolerant are tolerated. . .

For a very long time it has been presumed and taught that only the wise and the strong are able to change their minds and their thinking.  Indeed, in order to be wise and strong you must be able to place what you believe and hold into the background and engage those things that challenge or conflict with what you believe and hold.  Weak people are ideological and foolish people hold to such things as Christian faith.  The goal of life ought to be how to tolerate every opinion and judgment and preference as equal, equally moral, and equally respectable -- except the intolerant ones, of course.

The reality is that this is the fallacy of nihilism.  The absence of conviction is not strength or wisdom but just the opposite.  The insistence that words and acts be freed from morality and conviction does nothing good but creates an unhealthy and unstable world -- just the kind we are living in today.  Our society and world are not in danger from people who believe too much but those who believe nothing except what they feel or desire or experience.  Even these are not the overriding principles that define a person and their character but limited to a moment and without a lasting impact over the life or thought of the person.  This is the reason that politicians seem to shift positions constantly and why the public seems not to care about these flip flops or detours.  This is the reason why religions which are popular are those seemingly divorced from their convictions from their holy books or great teachers.  Moderate religion is all in vogue precisely because it mirrors the same flexibility and detached truth that is in favor with culture, education, and society as a whole.  It is all good.  Except that it isn't.

The elevation of tolerance to the primary virtue over fact, truth, and belief has left us floating on a sea of change with nary a rudder around us to direct where we are headed or how we will get there.  We awaken every morning to discover anew where we are.  In this world, the one thing needful is not what you believe or confess nor is it tied to virtue but ends up being respect for diversity and individuality above all.  The society is at work creating an uninhibited culture of individuality in which the very same individuals are devoid of conviction -- except diversity and tolerance and equal weight to all opinions (except those deemed intolerant).  When Christian duty and submission to accepted morality began to die out, the very fabric of our unity and our responsibility also began to wane.

People have come to desire more than all other things their own choice -- without judgment or challenge.  In such a world, a common life is hard to establish and community difficult to instill.  Even more difficult is responsibility to family or neighbor.  Think how easily we began to believe the lie that it is more important for husband and wife to be happy than to be dad or mom to their children.  This thinking has surely pervaded the educational establishment in America and it has flooded the home and family as well.  We owe no one anything except to be true to ourselves.  It sounds so noble but it is childish and selfish.  The situation is exacerbated by the decay of religious knowledge and education of the people and by the promotion of a most illiberal education in which facts and truth matter little.  Sadly, even science has been hogtied and roped into service to the ideal of a valueless world in which true to self is the greatest freedom.  The old science of test and result that leads to truth has given way to truth that defines how to test and what result to achieve.

In the end, this is the worst form of intolerance because it masks what is true freedom and tars and feathers this ideal with the most shameful of condemnation only to leave us without cause or means to communicate with integrity or debate what is good or evil or improve what is wrong.  The biggest lie of all is that we need to understand ourselves and the world around us and accept what we find in that world and in that unrestrained self.  Everyone does what is right in their own eyes has as its worst outcome that there is no evil, no boundary to rein in our unfettered desire, and no ability to reflect upon words or actions and their value for the whole as well as the me.