When did people get the idea that tolerance means not having any strong opinions on anything? I occasionally made fun of this at my old blog, but I recently stumbled across a more extreme example: one of the things that struck me about Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God (aside from the butchering of Aquinas mentioned here) is that she insists Galileo was just as intolerant as some of the most intolerant religious people. Why? Because he thought he was right about the Earth revolving around the Sun! I’ve seen the “if you think you’re right you’re intolerant” card played before regarding religious belief, but never regarding scientific findings. By this standard, US high schools are churning out intolerant bigots by teaching our children that atomic theory is, in fact, correct.

Wherever this idea comes from, it is certainly not the normal meaning of the term. Outside of talk about being tolerant of other people’s beliefs and behavior, “tolerating” something usually implies you dislike it. This even works for people; I would be unhappy to know an acquaintence was merely tolerating my presence. It used to be this understanding of “toleration” applied even to beliefs and behavior: Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration uses as a premise that there is “but one truth, one way to heaven…” In other words, toleration means tolerating people who’s beliefs you think are wicked and deserving of eternal damnation.

My guess is that the impulse towards indecision–even about whether the Earth revolves around the Sun!–arose as a sort of Hansonian signaling well-suited to a particular kind of society, namely one where success requires getting along with a great variety of people. Refusing to have strong opinions may be intellectually ridiculous, but it’s a good way of signaling that you want to get along with everybody. Furthermore, I think many socially savvy people manage to intuit, without Hanson’s help, that strong condemnations of beliefs and behaviors is often nothing more than a way to signal you would like to bring certain people’s status down a notch. This makes people with a good sense for social dynamics extra suspicious of anyone with strong opinions.