tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/tolerance-12361/articlesTolerance – The Conversation2023-06-01T12:29:34Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2059152023-06-01T12:29:34Z2023-06-01T12:29:34ZIsraeli protesters fear for the future of their country’s precarious LGBTQ rights revolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528676/original/file-20230527-15-3k7zwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C4%2C1017%2C676&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators lift Israeli flags and LGBTQ pride flags during a protest against the proposed judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv in May 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-lift-flags-and-banners-during-a-protest-news-photo/1256499783?adppopup=true">Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Demonstrations against the Israeli government’s efforts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/israels-judicial-reform-efforts-could-complicate-its-relationship-with-us-but-the-countries-have-faced-other-bumps-along-the-road-203104">radically overhaul the country’s judicial system</a> have become a weekly occurrence. Often rainbow pride banners pop with color amid the sea of blue and white national flags.</p>
<p>LGBTQ allies are hardly the only groups protesting the new government: Secular Jews, liberals and people concerned that the plan will erode democracy have come out to the streets in droves since early 2023. But among other concerns, many Israelis fear that hard-line conservative ministers will <a href="https://www.jta.org/2023/01/17/politics/israel-has-been-an-lgbtq-haven-in-the-middle-east-its-new-government-could-change-that">roll back LGBTQ rights</a>. And LGBTQ issues are a potent symbol of a chasm fueling debate over the judicial overhaul: <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-26/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-secret-of-the-lgbt-protests-success/0000017f-dc5c-d856-a37f-fddc43a30000">secular and religious Israeli Jews’</a> very different visions of the Jewish state.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition is the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/netanyahus-government-takes-a-turn-toward-theocracy">most religious</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2023/1/20/23561464/israel-new-right-wing-government-extreme-protests-netanyahu-biden-ben-gvir">nationalist</a> in the country’s history. His supporters claim that Israel’s Supreme Court, whose rulings guaranteed many of the rights LGBTQ people have today, is interventionist and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-732567">needs to be reined in</a>. Opponents, however, fear that Israel’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-its-75th-birthday-israel-still-cant-agree-on-what-it-means-to-be-a-jewish-state-and-a-democracy-204770">balance of being a democratic state and a Jewish one</a> is tipping away from democracy.</p>
<p>But how did Israel become relatively accepting of LGBTQ people in the first place – especially given the ways religion and state are <a href="https://main.knesset.gov.il/en/activity/pages/basiclaws.aspx">entangled in its laws</a>? The answer does not rest solely with the Supreme Court. The legislature, popular culture and activist organizations were key – <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479810031/queer-judaism/">including Orthodox groups known as the Proud Religious Community</a>, a focus of <a href="https://www.fordham.edu/info/20855/faculty/4979/orit_avishai">my ethnographic research</a>. I believe the lack of separation between law and religion has at times actually helped advance LGBTQ Jews’ rights. Activists’ carefully picked agenda and its convergence with national interests have also aided the movement.</p>
<h2>The ‘gay decade’</h2>
<p>Chronicles of Israel’s LGBTQ rights often focus on changes that occurred during the so-called “gay decade” that began in 1988, when the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/03/23/Parliament-legalizes-homosexuality-in-Israel/1523575096400/">repealed sodomy laws</a>. The groundwork for that, however, began decades earlier.</p>
<p>Israel’s first LGBTQ organization, <a href="https://www.lgbt.org.il/english-new">The Aguda</a>, was founded in 1975 as a grassroots, volunteer-based human rights nonprofit. In its early years, many members were closeted, but by the early 1980s some LGBTQ activists were willing to put a public face on the movement by sharing their stories in interviews, public hearings and lobbying efforts. A groundbreaking 1983 Aguda pamphlet appealed to scientific evidence and international legal precedents to make the case for <a href="https://www.mako.co.il/pride-news/local/Article-16dfa68babbbf71027.htm">ending prejudice and discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>A dizzying array of rights were achieved during the gay decade and beyond. Sexual orientation was declared a protected employment category in 1992, and openly gay women and men were <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127131403">allowed to serve in the military</a> in 1993. Same-sex partners were recognized for welfare in 1994, national insurance benefits in 1999 and pension benefits in 2000. </p>
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<span class="caption">An Israeli soldier during the 2007 Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem, with heavy police presence to prevent clashes with protesters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-israeli-female-soldier-holds-the-multi-colored-gay-pride-news-photo/74847632?adppopup=true">Gali Tibbon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Because religious authorities have monopoly over marriage and divorce in Israel, <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/11/israel-wont-legalize-gay-marriage-heres-why.html">same-sex marriage is not legalized</a>. Nevertheless, over the past 20 years, same-sex couples and their families have won many other legal protections, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/committee-okays-inheritance-between-same-sex-partners/">including inheritance</a>, stepchild adoption, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israeli-court-grants-gay-divorce-even-though-same-sex-marriage-flna1c7425785">divorce</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/israel-lifts-restrictions-sex-surrogacy-rcna10859">surrogacy rights</a>.</p>
<h2>Uneven gains</h2>
<p>Beyond the law, LGBTQ Israelis have also benefited from increasing cultural visibility and public acceptance. Municipal and state investments have made the Tel Aviv Pride Parade a <a href="https://www.afar.com/magazine/the-worlds-biggest-lgbtq-pride-celebrations">top destination</a> for Pride month travelers around the world. Israeli <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/10/viva-la-diva-how-eurovisions-dana-international-made-trans-identity-mainstream">transgender singer Dana International</a> won the Eurovision contest in 1998, and gay characters began to appear in <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/soldiers-rebels-and-drifters">mainstream movies</a> and popular TV by the turn of the millennium. The late 1990s and the aughts also saw a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1295">significant expansion</a> of organizations to support LGBTQ people and their families.</p>
