Tolerance

Tolerance

First of all I think that is important to make it clear what tolerance means to me. Social tolerance is the willingness to admit that others think or act differently from others. A tolerant action must involve an open-minded attitude towards others, be able to accept the differences and learn to live in an attitude of dialogue. People are tolerant if they are able to listen and come to an understanding, yield in some things for others, without being pigeonholed in their own positions.

Being tolerant is not easy. In my opinion, for being tolerant, it must be recognized that the differences between cultures and people are positive facts. Tolerance is a personal ability that develops during maturation of people and that can be learned. The maturity of people is a crucial factor to be tolerant. Weak and insecure people tend to be intolerant of others because they can cause defensive attitudes, closed and intransigent.

Tolerance generates tolerance. For this reason we have to try to accept others and make them understand that the best way to live is to be tolerant. Everyone can learn and modify their behavior towards greater tolerance. With tolerance it can also increase listening, respect, curiosity and personal enrichment.

What tools can we use to stay tolerant and be empathic and open-minded?

As I said earlier we all can learn to be more tolerant. I think the best we can do to be tolerant is live, live in other places, with other people and always trying to make the effort to accept their way of acting as legitimate as ours. But not everyone has the opportunity to do that and that is why I think there are many tools that can help us to be more tolerant in a world where every day there are more people who migrate and therefore, more cultural clashes.

Exposure to moral dilemmas, for example, is a good way to learn to accept other points of view, to be more self-criticism and to increase our tolerance. It is also important to think about the new things and ask questions to ourselves and to others in order to understand. It may also be interesting to write a diary about things that we observe and read it occasionally to realize that maybe there are things that we found strange in the past that now seem normal. We are all different and that enriches our world so I think that we have to undo all the damage we have on others. Dialogue can be a good tool to address some of the dilemmas that we can present and knowledge of other cultures and ways of doing can help us to understand each other and accept differences as something positive and enriching.

What kind of questions can you ask in order to reach understanding of a known – unknown situation?

First of all I think we have to ask ourselves why this situation seems strange. We have to think like we will do it at home and if we truly believe that our way of doing it is better. If we think that our way of do it is better, then we have to try to empathize with the other culture and understand why they do it differently because for sure there is a reason. If we are not able to understand why they do it might be interesting to ask someone who we have some confidence with respect and education why they do the things that way. Maybe the answer can surprise us and open new doors to understanding the world.