TI=<'ADt:. MARK. ~ EG This Virtue Called Tolerance By DANIEL A. LORD, S. J. THE QUEEN'S WORK 3742 West Pine Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri Imprimi potest: . Peter Brooks, S . J. Praep. Provo Missourianae Nihil obstat: M. J. Bresnaha n Censor Librorum Imprimatur: >l< Joannes J. Glennon Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici Sti. Ludovici, die 22 Octobris 1941 ANY FINANCIAL PROFIT made by the Oentral Office of the Sodality will be used for the advancement of the Sodality Movement and the cause of Oatholio Action. Copyright 1941 THE QUEEN'S WORK, Inc. This Virtue Called Tolerance IS TOLERANCE a virtue at all? Is it anything other than a sign of mental confusion and personal cowardice? Is it something that we ought to cultivate or that we ought to root out of our souls? The Popular "Virtue" When any human virtue is praised as much as tolerance is, we reach the state of mind of Hamlet when he wondered if the praisers did not protest too much. Naturally we can not start any discussion of tolerance unless we realize why it is so vastly praised. Like the rest of civilized men and women who have taken to them· selves the pleasant prefix gentle, I abhor the cruelty and, if you wish, the intolerance of Hitler, Stalin, the K. K. K., the Jehovah Witnesses, the Jew-baiters, who make life intolerable for a large sector of their fellow men. But is what these supposedly "intolerant" people are doing really intolerance? Isn't it rather cruelty ... or greed . .. or ignorance . . . or a sheer love of making others suffer . .. or jealousy . .. or a blind, animal distaste for those who block their purposes? -3 - More Questions Since we seem to be in for a barrage of questions, I might as well go on. Is any man who has firm convictions about anything whatsoever capable of being entirely tolerant? Could you or I conscientiously respect a completely tolerant person? the sort of person who never cares what anyone says or does? who thinks all truths and all shades of lies and errors equally tolerable? who thinks nothing should be done to check the criminal or hold the beastly in control? Putting it in one final question: When we moderns use the word tolerance, do we really mean tolerance at all? Or are we thinking of some other real virtue that has somehow stolen into that capacious and often inaccurate word? Everywhere Today Tolerance is certainly a word that is thrown at us in the most unexpected ways. The leading quiz kid, little Gerry Darrow, in a famous broadcast that brought him basketfulls of mail asked for Christmas the gift of more tolerance. Doctor A. J . Cronin, a Catholic and a writer of. best sellers, writes his most suc- cessful novel, "The Keys of the Kingdom," around a priestly hero ·whose outstanding virtue is supposed to be "tolerance." Of tl:ie hero of this book the writer of the Jacket blurb says: "He believed that tolerance was the high- est virtue, and that humility came next." - 4 - Yet if Doctor Cronin himself-and - as a doctor-describes anything with intolerance, it is the way the Chinese doctors treat the patients who fall into their hands. He would clearly be completely intolerant of a witch doctor trying his incantations over the body of his own (Cronin's) sick child. He would absolutely and indignantly refuse to share his offices with an Indian medicine man who believed he could cure every dis- ease by dancing a devil dance around the patient. But Tolerant? - I am quite willing to agree that Father Chisholm, the hero of Dr. Cronin's book, is a patient man and a wonderfully gentle one. I think he had a genuine desire to understand what the other man believed and why he believed it. He had all that fine instinct that makes a gentleman loath to cram his own convictions, however sacred they may be or however fiOrmly he may hold them, down the unwilling craw of the other chap. He tried, as do all decent people, to see the good in everyone. But tolerant? Again we must refer to the blurb on the jacket. The reader, we are told, is bound to think of 8t. Francis of Assisi when he reads about Father _ Chisholm. Now undoubtedly in his love of human beings and his vast patience with them, in his unwillingness to beat them into submission or to sit in judgment upon their conduct or their religious beliefs, Father -5- Chisholm does suggest the holy man of poverty. But how utterly shocked St. Francis would have been had anyone called him tolerant! St. Francis He clung to what he believed with an almost ferocious tenacity. He wept bitter tears ove'r the sad plight of the Moham- medans. He yearned to pull sinners out of the quicksands of their sins. He longed to win the whole world to what he knew to be the religion that God had given through the voice and example of His Son. Undoubtedly 'Francis of Assisi was the gentlest man since Christ. He was tirelessly patient with the