You mention the focus at your Thanksgiving gathering on being a family which prevented the sometimes harmful comments of some from causing an explosion of rage. Toleration is certainly warranted, but keeping focus on what is really important would seem necessary, too. In a similar vein, I have served in a prison ministry for something like 10 years (I've lost count). The director is a rapture-loving, conservative Pentecostal whose education stopped at 14. I am an election-believing, liberal Presbyterian whose education includes a masters from a well-known university. I thought I would last as a volunteer for only a few months since all of the vols are conservative Christians of one type or another; I clearly didn't fit. But the director made it clear that vols were NEVER to engage students (inmates) in theological discussions. His reasoning was practical. These students are master, life-long manipulators and will take the wisest down an interminable rabbit hole and own you and your class. It also points to the always speculative nature of theology. We never talk theology together. We get along great! Our focus is on serving the men in prison, and so long as we stay focused on what our real task is, our mission, then we can have a great relationship all around. By having this relationship, I was able to intervene when a local leader, a Muslim woman, wanted to bring the Toastmasters program into the prison. Getting permission from the prison admin is not simple. I was able to use my credibility with the director to overcome the nasty Islamophobic crap that he (and probably the warden) had been hearing - that's another story - to get him to sponsor her program to get it in the door. He recognized the benefit of the program and overcame his concern that a Christian ministry program was assisting a Muslim woman. Before long, she was flying on her own, garnering lots of positive publicity, and had the warden on speed-dial. Having a relationship focused on the mission made the difference.

A useful thinker on tolerance and intolerance is Karl Popper, who identified the paradox of tolerance as one of the challenges for a free and open society to navigate. Here is a useful discussion: https://www.openculture.com... Note, Karl's advice would be to eat the meal with your intolerant family members, building bridges of a shared community, and when their anti-tolerant views come up, to argue against them. And even when they don't come up, as they did not at your gathering, that actually offers an opportunity to provide them some thought examples to possibly make them reconsider basic ideas that drive their intolerance.

Breaking the community, and cutting off communication, as some of your commenters seem to advocate, destroys the ability of reason and discourse to change minds, and forces any dispute to go into a conflict of power/force (use of votes to impose policy on the unwilling, one way or the other, is still recourse to violence, not reason). The intolerant he advocated banning were only those who used or advocated the use of force to prevent discourse, as preventing discourse pretty much guarantees the failure of an open society. Which in this case seems mostly to be your critics on the progressive side, not your intolerant but still communicating relatives. Popper would not agree with the path of banning expression of bigoted views at all.

I think you're
are on the right track here. Tolerance is a sword that cuts both ways but much easier for some of us to wield it than others, especially those who are too busy using their shields.

You're

Thanks. I never make that mistake. :)

"Tolerance" is not "acceptance" or "agreement". I would say it needs to be best thought of as a sort of holding pen or quarantine for the dangerous, hateful or obnoxious pending whatever (if anything) can be done to cure them of whatever is driving them to be like that. It doesn't mean humouring them, or not challenging them, or not making it absolutely clear that they are being quarantined and why, and nor does it mean not doing whatever is necessary to keep them safely boxed up from harming others.
Yes, it is from a position of privilege, because you can only tolerate people whilst you are in a position of strength to ensure their potential to harm is safely contained. To say one is "tolerating" someone is to say you could be in a position to exact revenge in or persecute them, but choose to refrain. It makes no sense to talk of the weak "tolerating" the strong, but that doesn't mean that those who are privileged enough to be able to shouldn't.
Going back to dinner, it is entirely proper to exercise tolerance and quarantine the "problematic" views of family members to permit family ties and occasions to continue, if that means making it clear those views are not agreed with it approved of, and if the occasion is to go ahead, are off limits for discussion. Tolerance means saying, effectively, "You can join us if you can keep a civil tongue in your head while you are here."

I remember a time when it was rumored that Westboro Baptist Church was intending to protest Silver Taps at Texas A&M. This is an annual rememberance of all students and alumni who have died in the preceding year, and it is semi-sacred in the community. I can confirm that this is not the most welcoming university for LGBT folks, having been out on campus in the late '80s. However, the reaction against WBC was so strong that I got the impression that LGBT toleration was advanced a bit by the event. Or non-event, I should say, as WBC never showed up. Had they done so, there were literally hundreds of people there ready to physically impose themselves in between.

