190 Global Ethics for Leadership
9.2 Tolerance as Commitment
When I use the word tolerance here I understand it to mean some-
thing more than the bare minimum, something approaching open-
mindedness, a willingness to work with others who are very different
than the self or the group, and also the ability to re-think assumptions,
re-examine boundaries, revise exclusivist ideologies. This more robust
understanding of tolerance involves too the commitment to search for
common goals and values that are not linked to or grounded in some
pre-conceived notion of organic sameness, and difference, and which do
not find their vitality and energy in hatred of the other.
9.3 Tolerance Can be Learned
Like other moral values and virtues, tolerance is not something hu-
mans are either born with or otherwise simply do not possess. Tolerance
rather is a virtue one learns. One learns tolerance, like other virtues,
from family, educational experiences, religion, cultural practices and so
on. And, as with other virtues, one grows in one’s capacity for tolerance
the more one practices being tolerant. It follows that in a society that
values tolerance one will find people with greater capacity for tolerance
than in a society that does not value it.
Why has the virtue of tolerance taken a place among the central vir-
tues necessary for good leadership today? The answer to this question
lies in the nature of the contemporary human world. Due to many fac-
tors, too complex and numerous for this brief discussion, including the
global reach of commerce, trade, finance, immigration, media, infor-
mation and technology, the world humans inhabit today is plural, multi-
cultural, multi-ethic, multi-tribal, multi-religious, interconnected, and
each part is hyper aware of the other parts. Indeed the “other” has be-
come the subject at the centre of much of our philosophical, moral, reli-
gious, artistic, political lives today.