To think that 'tolerance' has gone too far

[AKMD]

I am wearing a hard hat ready to be flamed...

I came across an article in a religious magazine and I felt that it really defined my confusion about the line between being tolerant and standing up for morality. This is a quote from it:

"Until recently in our national history, tolerance referred to racial and religious non-discrimination. It meant civility in the political arena; in other words, respecting the right of others to express their views, even if we do not agree with them. It meant treating all people with decency and respect...

Today, however, the world is in danger of abandoning all sense of absolute right or wrong, all morality and virtue, replacing them with an all-encompassing ?tolerance? that no longer means what it once meant. An extreme definition of tolerance is now widespread that implicitly or explicitly endorses the right of every person to choose their own morality, even their own ?truth,? as though morality and truth were mere matters of personal preference. This extreme tolerance culminates in a refusal to recognize any fixed standards or draw moral distinctions of any kind. Few dare say no to the ?almighty self? or suggest that some so-called ?lifestyles? may be destructive, contrary to higher law, or simply wrong.

When tolerance is so inflated out of all proportions, it means the death of virtue, for the essence of morality is to draw clear distinctions between right and wrong. All virtue requires saying no firmly and courageously to all that is morally bankrupt.

Curiously enough, this new modern tolerance is often a one-way street. Those who practice it expect everyone to tolerate them in anything they say or do, but show no tolerance themselves toward those who express differing viewpoints or defend traditional morality. Indeed, their intolerance is often most barbed toward those of religious conviction... Believers of all faiths have every right to participate in and share their convictions in the public arena."

The whole article is here under the article " Defending the Family".

I've really noticed on MN that anyone who suggests that certain lifestyle choices might actually be wrong gets flamed for being judgemental and intolerant, when in fact those choices are root causes of family breakdown and wider negative impacts on wider society. AIBU to think that there is a limit to tolerance in that it should protect the integrity of our society, not seek to make it ok for everyone to do whatever they want?

When people talk about the demise of society, values etc they are usually referring to the demise of their own stranglehold; of forcing their values and morality on others.
I don't see how their can be any objective statement on the state of society. Looking around, it seems to me that most of us are much better off in so many ways than our parents were.
As for "virtue," what loss exactly are we supposed to be lamenting?

Right so if once a year I send the kids to my Mum's, and go out to an awards ceremony with the community arts type group I am invovled in knwoing I will get drunk that's a bad thing?

Really?

So how come I end up feeling refreshed, enthused for the next year, and as if I am actually enjoying DH's company as a human rather than investing my time in some never ending domestic slog?

My dad was an alcoholic when I was small (not now- proud of him). I know the effects of drinking and indeed have ahd uncles die from cirrhosis. I am a firm believer in balance though- the odd night out with your mates getting drunk (asopposed to wasted and vomiting everywhere) is fine. Too often it becomes a problem.

Not convinced on the whole traidiotnal stable notion; our society has a system whereby single parents are more likely to end up in poverty and where the things that presipose people to poverty are more likely to end up in marital failure (eg disability). Very hard to pick poverty apart from outcomes, gien that poorer children tend to 'fail' more anyway (as research out today shows).

I consider myself a very moral person. I try to be anyway, far from achieving it yet but I try. I suspect however that the version of that held by the OP and I are widely different. I absolutely consider not heaping blame ontos truggling famillies whose history I don't know about to be immoral. I consider anything that paces the way for racism, homophobia, encouraging people to remain within unhealthy marriages immoral. Morality IMO is about doing the best you can with the cards you ahve been handed, not about judging other people's efforts without knowledge of their life.

I think that you have to remember that we only have the choice of what religion to follow in this country is partly because Henry VIII couldn't keep it in his trousers. Great 'traditional system' to base things on, man full of syphillis, couldn't produce enough sperm for a son, so swaps and changes belief so he can bed another woman (as usual they aren't so lucky being female and not 'virtuous' enough).

Re identity vs behaviour. Although that can sound like a pretty sensible theory, in practice it's the arguement used by religions the world over to continue discimination of homosexuals - i.e. love the person hate the sin. I think the debate here is who defines the behaviours which are "immoral"

"Birmingham City Council actually issued guidance to nurseries advising that Baa Baa Black Sheep could be offensive here, although they later scrapped that advice, so it's not the left-wing press."

You really think an eleven year old(!!) link to one council's extremely misguided guideline (which was almost immediately repealed) proves that the silent majority have been scared silent by the far left thought police?