I wonder if extremists, if they are a sufficiently small minority and sufficiently extreme, might help the groups they're intending to attack, simply by appearing as so very unreasonable and hateful.

I remember seeing video of a sermon by hate-preacher Stephen Anderson, in which (as he rants about executing gay people) one family suddenly gets up and walks out, to much derision. I guess they finally had more than they could stomach. On one hand I have to wonder what took them so long, but at least they eventually found a line they wouldn't cross.

I do have a few things to say on this. (I am Biracial, cis-het male, Christian, Anglophone [English is my first language], native-born US citizen, lower income.)

I am a Peace and Conflict Studies minor, and one thing I remember from my classes to listen to interests and not just positions (interests are the reasons for the positions), especially if basic needs (such as survival/welfare needs, security, freedom, identity, etc) are involved. (This can be illustrated by the relationship between Egypt and Israel in the 1970’s: both claimed the Sinai. However, Israel’s interest was security and Egypt’s sovereignty. An agreement was reached in which Egypt got Sinai and there was a demilitarized zone along the Egyptian-Israeli border.) I must also note to take into account one’s own interests and needs as well.

It seems like the interests/needs of Team Tolerance Is Privilege include security and fear that their security will be thrown under the bus. For myself, I see things from a different perspective: some of the rhetoric critiquing the tolerance view reminds me of Rightist rhetoric about not “negotiating with terrorists6” during the wars of the aughts. In fact, the same rhetoric used to criticize those who engage Rightists also could be used to justify Rightists who denounced Leftist engaging with Islamists1 such as the Muslim Brotherhood and more violent6 groups such as al-Qaeda, Hezbollah1, Hamas1, etc. (I will note that rhetoric about privilege wasn’t as ubiquitous in liberal circles during the aughts as it is now.) The question being raised is whether or not accepting the denunciation of those who engage with Rightists means that one should also avoid engagement with Islamists1, and whether or not accepting engagement with Islamists1 means accepting the legitimacy of engagement with Rightists. (For me it is more than a thought experiment: I took International Conflict Resolution this past semester and consider it a high probability that I will work internationally and that I will encounter such scenarios. In fact, I had a classmate in some of my Arabic classes who is a Salafi Muslim. [Salafism is a conservative, even fundamentalist, form of Islam1.] Many of his views would cause liberals to cringe and parallel similar views among Evangelicals. He even indicated support for Trump...and he is POC.)

That actually raises the question for me as to the degree to which time and eras affect one’s views: are folks who are more cool with engaging Rightists more likely to be old enough to remember the aughts and to apply the same explanations towards Rightist extremists as were applied to Islamists1 in the aughts? Are folks who are more resistant to such engagement more likely to not be old enough to remember the aughts.

"In fact, the same rhetoric used to criticize those who engage Rightists
also could be used to justify Rightists who denounced Leftist engaging
with Islamists" In general, I think denunciation rhetoric is likely to be ineffective. The main exception is when it can be shown that the group being denounced has successfully deceived people about its true intent. Unmasking such manipulation can be powerful, and that is one reason why master manipulators are engaged in muddying the waters, trying to fill the air with accusations to give people an excuse to continue being fooled.

Speaking straight out of my White male privilege, I think we progressives have lost track of some basic distinctions. The defense by the ACLU of the anti-Semitic march by neo-Nazis through Skokie, IL was not an endorsement of their views or an acceptance that they might be right, it was a restraint on the use of force to silence speech. The last four years should surely have taught us that commitment to basic liberty is not a given, and that we have to continually commit to prioritizing rights of those we disagree with as well as those we agree with.

That said, I don't mind taking my turn to correct lies put forward by protectors of dominance and privilege, or to expressing opposition to hate speech. But it's critical to oppose the message, not the right to express it.

The ACLU lost ~25% of their membership over their support of the Skokie march. I joined the organization because of it.

The ACLU lost ~25% of their membership over their support of the neo-na*i march. I joined the organization because of it.

