Intolerable

I think I'm probably not alone in thinking that the unsubtle binary of "like" vs. "not like" is, shall we say, unhelpful. This has most obviously been manifested by the vociferous policing and trolling of opinions expressed on social media, resulting ultimately in the so-called "cancellation" of individuals, both socially and professionally. This person is wrong! We don't like this person! Ex-ter-min-ate! I mean, whatever your views on the matter, we are clearly at a very curious stage in the development of our civilisation when, for example, the expression of the previously unproblematic view that to be "a woman" or "a man" is a biological condition and not a matter of opinion or choice has come to be considered intolerably provocative by people with whom one might otherwise agree on most other things. TERF! Ex-ter-min-ate!

The danger in such polarisation – you're either with us, or against us! – is that we are losing touch with the concept of "tolerance". Toleration is a much more nuanced and accommodating condition than "approval", is often hard-won, and is an indispensable feature of liberal cultivation and society. I don't approve of, much less "like" the noisy party down the road that is keeping me awake, but I tolerate it, just as most of us tolerate many nuisances and behaviours that we don't actually like, rather than invoking the law or rounding up a posse of like-minded neighbours to silence the merry-makers (much as the latter option might entertain my sleep-deprived mind as 3 a.m. approaches). "Do as you would be done by" and "live and let live" are excellent principles to live by, despite the sad fact that selfish, unthinking bastards are unlikely to notice, learn anything from, or reciprocate your own saintly tolerance. It does have to be conceded that sometimes wrathful Old Testament smiting does have its attractions over meek New Testament cheek-turning, but "let's all get along" is infinitely preferable to "let's find out who's the strongest here".

These distinctions are useful where art is concerned, too. Echo-chamber art, where one hears, sees, or reads nothing but work that is gratifyingly close to one's own worldview, is barely "art" at all: it is merely interior decoration, chosen to complement the colour scheme of one's mind. The equivalent of tolerance in aesthetic terms is suspension of judgement, the willingness to let unfamiliar or even rebarbative offerings do their work, something I have previously described as a "Hendrix Moment": giving "argh!" a chance to transmute into "wow!". Naturally, as you get older, this flexibility of mind starts to stiffen, along with your knees; you know what you like, dammit, and this is not it. But that is all the more reason to deploy the relaxed mental yoga of toleration: someone must enjoy this rubbish, perhaps there's something in it after all?

But – and this is merely to state the bleedin' obvious – provided you have given something every chance to work whatever magic it might or might not possess, there's absolutely no reason to pretend to like it, or to force yourself to like it, just to fit in with the prevailing opinion. There are many hilarious stories of gallery-goers mistaking a pile of builder's rubble for an art installation and enthusing about it, just as there are thousands of high-profile artworks out there that I, for one, wouldn't rescue from a builder's skip (have you seen the finalists for this year's Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize?). To pretend to enjoy something is to mistake cowardice for tolerance, like pouring your complementary limoncello [1] into a handy plant pot, rather than spitting it in disgust onto the floor, which is surely the only honest reaction. It's perfectly OK not to understand or enjoy, say, opera, Rococo art, or atonal music, having given them a chance; why pretend?

At the same time – and this should be even more bleedin' obvious, but clearly isn't – what is definitely not OK is to campaign for the suppression of opera, Rococo art, or atonal music simply because you don't like them or, worse, because you don't approve of them or the people that do like them. All those pretentious fools? Those rich bastards? Cut off their public funding! Shut it all down! It seems to me perfectly acceptable not to like very camp self-presentation or to find drag queens repulsive, without feeling the need to banish Ru Paul's Drag Race or, by the same token, to suffer accusations of homophobia as a consequence; after all, there are plenty of gay men who don't like them, either, for whatever reasons (good taste, most likely). To be tolerant of things, people, and behaviours we don't actually like may sound condescending – oh, how big of you, not to hate me! – but it is the only way we have to prevent dislike – whether instinctive or considered, aesthetic or political – mutating into active and malevolent intolerance, and is far more effective than any legislative measures.

In the otherwise rather neglected play Almansor, written in 1820 by the German author Heinrich Heine and set in the Granada of 1492, the burning of the Qur'an by the Archbishop of Toledo is mentioned, prompting the much-quoted response: "That was just a prelude: wherever books are burned, eventually people will be burned, too" (Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen). In fulfilment of his own prophesy, Heine's books were among the 20,000 burned on Berlin's Opernplatz in 1933 – he was an "assimilated" Jew – and those words are now engraved on the commemorative plaque set into the square.

We know only too well how destructive ideological behaviours can escalate: first books, then people. As it happens, I'm writing this the day after Salman Rushdie was repeatedly stabbed at a literary gathering in New York state. It seems to me there is an unavoidable paradox here. Which is: intolerance should not be tolerated. But one is therefore obliged to ask the question: if social-media zealots are the present-day book-burners, can we really distinguish between good-guy book-burners and bad-guy book-burners? After all, it is only a few easy social-media steps from a "cancellation" pile-on to actual violence. There's always an excitable mob, or some lone nutter who hears and acts on the implicit command to act. Kill the pig! Slit her throat! Bash her in!  Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest? 

One view, certainly, is that some Old Testament wrathfulness directed at all the enemies of toleration is the best way to ensure its preservation; let the trollers be trolled, and the cancellers be cancelled, yea, unto the last generation. But then there is also the more reform-minded New Testament alternative, as demonstrated when a certain woman faced a terminal cancellation by stoning, to be executed by a mob convinced of its own rectitude: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her". It worked then, allegedly, and is clearly a Great Teaching and always worth a try, I think, but should be followed up, when necessary, by some righteous pre-emptive smiting, before things really get out of hand.

1. For some reason, Italian restaurants like to ruin a good meal by offering you a post-prandial glass of this disgusting brew.