Tolerance: The Final Solution

By Rom Watson
c. November 24, 2012

The recent news has been full of political campaigns, political debates and political discourse.  Whenever I wonder why some people are so stubbornly opposed to personal freedoms and so intent on imposing restrictions, I recall a conversation in my youth that made an impression on me.

Back in seventh grade, a friend and I were talking to a boy we knew slightly from one of our classes.  The conversation turned to our futures, and though I don’t remember his words, what the boy said revealed a very strait-laced and restrictive worldview.

“Oh come on,” my friend said, “you’re just saying that because that’s what your parents say.”

“No,” he responded, “I’m not saying that because my parents told me to.  I have a mind of my own.  I’m saying that because it’s right.”  And I knew he was being honest.  He wasn’t simply repeating words he’d heard at home.  Those beliefs were his own.

Which startled me.  Not because they differed from mine, but because these beliefs which I considered to be adult were being championed by a child.  To me, this young kid was an old fuddy-duddy, a dichotomy that had never occurred to me.  Restrictions were things to overcome, not embrace, and my inclination was to feel sorry for this kid.  However, I realized that he was firmly convinced that his outlook on life was the right one.  I might consider his beliefs to be wrong, but he was fully invested in them.  What I learned that day was that even a child could be a staunch supporter of restrictions.

If you talk to parents who have more than one child, they will tell you that each child displays a distinct personality right from the beginning.  It seems to me that people are born with their values as well as their personalities.  (Or their values arise from their personalities, and are in place very early.)  So whenever I listen to political campaigns, political debates and political discourse and feel the anger and bile rising inside of me, I try to remember the following.

Some people are all about freedoms, and some people are all about restrictions.

It’s part of who they are and they’re never going to change.  Which has frustrated some to the point of genocide.   However, history has shown us that you can’t kill everyone who holds beliefs that differ from yours.  Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution” was the nadir of civilization.  So what am I to do when the bile starts to rise?  Live and let live?  Agree to disagree?  Could the true “Final Solution” be tolerance?

I’ve come to realize I have no other choice.  I can’t change other people anymore than they can change me.

Like an apartment dweller that can’t afford to move, I live under the assumption that if I put up with my neighbors, my neighbors will put up with me.