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Darling, Does Your Tolerance Toward Me Imply that You Do Not Love Me?
Can love involve tolerance?
Posted June 5, 2009
"I am extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end." (Margaret Thatcher)
"It is easy to be tolerant of the principles of other people if you have none of your own." (Herbert Samuel)
Tolerance, which may be characterized as the disposition to be patient with those opinions or practices of others that deviate from the norm, is central to morality. But how can we be patient with something that we are convinced is not moral? Is it moral to disregard something that we perceive to be a sin? And what might tolerance mean in the context of romantic love?
A few major characteristics of typical tolerance may be discerned:
1. Deviance: what is tolerated deviates from what the tolerator believes should be done.
2. Disapproval: the tolerator disapproves morally of the deviation.
3. Importance: the deviation is not trivial.
4. Power: the tolerator has the power to try to suppress what is tolerated.
5. Nonrejection: the tolerator allows deviation to continue.
6. Goodness: the tolerator believes that toleration is right.
These characteristics indicate that tolerance is a response to significant, deviant, and phenomenon that the tolerator perceives as negative; however, she does not reject this phenomenon as she sees some value in it.
Can we speak about tolerant emotional attitudes? Unlike emotional attitudes, which are very focused and partial, tolerance is characterized by a broad perspective. George Eliot said: "The responsibility of tolerance lies in those who have the wider vision." Tolerance requires holding a few perspectives at once and making room for all such perspectives. In an emotional attitude, we clearly prefer one narrow perspective over other perspectives. If indeed tolerance implies that the lover regards the deviation with significant moral disapproval, how can someone maintain her love for the object of such significant moral disapproval?
Tolerance is closer to intellectual reasoning than to emotions not only in its broader perspective, but also in its less involved nature. A broader perspective typically reduces the involved and intense nature of our attitude. Accordingly, people often identify tolerance with neutrality between competing perspectives of the good. Thus, Somerset Maugham claimed: "Tolerance is another word for indifference." If we are deeply committed to a certain value, how can we be tolerant of a behavior expressing an opposing value? The neutral, and sometimes even indifferent, attitude typical of tolerance is contrary to emotional attitudes.
Emotions are obstacles to tolerance: tolerance is an attitude in which intellectual reasoning overcomes emotional values although the tolerator still believes in the truth of those values. Toleration may be characterized as doing what you do not want to, namely, allow wrong opinions and actions to take place. Toleration then involves the ordering of priorities done by a prudential intellectual calculation. Tolerance is then not a neutral stand, but a stand having priorities which override specific personal values.
Can we speak about tolerance in love? Tolerance is a type of compromise in which we accept something that has a certain negative aspect in order to preserve something of greater value. Although compromises are an essential part of personal relationships, the place of compromise is problematic in love (see here).
Parental love certainly involves tolerance. If, for example, Dan's son is enthusiastic about football, while Dan himself believes that investing resources in football is of no value whatsoever, Dan's tolerance should not merely be expressed by his lack of objections to his son pursuing his interest; Dan should in fact actively assist him to do so. In this case, parental love overcomes the intellectual belief that our resources should be invested in more valuable activities. Such a type of tolerance can also be found in romantic relationships where the lover may be tolerant of various behavior patterns of the beloved. But here the tolerance is usually directed toward more minor issues, such as shopping, watching television, and the like.
Can lovers be genuinely tolerant concerning more major issues?
We are likely to sacrifice our significant values and resources only for those with whom we have strong emotional ties. The greater the sacrifice is, the more emotional involvement is needed. We readily make significant personal sacrifices toward our intimates not because we believe in the equality of all human beings-such a belief is sufficient merely for intellectual tolerance-but because we love them very much. For those near and dear to us tolerance is not something required of us; it is an attitude we want to have, and we are emotionally convinced of its value.
Tolerance is important for maintaining valued society, but when a relationship involves profound love, tolerance may not be required. In profound love even those aspects that may appear to be negative are not perceived to be significant and often not even negative. Doing something for the beloved, such as going on a trip with her to a place of her choice or listening to her favorite music with her, has nothing to do with tolerance or compromises-it is precisely what the lover wants to do.
In this sense deep romantic love does not require to involve profound tolerance. It is difficult (though not impossible) to think of perceiving the other in such a profound negative manner while still loving him deeply. The situation may be different in the case of sexual desire. As Ryan, a divorcee in her late forties who holds conservative views, said: "I would not be able to marry a man who was a leftist, even if I found him very attractive-although most of the men I have slept with are leftists."
Two central characteristic of tolerance are that the tolerator disapproves morally of the deviation and that the deviation is significant. It may be claimed that those characteristics are part of many personal relationships including parental love, friendship and romantic love. Being tolerant towards the silliness, foibles, and weaknesses of others whom you love is about loving them for their faults, not despite their faults. Part of our love is our fondness toward, and compassionate identification with, the peculiarities, weaknesses and often irritating tendencies of those we love-their humanity and venerability make them dearer, sweeter, more in need of nurture and support, and ultimately more human, more complex, and more fascinating. Nevertheless, we may not maintain our love to people upon discovering that they had killed, abused, were racists or deeply intolerant of others.
I agree with the above observations which indicate that lovers do not need to be blind to the flaws of their beloved. However, my claim is that profound love requires that the lover will not attach much significance to these flaws in their overall evaluation of the beloved. Since profound tolerance is about flaws that you perceive as significant, people who are profoundly in love are not required to be tolerant of these flaws, as they are not required to make compromises in their love, since they do not evaluate these flaws as significant.
We may encapsulate this perspective with the following statement by an imaginary beloved: Darling, if you not are merely sexually attracted to me, but are profoundly in love with me, please do not tolerate me, as tolerance is often associated with being neutral. Just love me the way I am.
Adapted from The Subtlety of Emotions, and In the Name of Love
