This formula has something simple about it, especially if we’ve traversed years in the art of living. It might even seem obvious to us. Tolerance in its fullest expression, in a mature work environment, encompasses two main aspects: accepting diversity and acknowledging human fragility. In a profound and realistic sense, tolerance primarily means “surprise,” joy for the new, the diverse, and the different. Sometimes, what is not like me, what is “different from me,” can be striking (opposite confirmation bias).
It’s the price of opening the heart to reality (a request made by Ortega y Gasset to Argentinians), to the other, to breadth. The organization or person who cannot bear the different ends up enclosing themselves in their narrow-mindedness, thus losing creativity and innovation. The different surprises us, challenges us, enriches us, and bewilders us, but it is in that surprise where the essence of tolerance lies. Ultimately, intolerance is the expression of deep impatience; learning to tolerate diversity is an act of patience and understanding. This is what John Locke anticipated in his “Letter Concerning Toleration.”
Secondly, tolerance implies opening the heart to human fragility, to the flaws that I and we have, to our vices, our disloyalties. Some people become very demanding, very purist, Cathars or Jacobins, and want to cut off heads as soon as they find a flaw. But we all have flaws; we could say that human misery has been distributed fairly evenly in this world, not just intelligence. Hence the importance of the presence of the “mirror” in the initial formula, of self-awareness.
Thomas More says that those who don’t take themselves too seriously, who laugh at themselves, will never lack reason to smile. There are many weaknesses, and it’s not easy to see reality as it is. Those who live realistically have to see their own flaws, those of their partner, those of their best friend, those of their colleagues, and should not fear that people will fail them sometimes, because they themselves also fail sometimes.
Ultimately, tolerance doesn’t imply justifying bad actions, but recognizing the complexity of the human condition and working together to overcome difficulties.