Maria Arpa
This week
Mind your language
Plus…
Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness
and
the Wednesday Whisper
Tolerance when it suits
So I really get why we work hard as a society to clean our language. For example; we use ‘sex worker’ instead of ‘prostitute’ or ‘homeless person’ instead of ‘tramp’. The point is to break down the stereotypes and associations that go with the labels and to try and separate the human being from the situation they find themselves in. Therefore, instead of calling someone an ‘illegal immigrant’, it could be more accurate to use the term ‘undocumented worker’. (How can a human ever be ‘illegal’?)
What I notice is that many of the people who remind us to clean up our language will, with impunity, describe people who disagree with their politics as ‘crazy’, ‘insane’, ‘evil’ etc which is hardly in keeping with the values being espoused.
Anyone can clean up their language so as to fit into the current thinking but that is no guarantee that they actually understand the need for tolerance being requested from such a shift.
So, what I see is a double standard. Tolerance for those who the person demanding it decides we should be tolerant towards and a complete lack of tolerance for anyone who disagrees.
Now, being tolerant doesn’t mean I have to put up with stuff I don’t like. It means that my starting point accepts the proposition that there is a lot of difference in how we see things and there must be room for it because otherwise it wouldn’t exist. From that place amazing discussions can begin and a communications tool like the Dialogue Road Map makes it possible to have those conversations in a fair, equal and balanced place that take us to the ultimate place of learning how to co-exist.
Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness
Recently, I find myself noticing the struggle of tolerance in relation to behaviour. At what point does someone’s behaviour stretch my tolerance to the point of taking decisive action and how do I discern that?
The Wednesday Whisper
Where are the limits of your tolerances?
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