Teaching Intolerance and Laziness for 40 Years and Still Going Strong

My mother contracted HIV from what she thought was a decade long exclusive relationship with a man that turned out to be monogamous only for her.  My mother was, I thought, a life long supporter of women’s rights and tolerance.  Towards the end, she developed dementia and we needed in home nursing aid care.  Shortly after the nursing care started, my mother screamed at me to “get that nigger out of her house”.  The nurse aid she was screaming about was not the least bit upset but quietly left the room.  That was precisely the correct action because my mother immediately calmed down and I was able to settle her in to take a nap, having quickly covered my own obvious horror at her behavior.

I then went to profusely apologize to the nurse aid.  Unlike her, I was not the least bit calm but completely flabbergasted.  The woman I found myself caring for was NOT the woman who had raised me and I told the aid that.  She said she was sure that was true or I’d have told them about this issue during the initial set up interview.  Indeed, they had asked me questions of what issues my mother had and I would have told them as that would get my mother the best care.

We had 4 other nurse aids after that and my mother’s favorite was “that sweet little Hispanic girl”.  I was pretty horrified over this too because “that sweet little Hispanic girl” was a petite woman in her thirties with 3 school age children.  I don’t think this woman could have cared for my mother any better despite her (my mother’s) condescending attitude and obvious (and frequently stated) bias.  Turned out my mother didn’t like her Anglo caregivers either – they were all sloppy and lazy.  And it’s true that none of them paid attention to the details like the Hispanic (or is the correct term Latina these days?) aid did.

At any rate, as the nurse aids and the service pointed out, this may or may not have been who she really was or it could have been how she was raised that she’d overcome, come back to haunt her in those last months.  I too was raised in intolerant America, oh, yes, we are intolerant.  We just don’t like to admit it. 

I spent 3 years on my condo board and got to know the former long term board president quite well.  He was from East Texas and openly gay and from a Baptist background; raised largely by a black nanny.  He was an interesting mix of demanding tolerance for gay men while frequently telling me the condo complex was getting “a little too dark” (meaning there were too many blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and other “foreigners” moving in).  Oh, and gay women, well, they should apparently straighten themselves out.  One night by the pool when he’d been drinking, I asked how he could maintain such intolerance for so many while insisting on tolerance for gay men.  According to him, it was all based in his Baptist heritage and, although that did not support approval and tolerance of gay men, well “tough”.  How does one live with such internal dissonance as he is doing?  Probably because that’s what we preach and have for decades.

Each generation rebels against the one before and the 70s were tumultuous in rebelling against the 50s generation.  In the 70s, so much talk of demanding tolerance and acceptance while simultaneously sneering at those of the 50s and any who dared follow the morals of the 50s.  Hate is a powerful motivator.  It is so much easier to get what one wants by finding an enemy to join forces against instead of having reasoned and critical discussions to reach solutions that allow us all to have a broad range of choices.  And once one side is formed, there is little choice but to form up on the other side in opposition.  Yes, me too.  I’m in on one side frequently.  I just keep trying to remind myself and those on my side that, in the end, we need to be the ones helping to make rational decisions and some of the options we leave on the table may indeed be from the opposition.  That’s the point for me; that freedom for us all means everyone having a broad range of choices with NO elite group specifying a one-size-fits-all solution.  The problem with one-size is that it usually only “fits” for 5-10% of the population and the result is that the majority get cut out completely.  There are enough things in life that inherently exclude the majority and I see no reason to increase the number of activities or issues where that is the case unless there is a true, very basic necessity to do so.

I look back at the 70s, the hippies, the Vietnam War, the beginnings of the Eco movement and animal rights and all I see is the beginnings of teaching intolerance in the name of tolerance.  How can that be?  Oh, it’s probably been around for eons, throughout human history.  The winners write the history.  The “winners” of wars often feel turn about is fair play.  All well and good in a game played for fun but not so great when the abused and tormented of WWII turn into the nation of Israel and want to now turn the table on another race.  That isn’t justice.  Nor is it justice for those in the animal rights movement to dictate such high standards of care that only a small minority of the population can afford pets in the future.  On the Eco side, we need reasonably priced housing but we now see building standards being increased to the point where the prices skyrocket so people are left in even worse housing than they had before because they must opt for older homes that can’t even be repaired because, in many cases, if touched, they’d have to be brought up to current codes.

And one of the worst side effects of teaching intolerance through mandated tolerance of a different kind is that the opposing intolerance doesn’t go away; it merely festers below the surface only to emerge again.