<p>Still, access to protections has always been uneven. The early gay “revolution” was predominantly secular, and remains so. It is mostly an urban, Jewish, Ashkenazi affair – referring to <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/who-are-ashkenazi-jews/">Jews whose families were from Europe</a>. Transgender people won <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-lgbt-victory-court-bans-transgender-workplace-prejudice/">employment protections</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/israel-s-first-openly-transgender-soldier-paves-way-others-n742876">the right to serve in the military</a> more than a decade after gays and lesbians won the same rights.</p>
<p>Attitudes toward LGBTQ Israelis have been slower to change in conservative religious communities, and same-sex relationships remain taboo in ultra-Orthodox circles. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, Orthodox activists have begun to organize, as I document in my recent book “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479810031/queer-judaism/">Queer Judaism</a>.”</p>
<h2>Path to acceptance</h2>
<p>Although a minority, religious conservatives have been power brokers and members of government coalitions for most of the state of Israel’s history. Yet certain aspects of the country’s political landscape help explain the LGBTQ movement’s successes – as do activists’ strategic choices.</p>
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<span class="caption">Yohay Verman and Yotam Ha'Cohen smash glasses during their marriage during the 2016 Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/israeli-gay-couple-yohay-verman-and-yotam-hacohen-smash-news-photo/578336518?adppopup=true">Gali Tibbon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>First, the lack of separation of state and religion means that Israel does not offer a civil marriage option, even for opposite-sex couples. The legal system developed alternatives for heterosexual Jewish couples who did not want to or could not marry through the Jewish rabbinate, such as extending many of marriage’s civil benefits to cohabitating couples. These alternatives were relatively <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3065040#">easy to extend</a> to same-sex couples.</p>
<p>Second, the goals that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2717-0_101-1">the Israeli LGBTQ movement</a> has prioritized – equal rights to parenthood, family and military service – aligned well with Jewish Israeli common values and national priorities. They often <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3065040#">avoided alliances</a> with other causes that were considered controversial, especially Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>Third, Tel Aviv’s fun façade as a thriving gay scene served national interests. Politicians from across the political spectrum have used Israel’s liberal record on LGBTQ rights to bolster its democratic credentials while ignoring criticism over systemic human rights violations toward Arab citizens of the state and Palestinians in the occupied territories – <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/israelsolpalestine-and-the-queer-international">a phenomenon sometimes called “pinkwashing</a>.”</p>
<h2>Pivotal moment?</h2>
<p>The same forces that facilitated Israel’s LGBTQ rights revolution, however, may now undo hard-won gains.</p>
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<span class="caption">Israelis take part in a protest against the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem on July 21, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/israeli-right-wing-religious-jews-take-part-in-a-protest-news-photo/578328184?adppopup=true">Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Jewish religious conservatives have long viewed acceptance of LGBTQ people’s rights <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-israel-middle-east-jerusalem-religion-260e59484c89b5f19cee67a5ca0ceb50">as an affront to the state’s Jewish character</a>. In the past, ruling coalitions with both political moderates and Orthodox parties guaranteed some modicum of compromise, including on LGBTQ rights. But the current ruling coalition rests on the support of religious ultranationalists, including ministers who have <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-my-voters-dont-care-im-a-homophobic-fascist-but-my-word-is-my-word/">openly opposed LGBTQ rights</a>. </p>
<p>Another factor is the current right-wing government’s unambiguous territorial ambitions. <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/judicial-reform-boosting-jewish-identity-the-new-coalitions-policy-guidelines/">Its guiding document</a> declares that “The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” and one senior minister has even <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-appears-to-post-support-for-expulsion-of-arab-israelis/">hinted at his support for Arab expulsion</a>. With such <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-05-20/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/israel-is-hurtling-toward-a-new-kind-of-illiberal-regime/00000188-35a8-d7fd-adec-ffebca370000">nationalistic aims</a> out in the open, the state may no longer feel as much of a need to use LGBTQ rights to defend its human rights record.</p>
<p>During research for my book about Orthodox LGBTQ activism in Israel, I noticed how efforts to change conservative communities’ ideas about equality and acceptance were grounded in claims of a shared Jewish experience. However, LGBTQ activists I talked to did not challenge other aspects of far-right politics.</p>
<p>Critics of LGBTQ activists’ approach warn that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1295">prioritizing narrower interests</a>, rather than a broader social justice platform, fails to rein in <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/middle-east-briefs/pdfs/101-200/meb150.pdf">Israel’s broader shift</a> away from liberal democratic norms – which could jeopardize their own hard-won gains as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Orit Avishai receives funding from the Association for the Sociology of Religion, The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, The Global Religion Research Initiative (Notre Dame and Templeton Trust), Fordham University</span></em></p>LGBTQ rights are not the main issue bringing Israeli protesters to the streets, but they do symbolize the country’s stark divide.Orit Avishai, Professor of Sociology, Fordham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055242023-05-12T13:55:14Z2023-05-12T13:55:14ZThe ‘gay world cup’: why LGBTQ+ audiences love Eurovision<p>In 1956, seven European countries – Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and West Germany – gathered in Lugano, Switzerland for the first ever Eurovision Song Contest. The competition was only broadcast in select countries, meaning only a small number of viewers watched Swiss entry Lys Assia win the grand prize with the song Refrain.</p>
<p>Over the years, the contest has become a glitzy, kitschy spectacle of both the beautiful and the bizarre, drawing in <a href="https://eurovision.tv/story/eurovision-2022-161-million-viewers">over 160 million viewers</a> at last year’s event. In 2023, Eurovision returns to the UK (last year’s runners up) on behalf of 2022 winners Ukraine for the first time since 1998, a day few anticipated after years of zero success. </p>
<p>As well as the contest’s overall transition from small show to huge spectacle, Eurovision has also developed a dedicated and passionate fandom over the years, many of whom are members of the LGBTQ+ community. </p>
<p>I have always been a huge follower of the contest. Eurovision is a perfect unity of my own fanhood and my research interests surrounding contemporary LGBTQ+ representation and visibility. An international media event that places LGBTQ+ people centre stage deserves celebrating.</p>
