What does it mean to be tolerant?

In this multi-cultural and pluralistic present age, some would have me believe that all views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another, and that I am intolerant to believe otherwise. In these days of rigorous political correctness I am considered to be especially intolerant if I express a firm belief and conviction that my views are right and those who don’t agree with me are therefore wrong. But what if I should argue most strenuously, albeit respectfully, in defence of my views and even manage to show some truth in them?

As it happens, I actually do believe I am right to hold a view counter to that one. I also happen to believe that, despite my point of view, I am quite a tolerant person. It is the post-modern way the word is now defined that comes into question here.

To say I'm intolerant because you disagree with my ideas is actually confused. Tolerance requires that every person is treated courteously, no matter what his or her view, not that all views have equal worth, merit, or truth.
Tolerance applies to how we treat people we disagree with, and not how we treat the ideas we think false.

Just out of interest, let’s look for a moment at the view that “all views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another”.

Would you agree with it?

Well, if so then you are probably a relativist, someone who accepts the validity of all views for the person/s or sub/culture that holds to them. That’s not saying all relativists would agree with that statement. Why? Well, some may have seen through it, seen the little inherent illogical trap that exists in there, and so not answered.

If you say that all views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another, what would you say when I told you: “All views are not equal at all as some are better or more accurate than others, or indeed simply right while the rest are all wrong” ?

By the first part of your statement, you are saying that my view has equal merit with yours.
By the second part of your statement, you are saying that your view is not better than mine.
Therefore, in your view that allows mine to have validity equal to yours, there is a nonsense created by the contradictory possibility that your own view is wrong should mine be correct. If we are not to go around in everlasting circles, then you will need to say that either your view is right (to discredit mine, and your own along with it) - or it is wrong (to discredit yours but not mine).
Suddenly you are no longer a relativist… or if you are elsewhere, then you have a self-contradictory problem to resolve. And common sense has it stand to reason that when contradictory and mutually exclusive views are held, if one is absolutely right then the other is usually wrong.

But back to tolerance again. Real tolerance is not incompatible with either firm convictions nor even the desire to persuade others. It does not require that one must hold views in favour of the general consensus opinion based on a politically correct agenda. Real tolerance involves respect for others and the expression of civility towards them. It separates the person from the idea held, just as Christians are told to separate the sinner from the sin… to love the sinner while not the sin, and with tolerance, to respect the person regardless of the idea. Real tolerance rejects force and intimidation toward those who think differently. It allows us to have differences with impunity. Mind you, what we do with our ideas might well be something else for which each will always be held accountable.