1 The attitude that intolerance is an evil is especially strong in Britain, where tolerance has been elevated into the Great National Virtue. We believe ourselves to be unique among nations in our generosity of spirit and our readiness to put up with all kinds of people. Listen to any public debate or radio phone-in about immigration and you will hear people reiterating this view. Only the British, they say, would have allowed so many black and brown people into their country, would have treated them so well, given them jobs, put them on the National Health Service, and so on. And this, they conclude, is why no more of them should be allowed in.
Para 2 Their conclusion, of course, gives the game away, for the tolerance they are talking about does not in fact exist but is invented as a justification for present intolerance. It is a thoroughly hypocritical posture which makes one wonder whether British claims to being especially tolerant have any validity at all. Tolerance, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “the disposition to be patient with or indulgent to the opinions and practices of others” and “freedom from bigotry or undue severity in judging the conduct of others”. Can we honestly claim to be more lavishly bestowed with these attributes than people of other nations? I do not think so.
1 The attitude that intolerance is an evil is especially strong in Britain, where tolerance has been elevated into the Great National Virtue. We believe ourselves to be unique among nations in our generosity of spirit and our readiness to put up with all kinds of people. Listen to any public debate or radio phone-in about immigration and you will hear people reiterating this view. Only the British, they say, would have allowed so many black and brown people into their country, would have treated them so well, given them jobs, put them on the National Health Service, and so on. And this, they conclude, is why no more of them should be allowed in.
Para 2 Their conclusion, of course, gives the game away, for the tolerance they are talking about does not in fact exist but is invented as a justification for present intolerance. It is a thoroughly hypocritical posture which makes one wonder whether British claims to being especially tolerant have any validity at all. Tolerance, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “the disposition to be patient with or indulgent to the opinions and practices of others” and “freedom from bigotry or undue severity in judging the conduct of others”. Can we honestly claim to be more lavishly bestowed with these attributes than people of other nations? I do not think so.
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