<p>In a recent BBC article, journalist Jamie McLoughlin labelled Eurovision a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65485540">“safe space” for LGBTQ+ communities</a>, noting how Eurovision consistently lays a “thoroughly supportive hand” on LGBTQ+ people in Europe. LGBTQ+ fans have affectionately likened Eurovision to other major events, with descriptions such as “Gay Christmas”, “the Gay World Cup” and “the Gay Olympics”.</p>
<p>In the BBC TV special <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ltd3">Eurovision Calling</a>, Jason Manford interviewed several LGBTQ+ Eurovision fans, including Lewis Thorp, who described how Eurovision helped him come to terms with his sexuality.</p>
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<h2>Camping it up</h2>
<p>But why is Eurovision so popular amongst LGBTQ+ communities? Many have related LGBTQ+ (particularly gay male) admiration for Eurovision in its “camp” nature and reliance on excess. In Susan Sontag’s seminal piece <a href="https://monoskop.org/images/5/59/Sontag_Susan_1964_Notes_on_Camp.pdf">Notes on Camp</a>, she describes camp as more than just the effeminacy of gay men – it is a sensibility that represents the “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration”.</p>
<p>The performativity and extravagance of Eurovision undeniably represents this notion of camp, with vibrant performances and over-the-top presentations. This contrasts with Eurovision’s early days when there was very little LGBTQ+ visibility in music or on television.</p>
<p>Camp can represent the sense of subcultural community through the “gaying” of straight culture. Although there was no actual representation in the beginnings of Eurovision, LGBTQ+ communities adapted for their own purposes and needs, using the joy of the song contest as a <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music/2023/05/eurovision-is-beloved-lgbtq-community-liverpool-diversity">means to celebrate</a> diversity. </p>
<p>In recent years we have been introduced to many LGBTQ+ participants in an age of increased visibility in both music and television. In 1998, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ZfreUQfvc">Dana International</a> made history as the first transgender winner for Israel – an incredible achievement considering the lack of trans representation at the time.</p>
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<p>In 2007, Ukranian drag queen <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfjHJneVonE">Verka Serduchka</a> impressed audiences with the catchy Dancing Lasha Tumbai, placing second in the grand final. In fact, the art of drag would continue to be popular with Eurovision audiences, when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaolVEJEjV4">Conchita Wurst</a> won the contest for Austria with Bond-like ballad Rise Like a Phoenix in 2014. </p>
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<p>There have also been a number of memorable moments of LGBTQ+ representation during the event. In 2013, Finland’s entry <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlBXOveVh7c">Krista Siegfrids</a> kissed a female dancer during her grand final performance of Marry Me, a protest against her government’s rejection of same-sex marriage.</p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/eurovision-2013-to-feature-first-lesbian-kiss-in-protest-against-lack-of-gay-marriage-legislation-8621231.html">interview</a> afterwards, Siegfrids declared that the performance was structured to promote “love and tolerance”.</p>
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<h2>Drive for change</h2>
<p>Although politics is mostly banned at Eurovision (Ukraine’s President Zelensky has been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/zelensky-eurovision-2023-speech-ukraine-kf3rn5m25">barred from addressing the event</a> this year), Siegfrid’s performance demonstrated how Eurovision could represent a platform of protest, and how it can be used as a potential drive for political and cultural change.</p>
<p>It is evident that LGBTQ+ people have taken centre stage at Eurovision. It is not just an extravagant spectacle of camp, but a place to be seen, a place where LGBTQ+ performers can be successful, accepted and supported by an array of fans.</p>
<p>This is particularly notable when there are still anti-LGBTQ+ policies in existence in many European countries (including Russia, Belarus, Turkey and Hungary) and some countries are becoming increasingly hostile environments for transgender people (including the UK). Turkey departed the contest in 2012, with Turkish broadcaster TRT stating LGBTQ+ prevalence as a <a href="https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-to-return-eurovision-if-no-more-bearded-divas-135427">key cause of their withdrawal</a>.</p>
<p>In 2014 drag artist Conchita Wurst was heavily criticised for taking part, with Russian politician Vladimir Zhiriovsky labelling her win as “<a href="https://www.thepinknews.com/2014/05/11/russian-mp-conchita-wurst-winning-eurovision-is-the-end-of-europe/">the end of Europe</a>”. Wurst has since been hailed by Eurovision fans as an LGBTQ+ icon, whereas Russia is now banned from entering the competition following its invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>Eurovision producers are clearly aware of their prominent LGBTQ+ fandom, and are actively working to ensure it is a safe and welcoming place. And this will be no different during Liverpool’s turn as host this year.</p>
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<p>The Eurovision committee have planned a number of <a href="https://www.timeout.com/uk/news/liverpool-has-announced-its-eurovision-programme-and-its-just-as-extra-as-youd-expect-032823">events</a>, such as <a href="https://theguideliverpool.com/upcoming_events/eurofestival-queerovision/#:%7E:text=Queerovision%20will%20be%20sharing%20visual,world's%20largest%20multicultural%20music%20festival.">Queerovision</a>, an online event showcasing the best of Liverpool’s Queer fringe, as well as a number of gay club events and after parties.</p>
<p>This year’s slogan, “United by Music”, predominantly refers to the UK hosting on behalf of Ukraine, but it can possess wider connotations: the unity of Europe and LGBTQ+ people. Whether Eurovision exists as a camp and glitzy spectacle, a major platform of LGBTQ+ visibility and representation, or a beacon of self-expression amongst fans, the contest’s impact on LGBTQ+ communities around the world is abundantly clear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Weaver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Offering an inclusive and diverse space for self-expression, Eurovision has found an appreciative audience in the LGBTQ+ community over the years.Matt Weaver, PhD Candidate in Film, Media & Communication, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989282023-02-15T13:55:13Z2023-02-15T13:55:13ZNigeria’s election: six dangers of mixing religion with politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508344/original/file-20230206-27-xjgrc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party describe their presidential candidate and his running mate as unifiers because of their ethnic and religious mix. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the issues that has generated great concern among voters in the run up to the Nigerian <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-64187170">presidential elections</a> is religion. </p>