Are you Richard Littlejohn in disguise?

Why is it that every time someone states that people are afraid to say what they think for fear of being called offensive/intolerant, they then follow that up with an example like single mothers or the burka or some other issue which is actually criticised all the time.

People can't be that afraid of causing offence, or they wouldn't constantly be discussing the supposed evils of these issues.

At the risk of being over-simplistic, here are some behviours that I would call traditional values: a 2-parent household with a married couple as the head of the home, families making sacrifices of material possessions and luxuries to stay out of debt and be self-reliant, , mothers staying at home with young children being a viable financial option for the majority of all families, families taking responsibility for the care of their own vulnerable members wherever possible - the elderly for example, and people taking responsibility for their own behaviour.

Have to go but will catch up later.

People in Britain didn't get married straight away, that is were the saying 'living over the brush' came from, we have in the UK always had a range of living arangements. Women died in childbirth and people died younger, easier, so the 'dilemmas' that we have now wasn't an issue. If we look to after the creation of the Welfare state it becomes obviouse that 'traditional' values didn't work as well because life changed. We would bankrupt the country and the world if we only spent what we could really afford our economy doesn't work like that anymore.

you need some measures of stability if you expect to prove your case!

Chen23 As someone who lives in Birmingham, I can say that I was surprised that link is that old.

Unfortunately, there are people who aren't quite sure what is and isn't allowed and BCC saying that they are no longer going to tell people not to, isn't quite the same as them telling people they can/should.

Besides, all the poster was doing was to prove it wasn't made up by the DM at some point and did actually happen.

ginmakesitallok yes, that's a fair point, except that those fundamentalists confuse the two deliberately - 'identity' was used rather loosely, and in the case of homosexuality it's a question of whether you believe it to be a lifestyle choice or not (I don't - like, who would actually choose to have all this crap in their lives?) so your point about definition is well made. 'Behaviour' is equally problematic - certainly individuals choose to have sex in a particular way; whether they are moral or not to me comes down to issues of consent, how they treat their partner etc, not the specific thing you do in order to float your boat, as it were...

why did I post on this thread again?

Pre the industrial revolution women worked alongside the men until they were leglislated out of the workplace (Factories Act), totally created system to maximise profits.

' 2-parent household with a married couple as the head of the home, families making sacrifices of material possessions and luxuries to stay out of debt and be self-reliant, , mothers staying at home with young children being a viable financial option for the majority of all families, families taking responsibility for the care of their own vulnerable members wherever possible - the elderly for example, and people taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
'

all of which describe my own set up to the extent that I am a carer whilst Dh works- although we are not entirely self reliant

But

it takes nothing for that set up to become immoral: expecting mum to stay at home rather than just ' a parent' (at some point we may well swap over, I am higher qualified than DH). if one hits the other does the aprent who says stop andleaves become immoral? Is someone not self reliant immoral- so ds3 who is disabled, is his existence which will always be via ESA / DLA going to be immoral? What about my carer's allowance then? What if ahd just been born gay, or fallen out of love, or like my friend unable to marry her partner because the tosser whop fathered her children and is now on the run won't sign divorce papers?

Absolutes never work.

And people are scared to say what they think? really? i take it you haven't witnessed some of the threads reccently about disabled people then, where MN has had to step in and delete? Or is it only when anonymous that bigits feel free to speak up? because you know, that's a good thing. Someone looking at ds3 and deciding that he offends their 'traditonal values' (lock em up in asylums) should not feel free to voice that around him.

Sorry AKMD, but there is no way my MIL will be living with me when she is old. Guess I'll have to live without some 'traditional values'

Articles like this are scaremongering drivel, written to instill a sense of fear in the reader and to foster a greater bond between the reader and the organisation that publishes it. The organisation will spout endless amounts of rubbish to prove that "society is going down the drain, and everyone else but us is wrong".

Unfortunately believers in this kind of nonsense use magical thinking and circular logic to prove their point, even when they're not what their point is.

I like this quote by Stephen M Cahn:-

To act morally is not to act out of fear of punishment; it is not to act as one is commanded to act. Rather, it is to act as one ought to act. And how one ought to act is not dependent upon anyone's power, even if the power be "God".

"Unfortunately, there are people who aren't quite sure what is and isn't allowed and BCC saying that they are no longer going to tell people not to, isn't quite the same as them telling people they can/should."

