Tolerance and Inclusiveness, vs Justice.

By Michael Diamond (a Canadian lawyer)

The Huffington Post is a liberal/left online publication- perhaps the largest online publisher and certainly one of the oldest. In this article, Obama and Kerry Are Going Too Far To Prove We Are Tolerant and Inclusive, HP comes out with a number of serious questions about Obama and Kerry, offers our Prime Minister (HARPER) as a model of what is necessary to support our democratic values, and raises several other important questions, the major one being the question of what principle has priority- Tolerance and Inclusiveness, vs Justice.

For those of us who are constantly reviewing articles from many sources, including those which suggest that tolerance of that which is oppressive or fundamentally contrary to the values which underpin our western society is an anathema, is counter-productive to our own desire to build and maintain positive societies for ourselves and our children, and is an affront to justice and what is right.

The problem of course is that humanity does not have one single code of what is right and wrong. We often talk about people knowing “the difference between what is right and wrong”. But to suggest that there is one universal code of what is right or wrong is simply incorrect. Value systems vary from place to place, even within individual countries, and many of the struggles taking place in many countries represent the historical stresses associated with variances in value systems. Even in generally cohesive countries like Canada, there are major underlying disagreements around certain issues- the appropriateness of abortion for example, or gay marriage, or assisted suicide, to name a few. Or examine the incongruent values represented by the attempts in Quebec to outlaw certain religious symbols. Canadians do not share the same values, except perhaps the values of tolerance of inclusiveness, which suggest that we must tolerate everyone and everything, include everyone, regardless of their belief systems and whether those belief systems are or are not consistent with our own underlying assumptions of what our society ought to be.

The stresses associated with currently known belief systems, including the areas of disagreement noted above, are manageable- we have proven that in Canada thus far. However, when do inconsistencies of values become a fundamental and dangerous problem for societies? The answer is not entirely clear, except that it is difficult to argue that a given society can be fully tolerant and fully inclusive of all value systems within its ambit without ultimately disintegrating. If you are making mushroom and barley soup, and you add onions for taste, it will remain mushroom and barley soup…but at some point, if you keep pouring in the onions, it loses its character as mushroom and barley and becomes mushroom, barley and onion soup, and eventually becomes onion soup- and along the way you are going to have various version of that soup that are entirely unpalatable, especially for those who do not care for onions!

That is the problem with Tolerance when it becomes the primary value. And inclusiveness. And Freedom of Speech for that matter. Taken to the extreme, if these values trump that which maintains our society as we know it, or if those values support initiatives which attempt to evolve society more quickly than a society can naturally evolve, or if the introduction of those values pit groups within a society against each other, you have the beginning of the end of that society.

Many are writing that Obama has precipitated the decline of the American society. This article, from a publication that comes from the Left, suggests that is the case. The contrary view, provided by our own Prime Minister, is that lines must be drawn- see his quote in the article.

I contrast this with a the recent statement from the leader of the Liberal Party who suggested that Canada’s refusal to talk to the Iranian regime was problematic because, to paraphrase, for Justin, talk is always useful. (Irwin Cotler attempted a coverup on the inappropriateness of this comment by suggesting that Justin was talking about communicating with the Iranian people- but Justin’s quote is quite clear- he was referring to the regime. Irwin is correct- talking with the Iranian people makes sense, but his leader said otherwise).

The publication of this article likely means that those responsible for this article are worried. They realize that their ability to maintain their liberal values is an outcome of having a society that values the right to have such values, and that there is no non-western society where their current freedoms could be had without significant risk, if at all.

Ask yourself what countries in the world you would want to live in, raise your children in? Would you choose Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon, Syria? Would you choose a palestinian state if one were to exist? Or how about Malaysia, or moving away from the Muslim world, Russia or China? In some cases, nice place to visit, but I would not want to live there. And I don’t wish to live under their values either- i prefer ours. And that is true even if a large number of people from those societies join us here in Canada. If they insist on bringing their values with them, and forcing them on us, I would prefer those who would enforce a change in my society stay put in their own society. I do not wish to tolerate that which is intolerant, nor that which is non-inclusive, nor that which is unjust, racist, nor immoral from the perspective of what our society believes.

We live in a large and complex world. There are many countries, many races, many ways of life. I do not say that one is fundamentally better than another, but I do know which ways of life, which value systems, are right for me and for those that I love and care for. That is not a racist statement, although it is certainly anti-universalist. Rather it is a statement which promotes the survival of that which we believe to be Right, and that which we believe to be Just. I believe that there are many in other countries which have different value systems than ours are making similar statements today- and I do not disagree. What’s right for them is right for them. But what is right for us is right for us.

As we watch our fellow members of formerly western societies risk losing that which they value in countries like England, Belgium, Holland, and as we watch pockets of our own continent become antithetical to our otherwise reasonably congruent value systems, I worry.