Is tolerance intolerant?

[bennyboy]

The problem is that some traditions conflict with each other, or are considered an offense just by existing in the same place. Confederate memorials are a secular example of that-- statues don't really do harm, but if you want to get excited enough and paint it as implied aggression and so on, it's not very hard to get there. I doubt we'd argue that I can show pride in my German heritage by wearing a Nazi uniform to school every day-- even though the actual harm done to others is non-existent. I couldn't wear shirts with very offending images of Jesus or Muhammad. I doubt you'd want my kid showing up in school with Satanic imagery, demanding to be allowed to show depictions of a ritual sacrifice at the holiday pageant.

So to some degree, there's really no way to make rules to cover everything. "You didn't SAY I couldn't slaughter a mouse at school!" We have to depend on civic principles of toleration, but also of understanding offense.

I'd say in the US, the sense of civil unity is so fractured that people just don't care about each other. If most people can find a way-- ANY way-- to make the world turn around them for a day, they're likely to do it. It seems to me that unless the population is unified by a very important goal-- say, a war with China or a massive plague or something, this is unlikely to change.

That was one of the biggest advantages of religion-- that it gave very different people a sense of unity so long as they showed up at the same church on Sunday. Now-- there really is nothing to unify us except for our mutual distrust and dislike of each other.