I'm not quite sure I quite get the point youre making there tbh, are you saying there's a set unwritten PC gone mad rules that people in Birmingham are subjected to; that BCC council are oppressing the good people of Birmingham and restricting their free speech, but in an unwritten and unprovable way? Not quite sure I but it tbh.

"all the poster was doing was to prove it wasn't made up by the DM at some point and did actually happen"

OP was trying to make a wider point about UK society which I don't think that link came anywhere to making.

even when they're not sure what their point is

Society is moving forward, away from conformism.

And who would be the powers that be that would dictate what is and isnt tolerable to begin with?

As an individual and more so as a woman, I don't need nor do I want a conformist idea on how I should live my life being breathed down my neck at every turn.

We are moving away from that, why would we want to go back exactly?

I have not read the article, just responding to your question.

In my book, my actions are only wrong if they infringe on the basic human rights of another person, including my own friends, family and children. Then someone can tell me I am wrong. Otherwise, I like being free (relatively speaking) to make my own choices and live my life in the way I choose.

A few decades ago in this country, divorce was a taboo, society felt it would lead to disaster for for the integrity and social fabric of this nation. For that reason, women would stay in abusive relationships, who would want to regress back to that exactly?

YABU.

I do agree that we have a real problem with excessive drinking in this country, but see it as a health, public safety etc. issue (e.g. A&E on Friday night) not a moral one, any more than obesity is particularly a moral issue.

The idea that sex before marriage is always damaging just seems bizarre to me - like all my friends I had relationships, met (now) DH, went out, lived together, decided to get married, had children, happily settled. There's no way I could have got married without living together first and finding out whether it could really work. OK, unplanned pregnancy and STDs are problems, but you don't define driving a car as a moral issue because of the risk of traffic accidents.

I think there are benefits to 'traditional values' like care of the extended family, but also downsides such as the burden on women to be carers. The tendency to keep things within the family and discourage divorce means women being trapped in abusive relationships - particularly if they have given up paid work to care for the family and are therefore financially dependent on their husband.

I had a friend post it on their facebook wall - he's a bit of a crusader to prove that morality was hijacked by religion

I think it does stem from religion but my motto is to do unto others what you would have done to yourself.

If it's not going to hurt anyone and it's not illegal then go for your life!

Homosexuality / 'spilling seed' was condemned by early churches because it doesn't generally lead to more adherents. Likewise with food hygiene laws, see how fast a tainted haul of shellfish or pork can lead to death-by-food-poisoning = less adherents.
It was all to do with the early leaders wanting to build up numbers protect the followers, no more, no less. But they dressed it up as a sin to frighten people into adhering to it.

Tolerance is indeed a horrible word, meaning that something was simply 'put up with'. Acceptance is indeed a better word.

Most modern religions are simply manmade, by man, for men, as a form of control, over society and women. According to many religionists, it is better to have a violent father in the house than a free and happy mother. Riiiiight. Tell that to the five-year-old child dodging flying ashtrays and mopping up their mother's blood.

Some friends and I were talking this morning, and we've come to the conclusion that the misogyny that is endemic in most some religions is simply because the priestly men were scared of the ladies who could pull a new human being out of their ladygarden, were frightened that this magick god-given power might overwhelm the men, so they oppressed us.

Murder, theft, molestation, rape, they are immoral and should remain so for ever.
Loving someone who is the same gender is simply love, no more no less. Getting drunk and hurling in the gutter is a rite of passage, maybe misguided, but certainly not evil.
And IMO, anyone who heaps hatred on someone simply because they are a free woman or someone who was brave enough to say "I love THIS person", the hater is the immoral one.

What, if anything, has led to the breakdown in society is the lack of community, a lack of love for our fellow human beings. "It takes a village to raise a child" is not far wrong.
"We should be raising our children to be homophobic and misogynistic drones" is wrong.
I don't know if there is a God or a Jesus. But if Jesus was as cool as they say, I'm pretty sure that he'd rather someone fed the hungry and clothed the naked, whether gay, lesbitarian, 'straight' or single mum, than said 25 Hail Mary's everytime they saw an ankle.

I am not going to pretend any more that I have respect for any religion.
Because I don't. Not one jot.

What I DO respect are decent, loving, caring, law-abiding, compassionate and kind fellow human beings, whether religious or not.
I don't care what they have in their pants or what they do with it, I don't care if they wear a cross, crescent, star, whatever, as long as they are decent, caring and compassionate human beings. Because we are ALL human.

That is my humble opnion. Now I am going to published and be damned. Oh, wait...