“An ugly spate of bias incidents has crossed several University of California campuses over the past month, causing consternation, outcry and fear that bigotry is alive among the young and educated… black students were offended by an off-campus "Compton Cookout" party that mocked ghetto stereotypes… a noose and KKK-style hood found on campus… swastikas cropped up and the gay and lesbian center was vandalized with graffiti… a picture of a noose was scrawled…”

“The acts were particularly shocking because they occurred on university campuses — usually considered centers of intellectual enlightenment above acts commonly associated with ignorance…  But experts note that universities are microcosms of society at large, and that includes hatemongers… Pitts said chancellors will be evaluated on increases of student-body diversity. ‘This is a reminder,’ he said, ‘this is a battle that's never won.’ ”

University campuses are rarely ‘centers of intellectual enlightenment”.  More often they are centers of intellectual snobbery and that’s merely a different type of ignorance.  The battle indeed is never won and we can’t even make progress so long as what is “acceptable” is narrowly defined by us, most especially those of us granted advanced educations for which the public helped pay.  I find the article and the attitudes of the educators disturbing because they are being condescending and expressing a form of reverse hatemongering that has become all too common.  There can be no real tolerance until we accept and respect a wide range of “normal”, set the parameters of what is unacceptable further out but hold those who go beyond those bounds accountable.

We no longer hold most accountable either.  Just look at Wall Street and Washington, DC!  We don’t chunk them out of office when they do wrong.  Hell, we don’t even yank back what money we still have when they lose most of it.  It all goes back to early education where for 40+ years we’ve been telling children that accomplishments or failures don’t really count so long as they “try”.  We give them trophies and awards for “trying” even if they didn’t do that!  We just pass out kudos and back pats no matter how poor their behavior.

Now we’ve got FFPS.  “NO tryouts/All Stars”, “Play Every Position”, and “Equal Playing Time”.  There is NOTHING fair about being rewarded for just showing up when it effectively penalizes those who show up AND do well.  It is patently unfair to those who could excel.  The result is that those who could excel have no motivation to do so and become lazy.  Seriously, how many people do their best without some incentive?

But I firmly believe in both carrot and stick.  Yes, there have to be rewards for doing well but most will do what they want if there’s no penalty for doing wrong.  The FFPS is carrots for all; sticks for none. And the result is that the carrot means less to start with so why even put much effort in knowing that carrot is going to be delivered anyway.  All this teaches is laziness.  And there’s some truth to idle hands becoming the devil’s tools.

We end up with adults like those on Wall Street who feel justified to just keep paying themselves bonuses even though they’ve tanked their clients’ investment funds, lost millions their retirement savings so that they will be destitute during their last years.  On the last “60 Minutes” episode (at about time marker 22:00), the man being interviewed said “you can’t begrudge” them their paychecks.  Damned if I can’t when they are effectively taking food from the elderly!

There’s a growing amount of bad behavior out there and here’s a few examples:

I think it’s all an outgrowth of the same underlying problems: teaching intolerant tolerance, encouraging fairness that isn’t fair and results in laziness, and lack of consequences.

I like to think I’ve overcome much of the intolerant attitudes I was raised around, that my mother worked so hard to keep me from adopting (and now I guess I know why) and that none of those attitudes are lurking within me although I’m sure some are despite my efforts.  I’ll be forever grateful for having been taught a good work ethic and that society is a balancing act of my rights with those of others; that it isn’t all about me; nor all about others but something in between.  But I’ll admit it’s getting harder by the day.  When I see those that lie, cheat, and steal getting ahead and even getting rich and their numbers seem to be growing; I wonder why more of us don’t join their ranks.  Check that.  More of us are joining their ranks.  I still don’t think we’ve passed the tipping point; don’t think the liars, cheats, frauds, thieves are the majority or even a huge minority.  I do think we have to find a way to push back.  It always starts at home too.

We’ve always taught intolerance and are still doing so.  We have to teach a broad range of acceptable norms to our children and that the reaction to what is just beyond that range should be proportionate to how far outside the norm it is; that there are rewards for doing what’s right and punishments for doing what’s wrong.  More, much more than that.  We have to look very closely at ourselves first and foremost.  We cannot expect more from others than we are willing to do.  We must look at our own internal dissonances and resolve those before we can expect others to do so.  We must be tolerant of their choices so long as they are not mandating those for others.  This disorder of society has expanded greatly in the US in the last 40 years but it has been around for so much longer.  It will be an ongoing struggle for decades to come, perhaps forever.

But the first step to solving any problem is acknowledging that it exists and not as those California college campuses are doing by half acknowledgement and self tolerance while hatemongering of others.  Let’s try to take the higher road, acknowledge we are not without fault and acknowledge faults within our own ranks so we can have reasonable discussions and find solutions for specific problems rather than be stuck with someone else’s one-size-fits-all solution that won’t work for most of us.  By doing so, we hold the position to hold other people’s feet to the fire as well.

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