Why is the West so tolerant? In China you can be imprisoned and tortured for being a Muslim. In Muslim countries you can be imprisoned and tortured for being an infidel. Western Civilization is more tolerant than any other civilization on earth. Many would attribute this tolerance to the destruction of strict social standards. If social standards forbid certain action, then society must be more tolerant when it destroys them… or so the logic goes.
But if this is true, then why are college campuses some of the most intolerant places in the United States. At UC Berkeley you can literally be whatever you want, yet when a conservative speaker comes to town the campus erupts into a show of violence and destruction. What was once a supposed haven of free speech has now become a depressing hellscape.
In his new book Speechless Michael Knowles correctly points out that there is no such thing as pure tolerance. A society must have standards. After all, the idea that there are no standards is itself a standard. Therefore, anyone who promotes a standard, such as the immorality of killing babies, cannot exist in this standardless system. In this light, it makes perfect sense that an Orthodox Jew such as Ben Shaprio, who holds himself to a high moral standard, would spark riots on college campuses.
Right now conservatives are the most tolerant people in the United States. They don’t burn down cities and not a single mainstream individual supported the storming of the Capitol. And yet conservatives generally hold themselves to higher moral standards than liberals.
Despite the ire that is directed at them from the left, traditional standards are the epitome of tolerance. They create societal stability and meaning by promoting virtue and suppressing vice. This suppression of vice is not intolerant because vice is itself intolerant. A tolerant society can treat vice with nothing other than disdain, otherwise it allows the standardless intolerance of vice to take hold.
If a society is to promote virtue through a dedication to God, family, spouse, and country it is necessarily intolerant to some degree. Although they should not be considered criminals, those who do not believe in these great principles should not be given a share in entertainment, the education of youth, or the media.
If social standards are necessary in society, then the West is tolerant because of its standards, not in spite of them. By inculcating strict religious virtue in individuals the West was able to promote tolerance by overcoming the disrespect for human life which characterizes barbarian societies. Today it staves off the return of the intolerant heathenism which exhibits hatred towards anyone who attempts to promote any moral standards.
Self-government requires taking responsibility for yourself and others. Taking responsibility requires self-regulation. Self-regulation requires moral standards. Moral standards require intolerance towards some ways of acting in the world. The West is free because of self government which must be preceded by strict moral standards. In the words of John Adams “We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, and, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” There must be standards. Either we have no standards and become slaves to government or we accept standards and embrace the true freedom of overcoming wickedness.
