Tolerance is a pretty word. The destruction of tolerance signals a loss of confidence in the foundations one rests on. That could be politics, that could be economy, that could be faith. Once the foundations are shaken essential trust in society goes flying out the window. The lack of tolerance today signals that more than one foundation is being shaken.When that happens most things become a threat, the threat is translated into politics and the situation goes viral, spread among more than a few.

It's difficult to fight. About all one can do is check his or her own foundations and remain firm. If a critical mass loses that confidence, its nearly an imposible task and the way of tolerance, essential for liberal democracy, is gone. And tolerance is not simply of "other people not ourselves" or even other ideas opposite our own but tolerance for all the conflict and contradction that occurs within one single self. That is the first tolerance, without which the more social and political tolerance is impossible.

At the very least I am tolerant of my own misbegotten, torn-up self. My own best efforts wanted to affirm my humanity. Then the long process of assimilating and making sense of things helped those foundations, by the attentions I gave to things like solar power, environmental concerns, and the creation of a better future. These were secular foundations but they added to spiritual and personal foundations to provide a bit of stability. The tolerance I had as a young naive guy was transformed into something else through this process but it did survive.

We are aware of the extraordinary changes that have taken place to take us from grandmothers world to this one. But we are not yet aware of the more extraordinary changes that will come and make our own look rather paltry. Do we make space for that possiblity? If so it's more likely we've built up a healthy core of tolerance in ourselves.

Liberal democracy is not about ceilings, it's about horizons. It's action must be out, pushing out against the edges of what it knows. The spirit of democracy is to break ceilings, break molds, break barriers, break records, break anything that constrains the necessity to do better, get better, make better. That was my impression at any rate. When it becomes a critical mass of mediocrity, fright, and hatred then forget it. The sink hole is deep and wide. If that is the case, we have to find the ways and means to conserve our tolerance if it still exists..

At a certain point in youth I became very disgusted with America. American culture seemed backward, crude, and conformist. I was not tolerant of it. I couldn't believe a nation that believed in extraordinary things demanded such ordinary aspirations. I found the people addicted to the wealth and power of the country and hiding behind it with lives of "quiet desperation" as Thoreau put it. That's when my mind lept back to antiquity, to classic Europe and Asia, the classic Middle-east and Africa. It took me more than a few full moons to move back to American culture. The things I learned not-America made me much more tolerant of things America. This odd fact can be explained as learning outside the boundaries of what identity has imposed. .

Precious memory creates a complete block of things and events, people and progressions. My time, my place, at least of what I know. Of the billions of things to know, we get only a few to posses as our own and then it slips away. Memory has to be continually enriched to keep the flow of meaning, as well as tolerance, moving forward.

Put this block next to many other blocks and it adds up to something. There is more energy in our block of time yes. But there will be more energy in the future, so we are juxtaposed between the less and the more. We laugh, we forgive ourselves for living at this time and not that time.

It feels right to know what we have passed through, just as it feels right to stare into the center of the universe and wonder mindfully about its origin or its possibilities we can't imagine at this time.

There is near infinite space, physical nature, and what we build. What else is there? Government and society are certainly things that are built. The more you know the greater is the discouragement but the greater is the recovery. The fiber of tolerance begins to grow. One includes what they formerly excluded. I don't know how "culture" can be created without a knowledge of "civilization." And at different times we love the one and hate the other. But then it is the most necesary thing to know what happens when the tap is opened, when the switch is flicked, when the ballot is cast, when the money is lent, when the investigation takes place, when the law is passed and so on. Without this knowledge, liberal democracy devolves into cult, into extremism, superstition and the like. Intolerance is the thing that forgets.

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