<p>Many Nigerians <a href="https://doi.org/10.54561/prj0202123l">see</a> the mixing of religion and politics as an impediment to progress and development. This idea can be traced to Europe. The Middle Ages were a time when religious authorities and political authorities clashed in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01436599714722">European states</a>, resulting in instability. The need to separate religion from politics thus became normalised in western political thought by the early 20th century. Over the years the idea found its way into other societies.</p>
<p><a href="https://libjournals.mtsu.edu/index.php/scientia/article/view/1802">Recent studies</a> have shown that, in fact, the relationship between religion and politics isn’t always unproductive. Religion embeds some doctrines such as love and obedience to political authority that support secular authorities and the development process. And religious authorities and their followers have the capacity to be tolerant. </p>
<p>Still, the experience in multi-religious societies where religious communities vie for resources and power does point to some dangers for peace, development and democracy. </p>
<p>This has become apparent in the build up to Nigeria’s 2023 presidential elections. For instance, the <a href="https://canng.org/">Christian Association of Nigeria</a> and the Northern Christian Elders Forum have <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2022/06/11/dont-present-muslim-running-mates-can-northern-christian-elders-warn-tinubu-atiku/">cautioned</a> against the nomination of Muslim vice-presidential candidates by the <a href="https://apc.com.ng/">All Progressives Congress</a> and the <a href="https://peoplesdemocraticparty.com.ng/">Peoples Democratic Party</a>. </p>
<p>Religious bodies’ interest in who wields the power of the state is not out of place. But the extent of their intervention can portend serious dangers for the state.</p>
<p>These dangers have severe implications for the election and its outcome. The legitimacy and power of the state could be challenged. Religion claims to be based on divine authority, which it considers to be superior to that of the state. This threatens the state’s legitimacy, given that its authority derives from the people and the constitution.</p>
<h2>Six dangers</h2>
<p>Religion’s inroads into politics in Nigeria aren’t new.</p>
<p>Since the return to democratic governance, religion has <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pentecostal-republic-9781786992406/">influenced</a> how state power is captured. This can be seen in the political statements of religious institutions, their choice of candidates and the inclination of candidates to turn to their religious communities for support. </p>
<p>The trend continues in 2023, with slight variations. </p>
<p>Firstly, leading candidates have appealed to their faith communities, as in the past. Perhaps what is new comes from the All Progressives Congress candidate, Bola Tinubu; he is a Muslim and his wife a Christian. Rather than appealing to one faith community, Tinubu is seeking support from two. Normally, this should promote religious tolerance. But a religiously diverse family that controls state power might not be immune from competition for influence from each religion.</p>
<p>Secondly, there has been an outcry from some quarters about the fact that the ruling <a href="https://apc.com.ng/">All Progressives Congress</a> is presenting voters with a “<a href="https://guardian.ng/opinion/religious-identity-muslim-muslim-ticket-and-2023-elections/">Muslim-Muslim ticket</a>.” The party’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates are both Muslim. </p>
<p>The last time this happened was in <a href="https://leadership.ng/29-years-after-abiola-kingibe-tinubu-resurrects-muslim-muslim-ticket-picks-shettima-as-running-mate/">1993</a>. In that poll Nigerians overwhelmingly voted for Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe – possibly because Abiola broke through the religious divide through philanthropy and business investments. Today, having a similar ticket is risky.</p>
<p>Thirdly, fuelling the anger about the Muslim-Muslim ticket is the escalation of terrorist attacks by Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria. Both Muslims and Christians have been victims of the terror. But the popular impression among Christians is that they have been the <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/09/muslim-muslim-ticket-christianity-would-suffer-at-nigerias-seat-of-sovereignty/">most targeted</a> for persecution and Islamisation. </p>
<p>Fourth: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12088">religion</a> is a way of life for many people in Nigeria. It has a direct impact on their social and political decisions. The danger here is that a religious community could insist on voting one of their own members into office even though the candidate is generally considered to be a misfit.</p>
<p>The fifth danger is that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275115572153">inter-religious conflict</a> could be ignited if one religious group rejects the candidate of another, or if <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/02/why-religion-is-dangerous-for-politics-in-nigeria/">a politician mobilises</a> his religious community against his opponent in another religion. </p>
<p>Religion could also be used to mobilise ethnic support against political competitions from other groups. Nigeria is not only multi-religious but also multi-ethnic. The country has witnessed many incidents of conflicts along ethno-religious line. The civil war of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nigerian-civil-war">1967-1970</a> was the most catastrophic.</p>
<p>Lastly, there’s the threat that <a href="https://www.idea.int/news-media/news/political-inclusion-vital-sustainable-democracy">citizens</a> could be excluded from the political process. If a religious community, by virtue of numbers, is allowed to dominate the political space, it could prevent minorities from having a say and being represented in government. Nigeria has <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2007-09-02-voa22-66787697/565609.html">substantial numbers of</a> indigenous religious practitioners and a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/9/18/nigerias-undercover-atheists-in-their-words">growing</a> atheist community. Any of them might feel excluded by the dominant Muslim-Christian politics. </p>
<h2>Mitigation strategies</h2>
<p>One way to mitigate these threats is for the constitution to properly define the position of religion in the electoral process. </p>
<p>The Nigerian public and the political parties have worked out a temporary system called “<a href="https://africaupclose.wilsoncenter.org/ethnicity-religion-and-polarization-in-nigeria/">religious balancing</a>.” With this informal system, a Muslim candidate stands for election with a Christian deputy, and vice versa.</p>
<p>But this time the ruling party is fielding two <a href="https://guardian.ng/opinion/religious-identity-muslim-muslim-ticket-and-2023-elections/">Muslim</a> candidates for the upcoming election. The constitution needs to address the issue. It recognises the religious diversity of Nigerians but is silent on the religious identities of political office holders.</p>
<p>It is also important to incorporate the leaders of a variety of religious communities into government and political parties. Religious leaders can educate their followers to support any politician irrespective of their religious differences.</p>
<p>Religious tolerance is also necessary. Tolerance promotes inter-religious understanding, which in turn helps people to respect each other’s political choices.</p>
