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TOLERANCE –
IN MULTI-CULTURAL LEADERSHIP
Heidi Hadsell, United States of America
9.1 Tolerance as Moral Minimum
Every age in history has metaphors, images, symbols that seem to fit
with its operating assumptions—be they implicit or explicit—that serve
to underpin dominant themes in its self-understanding, and a widely
shared view of its particular moment in history.
Every age also has patterned ways in which it notices, or privileges
certain virtues, ones that are understood to be uniquely relevant, espe-
cially useful, or certainly necessary for life at that time. Today tolerance
is just this kind of virtue.
Tolerance understood in a minimalist sense seems hardly a virtue at
all. Minimally understood, one tolerates something or someone one des-
pises for as long as one must in order to achieve a given end. Thus for
example, one may tolerate behaviour one dislikes in order to be polite;
one may tolerate food one dislikes in order to get nourishment; one may
tolerate people one dislikes in order to stay within the law. Tolerance in
this sense, while certainly better than the absence of tolerance, is a low
moral minimum for leaders in the public arena today.