We are solidly into the Tolerance Paradox.  The Tolerance Paradox, like all really good puzzles like this is a quite simple question: Is intolerance tolerable?  How do we subscribe to virtue without becoming trapped in intolerance or finding ourselves tolerating intolerance?  I doubt if we can avoid intolerance, but perhaps we need not get trapped in it.  There are simply some things that occur in our universe that are intolerable. The only way to avoid becoming what we are all close to becoming is to avoid stepping onto the spectrum that stretches from violence to scolding which like the birds on a power line is a spectrum upon which many of our population are currently roosting. As a child I didn’t mind so much a clear correction (frequently needed) but I hated and resisted being scolded. 

I am not sure I have ever directly run into things like “purely unconditional love” or “pure tolerance”.  Even our bodies down to the cellular level run on some conditionality.  There are mechanisms in the cells of our bodies to expel the unrecognizable.   For example the abuse of children falls into my zone of intolerance.  The abuse of truth falls into a similar zone of intolerance.  Cruelty without regret brings me up cold. We owe it to ourselves to know the limits of our tolerance because it allows us to avoid the trap of this Paradox.

Perhaps the threshold we all need to come to better terms with is the threshold of difference between judgment and condemnation. Good is judging when behavior has become intolerable.   However condemnation is the wholesale dismissal of a person, place or thing either through stereotype or violence.  As we can see  in our country today, the Fascist’s are now and always have been violently dismissive.  It is less easy to see how a scold can be nearly as dismissive.  While the right wing of this American conflict should beware that their violence we are currently witnessing is intolerable the left side of the conflict needs to recognize the stereotypes of the ‘scold’ can be nearly just as divisive.   Good is in this model recognizing the absence of purity or perfection in the human condition. The dignity we all crave, right wing or left wing, is the dignity of being seen as we are, imperfectly acceptable, tolerable within our not-so pure margins of good, and wide open to creating a better rendition of this off-balanced world.