<p>Mixing religion with politics does not bode well for the <a href="http://theconversation.com/nigeria-insecurity-2022-was-a-bad-year-and-points-to-need-for-major-reforms-194554">ongoing tension</a> in many parts of the country. These tensions could seriously damage the already fragile Nigerian state.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adeyemi Balogun previously receives funding from DAAD for his doctoral study in Germany. </span></em></p>Damage to the fragile Nigerian state is one possible fallout of mixing religion with politics.Adeyemi Balogun, Lecturer, Osun State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1930632022-12-06T13:34:23Z2022-12-06T13:34:23ZFor Indonesia’s transgender community, faith can be a source of discrimination – but also tolerance and solace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493107/original/file-20221102-16-e8rxgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C89%2C2964%2C1904&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Al-Fatah mosque founder Shinta Ratri with other transgender women.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/yogyakarta-12-november-2017-al-fatah-pesantren-founded-in-news-photo/873328878?phrase=transgender%20indonesia&adppopup=true">Donal Husni/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shinta Ratri, an Indonesian transgender woman, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/indonesian-transgender-women-find-haven-in-islamic-boarding-school/hl9v6t0af">taught</a> transgender people at the Al-Fatah Islamic boarding school she helped found in 2008 that God didn’t care if you were gay or transgender because sincere prayer will be accepted.</p>
<p>Located in Yogyakarta, in southern Java, the school provided a safe space in a country where faith and transgender identities are often seen to be incompatible. Even though Indonesia transitioned to a secular democracy in 1998, all adults have to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/23/indonesias-ahmadiyah-push-back-against-discriminatory-laws">carry an identity card</a> that clearly states their religion. </p>
<p>Indonesia is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2005.00547.x">signatory</a> to the 1995 Beijing Declaration, which mandates the state’s “responsibility to promote, protect and fulfill its citizens’ rights to sexual and reproductive health rights.” </p>
<p>However, there are few legal protections available to the LGBTQI community. In a country with the world’s largest Muslim population, fundamentalist religious views can often <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/08/10/these-political-games-ruin-our-lives/indonesias-lgbt-community-under-threat">promote discrimination</a> against the transgender community.</p>
<p>I have been tracking the relationship between the Indonesian state, gender, sexuality and religion <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Oj_LfYYAAAAJ&hl=en">for over two decades</a>. I have found that faith can be a source of comfort and support for many transgender people.</p>
<h2>A long trans history</h2>
<p>Many people in Indonesia, and indeed beyond, believe that the idea of gender and sexual diversity came to the archipelago only through Western influence. However, parts of Indonesia, such as the island of Sulawesi, have been home to transgender communities <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463415000326">since at least the 1500s</a>. During this time, missionaries and trade emissaries traveling to the region recorded in their personal journals what, to them, was an extraordinary aspect of society – that people with male bodies were acting like women. </p>
<p>The European traveler Antonio de Paiva <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ielapa.254041337347464">wrote</a> in a letter in 1544 that a group called the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-we-can-learn-from-an-indonesian-ethnicity-that-recognizes-five-genders-60775">bissu</a> played key roles in royal courts and that they “grow no hair on their beards, dress in a womanly fashion … and adopt all of the female gestures and inclinations.” As high-ranking religious figures, bissu were advisers, wedding organizers, and mediated between the royal family and the gods. </p>
<p>Additionally, the Indonesian language has several words to describe transgender people, such as banci, bencong, wadam and <a href="https://www.gale.com/intl/ebooks/global-encyclopedia-lgbtq">waria</a>. Some of these words, such as wadam and waria, combine Indonesian words for woman and man. Wadam comes from wanita for woman and adam from man, and waria combines wanita with the word pria for man. </p>
<p>The first three words are now considered derogatory, and more neutral terms like transpuan or tranpria are emerging. However, the number of words demonstrates the historical role of transgender people as well as their central place in social life. </p>
<h2>Discrimination and prosecutions</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493108/original/file-20221102-12-95op7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protestors holding loudspeakers marching while holding a banner." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493108/original/file-20221102-12-95op7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493108/original/file-20221102-12-95op7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493108/original/file-20221102-12-95op7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493108/original/file-20221102-12-95op7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493108/original/file-20221102-12-95op7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493108/original/file-20221102-12-95op7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493108/original/file-20221102-12-95op7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of protesters march against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Banda Aceh on Dec. 27, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/group-of-muslim-protesters-march-with-banners-against-the-news-photo/898879742?phrase=transgender%20indonesia&adppopup=true">Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In present times, Indonesia does not criminalize same-sex sexuality, but LGBTQ people are often <a href="https://melbourneasiareview.edu.au/the-use-of-the-term-lgbt-in-indonesia-and-its-real-world-consequences/">at a risk of being harassed and detained by the police</a>. </p>
<p>In 2008, Indonesia passed the Pornography Law, which <a href="https://www.newmandala.org/whats-driving-indonesias-moral-turn/">interprets being transgender as obscene</a>. It states that pornography includes “pictures … conversations, movements of the body … in public which contain obscenity or sexual exploitation which violates the moral norms in society.” </p>
<p>Since 2016, the hard line against gender and sexual diversity <a href="https://melbourneasiareview.edu.au/the-use-of-the-term-lgbt-in-indonesia-and-its-real-world-consequences/">has become tougher</a>. Many in Indonesia want to see harsher penalties not only around same-sex sexuality but any form of sexual activity outside heterosexual marriage. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has further <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20499361211064191">increased discrimination</a> against Indonesia’s trans community. For instance, prior to COVID-19, trans people who needed to access medications, such as for HIV, were often able to do this through NGOs and some places of worship. During COVID-19, however, with medical resources being stretched, providing the trans community with HIV medications moved down the priority list. </p>
<h2>Faith as a source of support</h2>
<p>Many religions do not approve of LGBTQI identities. But some religions makes space for gender and sexual diversity. Indeed, there are numerous examples in contemporary Indonesia where faith is a source of comfort and support for trans people.</p>
