Tolerance and Intolerance
We hear much ado about tolerance and intolerance these days, as if the first were an unalloyed good, regardless of degree or context, and the second an unalloyed evil.
In fact, treating tolerance as an unalloyed good, since it allows alike harmless as well as harmful differences of thought, word and deed to coexist in society, encourages the harmful, and destines the harmless to dismissal, perhaps destruction, is itself an unalloyed evil. There is no good side to it.
The main effort of the Cult of Toleration is to legalize sexual immorality, then to normalize, then to celebrate it, then to mandate it.
Certainly being tolerant of difference of opinion about political matters is not encouraged, except in the rare case when McCarthyism must never be tolerated, to allow the Communist Party and their allies to gain both social and political power. Red must be tolerated at all times, and to accuse them of conspiring to overthrow the way of life they have avowed to overthrow is a witch-hunt, mere paranoia.
Let us recall how far the Cult of Toleration has won the day in the span of one lifetime. In 1965, Griswold v Connecticut unconstitutionally invented a national right to contraception. In 1969, Reagan in California signed into law the first statute to permit No-Fault Divorce. Pennsylvania abolished its fornication and adultery laws in 1973. Also in 1973, Roe v Wade unconstitutionally invented a national right to infanticide of the unborn. Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 unconstitutionally invented a national right to sodomy. Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 unconstitutionally invented a national right to sodomy partnerships being granted the sacrament of holy marriage. Withholding approval of such these mock-marriages is a violation of the Civil Rights Act, c.f., Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018). As is refusing to hire a crossdresser who hallucinates himself to be a woman in the workplace Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). It is currently not permitted in polite society to read aloud these sentences I here have written, and, if current trends continue unchecked, it soon will be illegal. To speak plain truths about such things, or even to quote Holy Scripture, is unlawful in other English-speaking nations, and silently praying near an abortion mill is grounds for a police intervention in Great Britain.
However, to enjoy the benefits of civilized society, at least some toleration is necessary, and, for a commercial and industrial society, tolerations of the men of other national origins, races and customs, denominations and religions may prove beneficial, even greatly beneficial. The cohesion enjoyed by small and unified ethnic states dwindles and may be lost, but the grandiose glory enjoyed by wide-ranging empires is gained.
Christians and Jews can live together peacefully, as can Protestants and Catholics, also men whose ancestors were English and Irish, German and French, Japanese and Korean and Chinese, nations and races whose mutual enmity in the old world is legendary. The key to such cooperation is twofold: A general agreement on the basic proposition that all men are created equal, and endowed by God with certain inalienable rights the majority may not trample; a general love of one’s home state and of the federal republic with whom she is allied, and into whose union she is joined.
Disagreement on lesser matters can be tolerated to a degree, in small areas at certain times. America is not wounded by Chinatown or Germantown where the recently nativized emigrants still speak the old language, but the soul of a nation cannot long tolerate speaking in two or more tongues. A contempt for our holidays can be tolerated by religious minorities, provided they are polite and discrete about it.
Political difference can be tolerated only when all parties agree on the sacred character of the Constitution, and the rights that document is meant to protect. Naturally, to extend this toleration to socialists, or any religious cult bent on the destruction of those rights, is illogical and imprudent to the point of national suicide. The right of freedom of speech and freedom of the press by its very nature forbids speech and press advocation the abolition of those rights. Freedom of religion is at best a cease fire between Christian denominations agreeing to settle their differences without recourse to an established church, or using the secular power to aid or undermine one denomination over the other. Faithful Jews, likewise, are protected under this ceasefire, and their religion does not require them to oppose, oppress or undermine gentile religions.
Sexual customs and laws, however, are fundamental to the very nature, not just of this society, but all societies. Such deviation has never been tolerated in history, with the possible exception of the decadent aristocrats of large and wealthy empires. Even they, historically speaking, took the time and trouble to hide their misdeeds from the public. If you hear a rumor that sodomy was tolerated among the ancient Greeks, I will report only that the penalty exacted by ancient Greek law was so disgusting I cannot repeat it here. I will say only that it was severe enough that often prisoners died of internal bleeding.
So the question before us is what sexual deviations can and should be tolerated?
It is often argued that to disapprove of sodomites being granted the honors of marriage, one must also equally disapprove of infertile couples, on the grounds that copulation between man and infertile wife is indistinguishable from sodomy.
I do not disapprove of an infertile heterosexual couple. They perform the sex act in a normal way, but some accidental circumstance interferes with the natural completion of the act. I do, however, pity infertile couples, and hope that an advance in medical science could cure them. They could always adopt a child.
They could also live without children, which, again, I think is a lonely idea, but I would not go so far as to say it merits disapproval, for the simple reason that the childless couples and families can live side by side without any necessary incompatibility in their values. The childless couple is not a mockery of the normal family; the normal family is not a mockery of the childless couple.
Note the word I used here is ‘normal’ not ‘healthy’, because I am making a moral judgment, not a medical one. A sexual practice could be perfectly healthy in that it causes no physical damage to the organism, but still be abnormal, because it does not conform to natural norms.
My definition, of necessity, is a descriptive rather than a proscriptive one. Forgive the length of my answer, but I have to describe human nature before I can say why heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality is not.
My definition: A “normal” relationship sexual relationship is man and wife, bound in wedlock, both parents caring for the babies which are the natural fruits of their sex. Courtship and sexual play that leads up to marriage is normal; sexual play that diminishes marriage, or, worse, renders it impossible, is not normal.