sinful, the stupid, the stubborn, the tedious. He sat and talked pleadingly with the Moslem rulers who fell captive to his charms. But he would have shuddered at the sug- gestion that he should regard Christ and Mohammed as joint rulers on the peak of some tolerant Olympus. He would have protested vehemently if anyone had urged that it didn't much matter what a man believed or what sort of road he tried to hew upward to the gateway of God. He would have given his life, not, like Voltaire, to preserve the right of a man to hold what he himself thought a wrong opinion, but to win a man to what he, St. Francis, was convinced was the essential truth. Why the Question? But before we plunge too deeply into the question, it might be smart to recall what - 6 - makes "tolerance" the question of the hour. Across the world have swept the forces bent on destroying all those who disagree with them and determined to root up any opinion that blocks their way. We have lived to see the advanced liberal- ism of the world swing to the opposite ex- treme of totalitarianism in government and thought. There must be one political system, and only one. The people of only one nation are the dominant race. All others are in- feriors, destined to be subject and slave. All people must think onl~ those thoughts dictated by a brilliant and unscrupulous propaganda. Minorities have no rights. All the strong freedoms by which we have lived are to be swept away. The picture is too familiar and immedi- ate to need more than the roughest of broad strokes. We have seen the fierce persecution of the Jews. We have seen Catholics in Mexico and Russia and France and Ger· many deprived of their natural rights be- cause of their adherence to what they be- lieved the teachings of God made man. The rights of the individual have been stripped away from him as you might strip an insignia of rank from the officer who betrayed his regiment. National aspirations have been treated as unworthy even of contempt, as ridiculous, fit only to be crushed and suppressed. -7- Do We Mean It? All that have we hated and despised. And all of it we have lumped under the convenient baggage sign Intolerance. Those who on the contrary have hated this sort of thing have been called tolerant. Intolerance then became the greatest of the c"rimes. Tolerance became the noblest of the virtues. Now it is a historic fact that people are always bragging about virtues which they haven't. I'm talking now, not of the liar and the insincere, but of people who simply pat themselves on the back for the wrong quality. Naturally a murderer WOUld, to protect himself, insist that he was full of the milk of human kindness and madly in love with his fellow man. The banker whose bank is teetering on a financial cliff will swear vehemently that he is completely solvent. The pursuer of innocence does not come in the guise of the howling wolf he is; he pulls up above his ears the pelt stolen from the lamb and camouflages his fangs by mouthing guileless "daisies." These men are frank liars. They simply claim to have virtues which they know they haven't. I'm talking now about the people who are themselves convinced they have this virtue, when really that "virtue" turns out to be some quality they never even thought of. -8- Honest or Frank? Take the young people who brag about their honesty. "Whatever else you may say about us- and perhaps that is plenty- one thing you'll have to admit," they brag: "We're honest." What they really should say is, "We're frank. " And that's another thing entirely. They probably are not a bit honest. They lie to their parents about where they've been. They waste in simply unscrupulous fashion the education that has been given to them. They steal book reports and hand them in as their own. They hand anyone who is simple enough to listen to them the most unblushing "line." They cheat skill· fully in examinations. They build up fabu· lous alibis to get themselves out of a jam. But after all this dishonesty, about which they may be perfectly frank, they still think they are honest. It's true, they admit, that they were tight last evening or not too careful about their personal conduct, that they put one over on the teacher or parents or told some chance acquaintance the most wonderful yarns. They don't see that this admission is merely frankness or candor; it has no slightest relationship to honesty. Murderers and highwaymen and bank robbers and kidnapers have been known to be notori· ously frank. They have seldom been honest. Faith or Hope? So good Protestants today are in many cases all mixed up about the virtues of -9- faith and hope. They say, "I have faith in Jesus Christ," which is precisely what they haven't. They may not believe half the things He taught. Out of all His clear teachings they may have selected just those which they wish to include in their own private little