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Should we become intolerant of somebody else’s intolerance?

Recently, in the context of a work-related project, I met a man for the first time to talk about education of adults in a certain community. That was, I thought, the only topic of our conversation, but suddenly he began to talk about spiritual issues and, more specifically, about the “love of God”.

Again and again, this man asked me if I knew God and if I had ever experienced the love of God in my life. I told him I would rather answer that questions at a later time and that, at that moment, it was enough for him to know my spiritual journey began at a very early time in my life and that the journey was still progressing.

He told me that my answer I had doubts about the love of God in my life. He immediately began a rather long speech (probably the same one he used many times before) quoting verses from the Bible and miracles in his life to show me the true love of God.

Then, to emphasize his point and dissipate any doubts about the greatness of God’s love, this gentleman said God’s love is so big He loves everybody, even him and me. In fact, he said, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God, because nothing we do will ever cause God to stop loving us.

I thought the conversation about this topic was over, but that was not the case. He insisted about the greatness and the universality of God’s love. But then, as if it was the logical conclusion of what he previously said, he calmly added “But obviously God doesn’t love everybody”.

Before I could say anything about the obvious contradiction, this man enumerated a long list of people who, in his opinion, are excluded from God’s love because they belong to the wrong political party, vote for the wrong candidate, use certain clothes, speak a certain language, and, in general, “they are not like us”.

It was clear at this point that his speech about the “love of God” was just an excuse, a preamble, for him to openly express his intolerance of all those (among them, me) who do not share his political and religious point of view.

My visceral reaction was to show him that I can also be intolerant towards his intolerance. But, can we really become intolerant of somebody else’s intolerance? If that’s our course of action, then we will guilty of the same intellectual juggling the above-mentioned man used to justify his own intolerance of others.

Obviously, we can’t tolerate intolerance. What, then, can we do? We can reveal it, as explained by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald in their book Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People (2013).

Banaji and Greenwald say there are various reasons why “good people” can’t see their own biases, even if those biases contradict their own beliefs. So, it seems our answer should be to unmask intolerance, both our own and somebody else’s.

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