Absolution ("formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment") denies the lessons learned from making errors. We get stronger only when we tear our muscle tissues without fully separating our muscle tissue. Jesus did not lose His scars after resurrection. We do not lose our scars from carrying our cross as His students (disciples). We grow from them. There is no magic (slight of hand erasing what has happened) to living life as God has done without beginning, and will survive without end. Children of God from Man have a beginning, as Christ did as the Son of Man, who are offered no end with one, and only one, condition. They must hate human traditions of ignorance, me and mine before all others, so much to accept only one Father, one Teacher and one Instructor (Luke 14:25-27, Matthew 23:8-12, Matthew 12:49-50). The law that all of God is subject to eternally is summed up in everything do to others as you would have others do to you. Freedom of religion practiced by disciples of Christ means having as much empathy, tolerance and forgiveness for those of each religion as we would want each religion to have as much empathy, tolerance and forgiveness for our religion (or nation, or sexual orientation, or gender, or heritage, or ...).
ALL scripture, all the Law and all the Prophets, chronicled forever sharing God’s love, is completely summed up according to the will of God, the Father, as in everything do first to all others, of Godkind and Mankind, as each and all of us would have all others do to us. That is the fruit of love for God, Man, neighbor, sister, brother, and enemy as we each love ourselves in our flesh and in our spirit. This is simply and clearly chronicled in Matthew 7:12, 22:37-40, and Luke 10:27-28. Continued theological scripture study is fruitless if the effort is meant to define an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law, ruling Man and God (sin) especially if done so to judge another before yourself (Matthew 7:3).

In addition to what Vance Morgan has pointed out, would you please tell us what to do in the face of evil with which George Floyd's family and the Pittsburgh Jewish community have been confronted? This high-minded magnanimity of yours hasn't served these people too well.

You are right, of course, and I meant this not as a "sermon" to minorities, but as a sermon to people like me, of white privilege, seeking absolution in appeals to tolerance, without really understanding the plight of our neighbors.

Perhaps you could (briefly) explain what this has to do with the content of this essay?

I am so sorry for my verbosity and failure of perspective. My intention (small as it is) was merely to say that it is we (the white privileged) who fail to "do unto others" when we preach tolerance to minorities whose plights we can never know.

Tolerance has been preached (even by myself) as a tool for self-absolution. Not as a way to truly see Jesus in another person.

May I say that "teaching tolerance" has gone too far in U.S. "liberal" and "left-wing" circles? Lessons in tolerance are for those who can afford to be forbearing. If a man "tolerates" a female colleague or partner of equal or similar talent or other merit, it's because he can afford to give some ground to her. If a white woman carefully thinks through her presumptions and learns to work amicably with one or two black men, it's because the free passes and protections she enjoys as a "Karen" give her the space she needs to make those small concessions. (Why are we so afraid of these guys, anyway?!) And even among downtrodden non-whites, cis-het men can acknowledge that the civil-dignity claims of the women and GLBT's in their neighborhoods are based almost entirely on the Gospel, the Bill of Rights, and the sermons of Dr. MLK.

But since when are Jews supposed to sit and listen to anti-Semitic abuse, or blacks to white racist tirades? The problem with the gratuitous insults white Christians routinely throw at non-whites, non-Christians, and the marginalized in general is not that those mean gestures hurt the targets' feelings, because those feelings are solely in the heads of the individuals having them. The problem with the insults is that they are declarations of civic and economic war on the recipients; the speaker is declaring that they intend to undercut the vital interests of the people they hate. And this is an attitude worth stamping out, which is why swastika displays are prohibited in modern Germany.

Everyone, unless they are abusing someone either verbally or physically, needs and wants to be accepted, not merely tolerated.

Which is as may be, but handsome is as handsome does. Un-handsome people do not deserve respect. Dr. MLK did ask that people be judged by the content of their character.

What is your definition of "unhandsome?" If you are referring to those who inflict harm upon others, by word or deed, then I agree with you. Others can inflict harm by being so super-sensitive that they look for slights. Some even still feel "slighted" or "disrespected" over something that occurred years ago, and they never asked a person if they changed their perspective as they became more mature.

Thanks for this enrichment of yours. I would just qualify that asking someone, in so many words, if they have "changed their perspective as they became more mature" would come off as rude and judgmental. I've only been as rude as I have here because I don't like acceptance seekers, which is something I will have to clear up.

Here's a cartoon illustration of the kind of people we can all afford to tolerate, and grant basic liberties to:

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

And a great 20th-century philosopher's take on why murderous ideologies don't deserve the tolerance of the people they aim to injure and destroy:

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Jennifer A. Nolan, 'ya talking about Mitch or the minions?

Talking about the undocumented immigrants, Dan.

Caged kids at the border! Yes! The s.o.b.! Sorry, Jennifer, but in my first glance I never got past the Republican's blind anti-abortion stance while minimalizing their lives once they're born! Good case in point!