What is tolerance? It is the prerogative of humanity. We are all molded with weakness and errors; let us forgive each other’s foolishness, this is the first law of nature.” – Voltaire
Thirty years ago, I owned a café restaurant named Hemingway’s. One of the staple items on the menu was escargots. I only mention this fact because I am currently in Paris – the home of cafés, escargots, and a young Ernest Hemingway. Thinking of the escargots that we served at my restaurant always reminds me of Jane, a waitress who worked in my employ. Jane may have been the hardest working waitress I ever had, but she had a tendency to make a face every time a customer would order escargots. What her facial expression conveyed to the customer was, “I can’t imagine ever eating these disgusting things, how can you?” Of course, I don’t think those words ever came out of her mouth, but her disdainful look said it all.
This past week, I was staying in Ferney-Voltaire where I paid homage to my other favorite writer. While there, I purchased a copy of Voltaire’s Traité sur la tolérance (Treatise on Tolerance), a work that was published in 1763. Concerning the 1762 trial of Jean Calas, a Protestant who was tortured and executed by the Church of Rome for the murder of his son, Voltaire wrote a scathing rebuke of the Catholic Church for its intolerance and fanaticism. Because of his treatise, he was successful in having Calas’ sentence posthumously overturned, two years later, by King Louis XV. While Voltaire’s work was primarily focused on the ideal of tolerance between different religions, it also can be a reminder of how enormously we benefit as civil human beings when we learn to tolerate different views.
As I was writing in Voltaire’s last domain, while he was in exile, I was struck by some of the current world news over the media but, more so, by the unprecedented lack of tolerance we see in the world today. And it got me thinking about the root of intolerance, and how innocent it can take shape within us. Which brings me back to Jane. How many times in our lives have we demonstrated, either verbally or by a facial expression, our disdain for something that we personally don’t like? Now, of course, there is nothing wrong with expressing to others what we don’t like. But, how often do we, inadvertently, judge others who like whatever it is that we do not?
Forget Jane’s disgust of escargots. I sincerely doubt if she ever negatively judged others just because they enjoyed eating snails cooked in garlic butter. But what about the current tendency of a significant part of the population who aren’t just “disgusted” with, let’s say, the President of the United States, but who don’t bat an eye when asserting that anyone, and I mean anyone, who voted for said President is less than human? I honestly can’t remember another time when such hateful epithets have been so gratuitously, and frequently, flung at others just because their political views do not coincide with the unhinged bile spewer. But it’s not just within the political sphere where we find such blatant intolerance.
Recently, an acquaintance of mine had the temerity to ask me, “How can you be a Catholic?” I assumed, by her question, that she must not think much of the Catholic Church (kind of like Voltaire) and, therefore, couldn’t understand how someone else, like me, could. I wasn’t immediately offended by the question, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she would as flippantly ask, “How can you be a Muslim? A Jew? A Buddhist?” In other words, what I heard in her question was, “I don’t believe _____, therefore how can you?” And here lies what I have come to believe is a very innocent root of intolerance.
Questions like “I don’t like spicy food, how can you?” or “I don’t like heavy metal music, how can you?” can certainly be asked without any judgement being cast on the other person. But what happens when someone asks, “I don’t like guns, how can you?” or “I don’t believe in abortion, how can you?” Isn’t there almost a natural propensity to judge or, worse, dislike another person just because they don’t like (or believe) the same thing as you? I think so. I see it every day, and it’s a growing blight on our humanity, responsible for causing a total lack of civility towards others.
Where it really gets dicey is when one posits, “I think _____, therefore you’re an absolute idiot if you don’t agree.” When people start to negatively judge others, to this degree, just because they don’t think alike, worlds collide. Unfortunately, this is the type of intolerance I witness all over the mass media, social media, and within our current political arena. Civility has become lost to the ages, much like powdered wigs and bellbottoms. What’s tragic is that, no matter how partial Voltaire might have been to powdered wigs, or I to my old pair of bellbottoms, neither of us could have ever predicted the amount of intolerance seen in today’s world.
Earlier today, I visited the Panthéon, where the body of Voltaire lies in the crypt. While there, I said a prayer. It was a fervent prayer that there may be a renaissance of tolerance and civility in our world sometime soon. Inscribed on Voltaire’s marble tomb are the words IL INSPIRA LA TOLÉRANCE (He inspired tolerance). He certainly has inspired me. My prayer is that Voltaire’s inspiration flows across our globe so that all humans can live and let live – and cultivate their gardens with seeds of love, peace, and tolerance.