creed. What they really have is hope. They sincerely trust that in the end God will save them. They have no faith in hell, but they hope that they won't go there. They have no faith in Christ's doctrines concerning the Trinity; yet they hope to see God, whatever He may be like, face to face. They don't follow Christ in His clear teachings on divorce. They hope He will understand their weakness and forgive them. They don't accept any of the more diffi- cult doctrines. They rely on His goodness to make everything right in the end. While they are · not quite sure whether or not they ought to believe Christ God, they hope He will exercise a godlike pro- tection over them and love them with a godlike forgiving love. Really Patience So when people use the word tolerance today, they are in all likelihood thinking of another virtue entirely. They are thinking of the splendid virtue of patience, which we are inclined to call by the more modern name gentleness. -10- They do not admire a tolerant man. It is a question if they could admire him-sup- posing they understood what real tolerance means. They admire a gentle man or, if you prefer, a gentleman. They like a man who is strong enough to be patient. They admire courtesy shown toward those who don't deserve it. They love those humane qualities and virtues which make a man attractive and charming and understanding and quick to forgive. and Gentle So I maintain that when Dr. Cronin created Father Chisholm he made him, like Francis of Assisi, wonderfully gentle. Father Chisholm loved everyone, even the most unattractive, who stretched out a hand for help. He was decent even to the men who stoned him and to the bandit chief who captured him. That was splendid. That was very like Francis of Assisi or Christ the gentle Savior. But could he be tolerant in the sense that he could think all religions equally good? Could he let that bandit chief destroy his work, his orphans in their battered orphan· age, the nuns who depended upon him to save them? On the contrary he fiung the torch that destroyed his enemies. He was not tolerant enough to let the villains live to burn his orphanage, rape the nuns, hold his beloved little children slaves and prostitutes. -11- Sinner, not Sin So Francis of Assisi would and actually was-utterly have been- intolerant of heresy, error, sin, the evil practices that make mankind wretched. He loved the sinner, but he hated the sin. That sentence, old as it is, is the ultra quod non datur of human conduct. And though he would have given his life to turn the sinner from his ways, he could not pretend that he thought the ways of the murderer, the seducer, the tyrant, the thief other than the intolerable crimes they were. Voltaire Speaks Tolerance today is usually discussed in the light of Voltaire's famous epigram, which is variously quoted. In substance it always comes to this: "I will fight your opinions with my life, but I will fight to the death for your right to hold them"- which is probably one of the most ridiculous statements ever made. One can parody it rather easily: "I will fight your criminal conduct with the best police force, but I will fight for your right to be a criminal." "I will enforce laws to prevent you from selling opium, but I will see that you have a law that permits you to go Qn selling that opium." "I will struggle to prevent your hitting my mother, but if you hit her, I'll say, 'Bully, boy'!" "I will try to thwart your efforts to betray -12 - my country, but I concede your right to be as traitorous as you please." If Applied ••. All one has to do is think for just a second where that principle, if it were put into practice, would lead us. This man has the opinion that he is God. As such he has the right, he believes, over the life and death of others. "I will fight against your ridiculous idea, but I'll fight for your right to hold and practice your ridiculous idea." This chap thinks that Robin Hood was a wonderful character and that he himself, as Robin Hood's successor has a right to be a gangster, local or international. "I will fight to keep you from following your idea, but I will fight equally hard for your right to think you are Robin Hood and your right to hold up travelers on the highways or the high seas." This fellow believes that he will increase the world's supply of money by manufac- turing counterfeit money in his basement. "I'll fight to keep you from counterfeiting money, but I'll stop any FBI men who try to smash your press." This doctor thinks that the world would be improved if the practice of medicine were limited to the handing out of effective poisons to those who are annoyingly sick. "I'll tell you to your face that you are an enemy of society, but I'll denounce the American Medical Association if it tries to have your license revoked." -13 - Voltaire the Intolerant We could go on endlessly with