Hey all: the reason I am posting this is because I wish to apply for the National English Honor Society, and this so happened to be one of my rough drafts. It was a terrible idea to write on this topic, but I figured it had a place here. The reason why it is so bad? Well, the prompt was "explain a concept, idea, person, or place that is overrated"...So hopefully you see why this would not work. I have to admit, I did not look this over to the fullest, because I did not intend to submit it and I have to write something else pretty fast. Speaking of which, if you have ideas, float them my way.
In the present, there is a slew of pop-culture trends that have practically taken hold of everyday life. The world knows them all: rap music, Tik-Tok dances and challenges, and online influencers, to name quite a few of them. But, these concepts are only surface-level icing on the cake of society. Rather, the real defining features of a society are its common beliefs, and by far the most overrated value in society today is that of tolerance. Tolerance is so flooded with approbation that a majority proclaim it to be absolute, the misguided support constant in everyday life.
The post-modernity global philosophy has bred a false, firm, and unfortunately executed definition of tolerance like no other civilization in history. The Western world, notably, has shifted its gears from truth to tolerance. Many would describe tolerance as “putting up with something” or more crudely, “sucking it up.” Now, the connotation of acceptance is something generally seen as more loving and kind than the connotation of a word such as tolerance. This would be because acceptance involves wishing for the good of another, in other words, love, and truth, while tolerance commands one to be a bystander. Acceptance involves action; tolerance is the opposite. Tolerance of others’ opinions can be a way to solve problems that need to be addressed, as discourse must occur honestly and possess a reasonable objective in order for the conservation to reach a point where it is completed. Tolerance is hailed by its many proponents, when in reality, it is rare when someone tolerates someone’s opinions or actions, as it can often be a label used for silently agreeing with that person. In fact, those that speak of tolerance as a perfect moral system, will be forced to reprove the alleged infractions of the intolerant so that tolerance reigns supreme, presenting the impossible-to-solve paradox of complete tolerance. Should African-Americans have been tolerant of Jim Crow and the tyranny of the Ku Klux Klan? Should have Jews suffering from one of the worst genocides ever to plague mankind been tolerant of the situation? Should Ukrainians tolerate Russia’s unprovoked invasion? The answer to all of these questions is obviously no, because there are such things as right and wrong, good and evil, truth and utilized as a cultural weapon. This is why tolerance is so overrated in today’s world: it is so much so referred to again and again that there are little-to-no values left spoken of in society. Programs that disadvantage one race over another, such as the current and unneeded college measure of affirmative action, will always be intolerant, even though the example’s purpose is to halfway advance minorities through the higher-education system, as whites will then be excluded. And not just whites: as soon as Asian-Americans proved themselves to be avid learners and earners, even more so than white-Americans, they had to be excluded as well, which goes to show how the worshiped ideal of tolerance can be recklessly interpreted as needing to be omnipresent that it has come to actively harm through its practices attempting to exclude, rather than to accept. To be tolerant, one must banish thoughts, people, and ultimately, the truth as the truth is more often than not disadvantageous. Society has reached the point where it is wrongly obsessed with tolerance that it will take any step to preserve their own ideology of it.
In order for tolerance to be put into place society-wide, it must be fought for by a pushing collective, which is why the value is so commonplace today. It is quite easy to find advocates for this repressive form of tolerance from any one group of America, specifically: Hollywood has placed tolerance so high on its range of moral values that the Academy will eventually put into a place a statue needed to be followed before placement in one of its Oscar awards, that will necessitate a need for minorities and LGBT+ identifying individuals acting or otherwise consulting the project, thereby directly discriminating against race and sexual orientation; politicians and voters, especially on the left and few on the right, agree for a need of an “accountability culture,” which is at the core an excuse to expurgate, most often in the form of firing or boycotting, organizations or individuals that do not conform with the mainstream thinking of tolerance. This phenomenon deemed “cancel culture” has mercilessly flogged those that are said to be terrible people, when really, their political views are more conservative ways of thinking than the leftist methods of a small portion of the population. Everyone agrees that justice should have a place in society, but the question is whether it should be cosmic or delivered at the hands of moral relativists. Perhaps, the most severe way the thinking of tolerance has breached moral decency is the slogan “be yourself.” “Be yourself”, in two words, managed to sum up the entire thinking of tolerance in a phrase that is everyday repeated ad nauseum. Why should one be themselves unless they are absolutely perfect? This line of thinking calls back to the notion that tolerance is a way to be passive and weak. To be oneself directly contradicts the idea held by all civilized societies, which is that the purpose of life is to grow. In what? That is a different question, but the answer is almost always through some form of divine intervention or heavenly presence. Humans are naturally evil people and in order for some growth to take place, they must not accept their state of being, long for something greater than themselves, and take the necessary steps to ensure that end. Should those without hope tolerate their despair? Should a woman tolerate the guilt at night after making her husband a cuckold? Should alcoholics tolerate their addiction? Again, as with the last series of questions, the answers are all in the negative. The incorrect and overrated hypothesis of tolerance needing to be propped up and put on a throne in society has spread to a scale previously never before seen.
The championing of tolerance has resulted in a detrimental application of it in society as well as the natural consequence of its mistaken popularity. A sizable part of Western society no longer thinks of justice when making decisions that will affect large swaths of culture or country, but factors in the variable of tolerance into the equation. There are active attempts to dissuade truth, or at least the dissemination of it, so that tolerance may still have a chance. When many use tolerance as an excuse to do something or another and use the actual word, what they are really saying is, “I can do what I want to,” which is a complete expose of selfishness. Reverting back to traditional values will hopefully end this overrated concept of tolerance.
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