<p>In his long-term ethnographic research, <a href="https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p388762-diego-garcia-rodriguez">Diego Rodríguez</a> analyzes the everyday practices of queer Muslims to argue that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2019.1693343">Islam and queerness can be compatible</a>. He found that Islam was sometimes more important in shaping notions of the self for trans people than ethnicity, sexuality or gender. For instance, trans people interpret Islam to say that the faith allows everyone to accept each other for who they are. </p>
<p>Al-Fatah mosque also engages with other faiths. For instance, in December 2021, Al-Fatah organized a <a href="https://nasional.tempo.co/read/1540775/keberagaman-dalam-perayaan-natal-waria-yogya">Christmas celebration with Christian trans women</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, since 2019 transgender advocates such as the <a href="https://gin-ssogie.org/">Global Interfaith Network</a> have been fighting to make mosques and other places of worship more accepting of transgender people. Amar Alfikar, an Indonesian trans man and researcher with GIN, has worked tirelessly alongside trans men and queer feminist Muslims to establish the Indonesian Queer Muslims + Allies group, a virtual space where members meet weekly to recite the Quran and discuss Islamic theology. </p>
<p>Providing this virtual space is important because many mosques force worshippers <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501713125/hearing-allahs-call/#bookTabs=1">to enter dressed according to the biological sex</a> they were assigned at birth. Indeed, men and women have <a href="https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1318100/muslim-women-sit-separately-mosques">different entrances</a> and spaces to pray. </p>
<p>Indonesia is also home to trans-inclusive churches. The Bethani Church in Yogyakarta welcomed transgender Christians after it recognized that they had difficulty finding a place to pray. As <a href="https://www.vice.com/id/article/pkbqnz/sejarah-berdirinya-gereja-khusus-transpuan-persekutuan-hati-damai-dan-kudus-di-surabaya">activist Dede Oetomo said</a>: “In Indonesian law, there is no verse that says that the right to worship belongs only to men or women.” Ledalero Catholic School of Philosophy in Maumere, the second-largest town on Indonesia’s Flores Island, is another example of a trans-inclusive church. </p>
<h2>The road ahead</h2>
<p>The transgender category has made religions think hard about who their adherents can and should be. </p>
<p>The bissu, who combine feminine and masculine energies, believe this identity is what helps them pray effectively. Indeed, bissu often give blessings to those about to go on the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. I found this puzzling when I started fieldwork in the 1990s, but it also helped me understand that for many in Indonesia there is no contradiction between Islam and being transgender. As one bissu <a href="https://www.insideindonesia.org/sulawesis-fifth-gender">told me</a>, “Allah is the one and only God, but there are many ways to be close to God.” </p>
<p>Indonesia recognizes six main religions. Of these, Hinduism is the <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-hinduism">least likely to</a> reject or ostracize transgender individuals for religious reasons. Hinduism is based on a <a href="https://www.belmond.com/ideas/articles/balinese-spirit">principle of consciousness</a>, or atma, a philosophy of “live and let live,” and doing good karma. Within this framework, transgender people can find solace. Bali, where over 90% of the population practices Hinduism, is often considered the most welcoming place for transgender Indonesians, but there is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/01/20/bali-deported-american-traveler-promoting-island-lgbt-friendly/4226891001/">still much transphobia</a>. </p>
<p>Additionally, as anthropologist <a href="https://benjaminhegarty.com/">Ben Hegarty</a> argued in his book “<a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501766657/the-made-up-state/">The Made-Up State</a>,” the transgender community in Indonesia is also defining what it means to be an Indonesian, including an Indonesian citizen of faith. </p>
<p>Publicly, and privately, reconciling faith and transgender is not an easy journey. Indonesia’s transgender community experiences religious trauma and transphobia but can also find its faith to be a source of empowerment and solace, as my research shows.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193063/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharyn Graham Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Indonesia has criminalized same-sex sexuality, but trans people are finding support in some trans-inclusive mosques and churches.Sharyn Graham Davies, Director, Herb Feith Indonesian Engagement Centre, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1803062022-10-14T12:19:46Z2022-10-14T12:19:46ZEvangelical college students often feel misunderstood – what helps boost understanding between students of all faiths?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460824/original/file-20220502-14-sn8m77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=52%2C45%2C4987%2C3309&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Do students' views of people with different beliefs really change on campus?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NerdWallet-Millennial-Money-Enroll-This-Fall/70126f085adb4d2a9d6b2fd8994ec01b/photo?Query=college%20campus&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=7438&currentItemNo=23">AP Photo/Darron Cummings</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://ehe.osu.edu/directory?id=mayhew.65">Our research team</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Y_dDF6oAAAAJ&hl=en">has studied</a> <a href="https://www.educationalleadership.msstate.edu/people/dr-christa-winkler/">college students’ attitudes</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-017-0283-8">toward evangelicals</a>, a topic that tends to prompt strong reactions.</p>
<p>Some liberals don’t see the topic as worthy of discussion – why study whether Americans appreciate a privileged group with <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/faith-in-the-halls-of-power-9780195376050?cc=us&lang=en&">strong influence</a> on society? Meanwhile, many conservatives <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10656219.2014.901932">are adamant</a> that evangelical perspectives are <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442224070/So-Many-Christians-So-Few-Lions-Is-There-Christianophobia-in-the-United-States?">not tolerated</a>, let alone welcome, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15507394.2005.10012355">on U.S. university campuses</a>.</p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.775303">our findings</a> about students’ attitudes underscore important lessons about fostering tolerance and appreciation on campus for any group. Views of evangelicals are particularly interesting, since they highlight the complexities of social privilege: how individuals <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/perceptions-discrimination-muslims-christians/519135/">can feel discriminated against</a>, even when their community as a whole is influential.</p>
<h2>Surveying students</h2>