this non- sense. I have often thought that the con- stantly insincere Voltaire merely said this in order to throw the authorities of that day off the scent. He wanted to say what- ever he wished to say. So he insincerely gave that right to others. He shamed his contemporaries into tolerating him by say- ing, "Don't you see? I'd to~erate you under the same circumstances." As a matter of fact he was bitterly in- tolerant. His one slogan and motto and platform for the Catholic Church was "Destroy the infamous thing!" One could hardly call that high tolerance. He dynamited the educational systems of which he did not approve. He lashed out in the most merciless satire at any person or any institution that he happened to find intolerable. He was intolerant of the lazy nobles, of the churchmen he disliked. He fought fiercely with Frederick of Prussia and was utterly without tolerance for royalty's sound opinions or nonsense. He was as intolerant as is that modern "liberal" Bernard Shaw, who quite calmly consigns to the gas chamber any enemies of society he wishes to brand with the title enemy. He rages at doctors who prac- tice vivisection and at little girls who sit down to eat a lamb chop. He regards charity workers as frauds worthy only of contempt. Indeed he finds it hard to bear up under - 14- the burden of living with the "so-called human race." The Word Itself That phrase bear up brings us to a brief analysis of the word tolerance. Dictionary definitions won't do precisely. They are too tinctured with common usage. And it is precisely this careless usage that I regard as confusing. Tolerance is a word that roots originally in the Latin word fero, which has for its past tense tuli, which means I carried, I bore, I sustained. So a tolerant person is one who bears and carries and sustains something laid upon him by his fellow men. A tolerant man in that sense will "bear fools willingly." He does not slap the stupid in the face or lash out at the bore. He tries to bear the difficulties placed on his human shoulders by the sins of other men and women. He endures patiently; and since the word patient comes from the Latin word patio?", which means to endure, the fact that he endures makes him patient, and the fact that he is patient makes him endure. Clear Limits But there are a great many limits beyond which no man is expected to endure. We are not supposed to endure crime. We pay a police department to see that we don't have to endure this. We do not have to bear the weight of a tyrannous con- queror. We build our army and navy as safeguards against that possibility. -15- We do not have to be patient with the murderer who under our window whets his stiletto or loads his automatic. We are not required to be tolerant with the man whose avowed purpose is the seduction of our sister. We may lose our patience to the extent of defending our mother. We are not obliged in all gentleness to stand by while villains plot the downfall of our coun- try. We do not have to bend our heads meekly when the thief snatches our purse from our back pocket. "I'm a patient man, but I can be pushed too far." That's a famous line, and one that makes us instinctively nod our heads. The most patient man, the most tolerant man, the man willing to bear up under insults and personal abuse in the end will come to the fraying-out of his patience. Gentle Understanding Oh yes; he really tries to understand his fellow . men. He tries to make all possible allowances for them. He does not damn the criminal unheard or regard all aggres- sors as villains worthy of the hangman's noose. In his desire to understand what has made men as they are, he looks into their back- grounds. He works to discover whether there is not some method by which they can be saved from themselves. So in back of the fallen woman he sees the villain who tempted her to sin or the squalid home from which she fled in youthful repugnance. He can almost see the petty thief emerging -16- from the slum in which he was born. He tries to find out what twist made the murderer turn to cruelty. He weighs the temptations that the other person may have suffered and thanks God that he him- self was not so sorely tempted. In trying to understand these elements, he comes to a point where he himself con- demns no one. He leaves that for God and the lawful authorities. He himself knows only pity and a kind of deliberately blind acceptance of the best that is in everyone. For Example ... Even in public enemies he makes an effort to see what led them to their courses. He reads Mrs. Sanger's account of her own unpleasant childhood home and the wretched life of her mother, and he under- stands why she strikes out blindly at motherhood. He hears "Scarface" Al Capone justify himself on the plea that as a public bene- factor he is merely trying to supply drink for the thirsting Americans of prohibition