Tea at Trianon: More on Tolerance

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 16, 2012

More on Tolerance

People can only take so much of it. To quote:

Among all the words in a language already so battered and bruised as to almost become unrecognizable, one word stands out for having taken the brunt of the beating.

Tolerance.

Tolerance has been so misshapen by the abuse that many people think that it means something opposite to its nature. After all the injustice the word has suffered, I am unsure if it can or even should survive. Nevertheless, I wish to testify to its true meaning, even if in eulogy.

So let us begin with the basics. Contrary to what you may have heard, tolerance of its own can never be a good thing. By its nature, tolerance means abiding a bad thing. Even in our diminished capacity, nobody would say that they tolerate something good. One doesn't tolerate ice cream. One tolerates liver.

Metaphors aside, to tolerate is to abide something wrong, something in error, something evil.

Now many people today would have you believe that tolerance is the highest of the civic virtues, but it is not and never can be. Abiding evil can never be a virtue in and of itself and therefore it can never be demanded of anyone, least of all a Christian.

There are many reasons Christians may legitimately tolerate error, but they all must have one thing in common, the good of the sinner. We sometimes tolerate such error in the hopes that eventual realization of the folly will lead to repentance and eventually to truth. But there are also some errors and actions that cannot and must not be tolerated for the good of the sinner and the good of society. (Read entire article.)