<p>The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey, <a href="https://www.interfaithamerica.org/research/ideals/">or IDEALS</a>, surveyed 9,470 college students from 122 institutions across the country at three times: the beginning of their first year, the end of their first year, and the end of their senior year, which wrapped up in spring 2019. As part of this project, conducted by a team of researchers from Ohio State University, North Carolina University and the nonprofit <a href="https://interfaithamerica.org/research">Interfaith America</a>, we asked students about their attitudes toward religious, spiritual and secular groups, including but not limited to atheists, Jews, Muslims and evangelicals. </p>
<p>We asked students to indicate their responses to four statements on a scale of 1, or “disagree strongly,” to 5, or “agree strongly”:</p>
<p>1) In general, people in this group make positive contributions to society.</p>
<p>2) In general, individuals in this group are ethical people.</p>
<p>3) I have things in common with people in this group.</p>
<p>4) In general, I have a positive attitude toward people in this group.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.775303">analysis</a> controlled for other variables – such as the institution’s type, selectivity and size, and students’ race, gender, sexual orientation, major and political affiliation – to home in on the specific ways the campus learning environment was related to students’ views about different religious groups.</p>
<p>Compared with their attitudes toward other religious groups on campus, students’ appreciation for evangelicals grew at a slower pace, but still grew. On average, students’ responses showed an increase of over 40% in appreciation toward evangelicals by the end of their first year. By the time students graduated, they demonstrated another 30% increase between the end of their first year and fourth year of college. </p>
<h2>Campus climate</h2>
<p>After seeing that students’ views of evangelicals improved, on average, we wanted to better understand why.</p>
<p>First, we looked at the experiences students said were related to their gains, such as whether they took a religious studies course. Then, we conducted 18 case studies at institutions of various sizes and affiliations to learn about campus culture and hear from hundreds of students in focus groups. In these groups, we showed students data on the gains reported by their peers on campus and asked them why they thought these gains were made.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.775303">We found</a> that appreciation increased for students on campuses they consider committed to inclusion for people of faiths, and people of no faith – regardless of whether the institutions were public or private, large or small, selective or not.</p>
<p>Some students talked about the impact of simply living and studying alongside people from different backgrounds. Many named the influence of interfaith and multifaith centers, spaces dedicated to bringing people from different religions together. </p>
<p>For example, a student at a Protestant-affiliated institution who identified as agnostic noted that she had “experienc[ed] a lot of toxic Christianity” growing up. She credited her interactions with a “progressive Christian” chaplain at her campus’s interfaith center with helping her understand that Christian beliefs and identities are diverse, and not limited to the type of faith she was introduced to as a child.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crowd of students in a classroom, many of them with their hands up in worship, facing two singers at the front." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489284/original/file-20221011-18-yuizqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489284/original/file-20221011-18-yuizqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489284/original/file-20221011-18-yuizqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489284/original/file-20221011-18-yuizqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489284/original/file-20221011-18-yuizqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489284/original/file-20221011-18-yuizqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489284/original/file-20221011-18-yuizqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of a Christian group at California State University Long Beach worship in a lecture hall in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-csulb-intervarsity-christian-fellowship-turn-news-photo/1034906064?phrase=intervarsity&adppopup=true">Scott Varley/Digital First Media/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Survey data also suggested that, on average, students whose views of evangelicals improved reported having at least two curricular experiences related to religion. This included many type of activities: for example, enrolling in a course specifically designed to enhance knowledge of different religious traditions; reflecting on one’s own religion in relationship to other perspectives as part of a class; and discussing other students’ religious or nonreligious backgrounds in class.</p>
<h2>Personal relationships</h2>
<p>How students related to one another was another important theme that often came up in discussions about views of evangelicals.</p>
<p>Evangelicals have to negotiate a seeming paradox: As Protestant Christians, who have long held influence in U.S. culture and politics, they belong to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/abc.206">a privileged group</a>. Yet <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2007.0004">many evangelical students say</a> they <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/silencing-religious-students-on-campus/497951/">feel unwelcome</a> and misunderstood because of their beliefs.</p>
<p>Many non-Christian students who themselves feel marginalized because of their identities <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-can-feel-like-a-hostile-place-to-muslim-students-74385">wrestle with</a> how to make their evangelical peers aware of their relative privilege, and of how their beliefs and actions might affect other students.</p>
<p>For example, one student who identifies as atheist at a small, secular college recalled a Christmas tree put on their door by another student. “The person has literally no idea that that could possibly be upsetting,” they said, but added it was “a very sweet thing to do.” In other words, they believed that the other student was likely ignorant of why the Christmas tree could bother other students, but acting out of good intentions, tempering their anger about the unwelcome decoration.</p>
<p>Many students discussed developing empathy and humility. A Catholic student attending a Catholic college summarized, “Myself being a more liberal Christian, I’m not as accepting of the close-minded evangelical Christian … but that’s kind of being close-minded myself. … So I have to examine myself and be like, ‘I’m okay with them being them, even if I don’t agree with them.’ They’re saying, ‘All of these people are saying let’s accept everybody, but you’re not accepting me.’ And I said, ‘That’s absolutely right.’ … Even in political realms, too, I don’t agree with you, but I need to be okay with you.”</p>
<p>Finally, student gains in appreciation also seemed to stem from recognition that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/12/19/458058251/are-you-an-evangelical-are-you-sure">evangelicals are diverse</a>, not one homogeneous group – as with the student who appreciated her conversations with the Christian chaplain at her campus’s interfaith center. </p>