Naturally, my opinion of what is “natural” for two human beings depends on my opinion about human nature. In every case about so wide a group as all human beings, there may be particular variances from the median; this does not invalidate a general rule. It is also possible that my observations of mankind have been based on an select sample.
As a general rule, sex leads to children. Even though there are presently scientific methods for interfering with this (birth control) the emotional nature of man would naturally incline him to fall in love with his sexual partner, or to sanctify his erotic love with sexual union.
Also as a general rule, the physical act of sex is, or ought to be, accompanied by a mental act of love. Our minds and bodies seem to be wired to reinforce each other.
There are men who can perform sex acts without love, for purely entertainment purposes, and women too (though more rare), but such an attitude demeans the man and his partner, lessens his joy in life, renders him, in general, in the long run, less fit to be a bridegroom, less desirable to the opposite sex. All this is based on the purely economic reason that, what men get freely, they esteem less. If sex is used only as a reward of a successful marriage, using it for other purposes will lessen the motivation to build a successful marriage.
Marriage is a necessary and useful institution for raising children, and solemnizing the comfort and support men and women are naturally inclined to give each other. It is not a freak aberration, or an imposition on the otherwise libertine nature of men: when boys fall in love, their first natural impulse is to vow eternal fidelity. Marriage solemnizes and formalizes that native impulse.
Please keep in mind that not all deviations from the norm are equally to be disparaged (or, at least, I do not disparage them equally). I would venture to say that they can be arranged on a scale roughly equal to how incompatible they are with normal marriage.
Polygamy or polyandry is a perversion of normal marriage, though, perhaps, tolerable in some limited circumstances. Fornication is a perversion, but, again, perhaps tolerable in a society with widespread birth control, provided it is possible to maintain the dignity of marriage in such a society (I take it as an open question whether this is possible or not).
Adultery is a clear perversion, as it is destructive of the trust a normal relationship requires; adultery is akin to treason. Bigamy is a special case of adultery.
Here again, a polygamist and a monogamist could exist side by side without either of them necessarily disparaging the other’s relationship, particularly if the polygamy were the only alternative to leaving widows with children without support (as it is in some cultures).
An adulterer and a monogamist, on the other hand, cannot tolerate each other, because faithfulness and faithlessness are opposites. One cannot compliment the adulterer on his successful dishonesty, and, at the same time, compliment the monogamist on his honesty.
Various types of fetishism, voyeurism, sadomasochism, bestiality, necrophilia are also incompatible with monogamy, to a greater or lesser degree. Sad experience shows that perversion tends to drive out normal sexual appetites: but this is not an absolute. Some people indulge in kinks without being unable to wed happily. This may mean that a certain degree of perversion can be tolerated, if it is kept quiet, and well away from women and children.
In days still within living memory, a man of average education could live his whole life without ever once being aware that sodomites and other sexual perverts existed, or that some small group of them pursued their unsightly vices in some corrupt city far away. Such a man lost nothing by living in blissful ignorance of the true depth of sexual perversion and satanism was possible to his fellow man. He might hear rumors of untoward horrors happening to cabin boys on whalers, or amid the hareems of oriental potentates in times long past, but it was not a matter for song and story.
In assessing how far a perversion can go before it goes too far, is a judgment call. It is like trying to guess how much a guy can drink before he gets drunk and unfit for human company. A little social drinking? Fine. I mildly disapprove. Falling down drunk? I strongly disapprove.
The central point that changed my mind, was that I no longer believe that a person can applaud homosexuality and applaud monogamy. Applauding homosexuality involves the implicit conclusion that sex is not tied to reproduction, or, to be specific, that sexual acts performed for mere pleasure (masturbation) is equal in dignity to sexual unions sanctified by marriage and performed to solemnize true love.
Worse, yet, the source of my immoderate ire over the issue, are those that claim that sexual actions performed for mere pleasure (two gay guys jerking each other off) are true love, and that the love felt by homosexuals for their partners is equally worth admiring and affirming as the love of a father and mother for each other. This is an insult to any romantic.
If you think marriage is sacred (and I do) then you cannot at the same time approve of a mockery of marriage.
But if you do not think marriage is sacred (most people do not) that it is merely an arbitrary social convention, then, naturally, you can approve of other incompatible arbitrary social conventions with equal nonchalance.
And we have seen where this leads.
If marriage is defended by the nonchalant Christian, but is oppose by the zealous Socialist, the socialist will step by step lure society from supporting suffragettes, to women in the workforce, to artificial sterility, to prenatal infanticide, to no-fault divorce, normalization of pornography, legalization of sodomy, and the abolition of marriage.
Once marriage is rendered meaningless by equating it with its perfect opposite, as happens when sodomy is equated to marriage, and then no possible perversion, including castrating the mutilating the sex organs of children, is likely to be opposed. Even to oppose grooming children for pederasty is dismissed as intolerant.
The social order where bastardy is normal, women are shameless, men are despised, fathers are rare, and children are raised by alimony checks, daycare, and public welfare, is an must be a society where strangers cannot be trusted.
Bastards are called by that word because fatherless boys, raised without role models, never learning to curb their masculine impulses, nor learning how to express them, degenerate into the amoral postchristian imagined by Nietzsche, which he called the Superman, which we call the Savage.
To see a society, once civilized, degenerate onto savages, please see the life of the urban poor in England.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
