Regulating Aversion

After reading selection of Brown’s Regulating Aversion  for my Grad studies class, it has come to my attention that I have taken tolerance for granted in ways I’ve been wholly and spectacularly ignorant of. I am guilty of accepting the term as descriptive of high moral aims. I have automatically associated the term with equilibrium and with generosity of individuals and groups towards others, be they othered through race, sexuality, spirituality and/or culture. I am one of the masses who has accepted tolerance as a transcendent and universally positive concept instead of considering it as being historically and politically discursive.

I have always haphazardly thought of tolerance as a lofty goal…something I ought to achieve, something masses of like-minded people ought to be able to do for people with ideologies different than said masses. I am sensitive to instances where I feel I have been intolerant of someone. These instances generally cause me sensations of guilt. I am also intolerant of others who I feel are being intolerant. A closer investigation makes me realize that the game of tolerance is precariously balanced on points of, well…self-righteousness, really. I never considered tolerance as a mode of modern governments which perpetuates power-struggles between those in power and those deemed deviant.

I feel the need to confess that a breaking-down of my tolerance-beliefs briefly, just briefly caused me to feel disheartened.

So now even tolerance is suspect?! TOLERANCE is now OPRESSIVE?! Great!

It occurred to me that PEACE would be next on the chopping-block. PEACE has certainly been manipulated as a tool for political and religious organizations to wield in operations of governance and regulation. HOWEVER, I found relief in Brown’s assurance that tolerance need not be demonized, and I DO very much see the value in considering the relationships between tolerance and depoliticization as well as in the simple act of noting ambiguity in meanings attached to tolerance. I am also humbly prepared for the debunking of airs of superiority. I can bolster myself through a belief that alongside the political and social constructs of tolerance bandying, there may still dwell a childlike and innocent intuitive breed of tolerance which may be inextricably bound to curiosity and wonder.

And had I forgotten that there was a Museum of Tolerance? I do have a vague recollection of hearing it spoken of and thinking, et the time, that I ought to find out more about it. MUST make a trek out to LA to check it out. Perhaps I will send some of my west-coast cronies out there to report back on the dazzling sound and light shows. How frightening to know that the museum purportedly supports bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, how fitting an example of how “tolerance” is hijacked for seemingly misguided acts.

Guess I’ll have to wait a while to visit the MOT myself. No bathrooms are a sure-fire way to keep Preggo chicks out of the place.

Hey WAIT a dang minute!!! NO bathrooms inside?!
OBVIOUSLY the MOT is intolerant of women in their child-bearing years.
Preggos UNITE! I say we SUE the MOT for intolerance!