Love, Tolerance, And Polish People

If you read a lot of stuff online, you will probably see a lot of people being intolerant, all over the place. And you will see a lot of people proclaiming tolerance as a great virtue. Sometimes (often?) the same people. So how does that work?

Well, possibly because tolerance isn't actually a virtue at all. I did think about calling this post 'Tolerance Isn't A (Christian) Virtue'; but I hope to be more positive than that. I once heard of a great example of the difference between love and tolerance from someone I used to work with. I used to work in a shop wih a guy called Maciej - nice guy, very friendly, spoke English really well. Probably better than some English people I know. So, when he mentioned to me one day that he had come to this country partly in order to improve his English, I was quite surprised; I couldn't see that it really needed improving. And a bit later, someone else mentioned that he had asked him to pick him up on his English whenever he said something wrong. And I realised that that is what the difference is.

I was quite happy with his English - 98% of the time he was perfectly understandable, and because of this, I didn't pick him up on it. But, unless people did that, his English wouldn't improve any more. And he wanted it to. It's a bit like patriotism. A lot of people think of 'patriotism' as being something along the lines of 'my country right or wrong is always right'; but, really, what it should be is 'my country is great, but it could be better if we did...' - again the same difference, love or tolerance. And it also brings to mind the fact that love is hard; it requires effort. And taking the time to pay attention to people.

love is hard

So, what about tolerance, then? Well, I still work in a shop, and I think of tolerance like this. We get Polish people come in sometimes, and sometimes, when I ask them if they need any help, they say 'just watching' instead of 'looking' (as an aside, do you English speakers know exactly what the difference is? Hmm). So, obviously, I immediately pick them up on that. Or, actually, not. But, you might say, that's just politeness. Yes, exactly. Which is why I say tolerance isn't a virtue. However, love is. And respect. And even politeness. So work on those - and other virtues.

love is hard... but it is worth it