<p>As a research team, we found this project’s findings left us considering ways to address deep divisions in the U.S. today. Some principles apply to fostering respect in many other situations beyond religion, and beyond college, from our offices at work to the halls of Congress: intentionally but empathetically engaging with one another’s differences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew J. Mayhew receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Education, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the Merrifield Family Foundation, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christa Winkler and Musbah Shaheen do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>College can be a time to interact with people with different worldviews, but meaningful exchanges often require intent.Matthew J. Mayhew, Professor of Higher Education, The Ohio State UniversityChrista Winkler, Assistant Professor of Higher Education Leadership, Mississippi State UniversityMusbah Shaheen, PhD student in Higher Education and Student Affairs, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1800022022-03-25T15:27:11Z2022-03-25T15:27:11ZGlasgow’s museum of religion has been saved from closure – here’s why it’s important for multicultural Britain<p>Glasgow’s <a href="https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/venues/st-mungo-museum-of-religious-life-and-art">St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art</a> is unique within the British Isles. It is the only museum dedicated to the dialogue between art and religion, housing religious artefacts from different traditions and eras.</p>
<p>From its opening in 1993, the museum was involved with different religious communities, turning it into a space of spiritual experience and genuine interfaith dialogue. It is not simply a museum that houses artefacts, but a living symbol of religious diversity and multicultural Britain.</p>
<p>In March 2020 the museum, like many others, closed due to COVID-19. But, as restrictions lifted and places started to reopen, St Mungo was <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2021/07/st-mungo-museum-of-religious-life-and-art-under-threat-of-closure/">threatened with permanent closure</a> following funding cuts and a significant loss of income. Good news came on March 4, in the form of promised funding from Glasgow City Council. It was a response, in part, to a <a href="https://interfaithglasgow.org/save-st-mungos-museum/">powerful petition</a>. </p>
<p>Museums enrich the cultural life of a place and concerted efforts have been made following the the pandemic to reflect on their value, and the deprivation caused by their closure. But St Mungo is more than a museum, and its uniqueness prompts reflection.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xh1Ck4lvFto?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>It contains religious artefacts from different religious traditions and periods in displays that provide contextual understanding of religion. The artefacts function educationally but are also interpreted ritually/devotionally by those within the respective faith communities.</p>
<p>This means they open up a space for spiritual engagement and worship. This came about partly because of the active involvement of faith communities in the creation of the museum, in particular the <a href="https://study-uk.britishcouncil.org/moving-uk/student-life/religion">six world religions</a> that are practised in Scotland: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism.</p>
<p>From the outset, the purpose entailed more than the compilation of artefacts to create a dynamic space of lived religion. The installation of partitions, plinths and other similar devices enabled appropriate viewing spaces and fostered spiritual engagement.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454380/original/file-20220325-15-qqjr4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A small golden statue of Hindu god Lord Shiva of Nataraja." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454380/original/file-20220325-15-qqjr4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454380/original/file-20220325-15-qqjr4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454380/original/file-20220325-15-qqjr4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454380/original/file-20220325-15-qqjr4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454380/original/file-20220325-15-qqjr4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454380/original/file-20220325-15-qqjr4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454380/original/file-20220325-15-qqjr4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lord Shiva.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/figurine-hindu-god-shiva-isolated-over-507914896">Roman Sigaev/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The raising of the bronze statue of <a href="https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-scotland-glasgow-st-mungo-museum-of-religious-life-and-art-18th-or-105039571.html">Lord Shiva of Nataraja</a> off the floor on to a plinth is a valuable case in point. As a sacred Hindu artefact and object of devotion, it had to be treated with reverence. Recommended by the Hindu community, it conveyed the importance of statues of deities being elevated from the floor.</p>
<p>This raises the question of the boundaries between the aesthetic and the sacred, pointing to the multifaceted nature of exhibits. Members of the Jewish community helped acquire the painting <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-sabbath-candles-84512">The Sabbath Candles</a> by Dora Holzhandler. The painting brings together the different threads of the symbolic and spiritual act of the lighting of Sabbath candles with the gathering together of family in worship. </p>
<p>The museum is quintessentially important as a symbol of interfaith dialogue. From its inception, individual faith communities and educational advisors were consulted throughout various processes, including the acquisition of artefacts that represent their faiths or practices, the reach of which was global.</p>
<p>While religion was widely explored historically and geographically, the museum also centred on the experience of religions active within Scottish life. Creative decisions were made about featuring religions that opposed figurative or iconographic representation. One such example was the painting <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-attributes-of-divine-perception-85428">The Attributes of Divine Perception</a>, by the Islamic artist Ahmed Moustafa, which unifies the great Islamic traditions of calligraphy and geometry to evoke the greatness of God. </p>
<h2>A living museum of religion</h2>
<p>Religion will always be a contentious subject. St Mungo’s status as a living museum of religion has made it subject to attack, with dissension over questions about representation. Criticism of the exclusion of particular faiths, such as Baha'i, or their lack of representation in a museum of religion is inevitable, but has been addressed in proposals for temporary exhibitions.</p>
<p>So too is the exploration of the more negative aspects of religion including its role in war and the oppression of minority groups. One of the most fraught instances of this involved the <a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/religious-studies/religion-today-themes-and-issues/content-section-2.3">overturning of the museum’s Shiva statue</a> by a Christian evangelical, armed with bible in hand – his “weapon” of choice. </p>
<p>The global engagement of religion in museum collections is not new, but what is truly unique about St Mungo is the dynamic and consultative way in which the local faith communities were integral to the shaping of what the museum has come to stand for conceptually. This is denoted by the second part of its title: Religious Life and Art – that is, the objects used by individuals in their daily worship.</p>
<p>The museum approached each community in turn to discuss the acquisition of works from their faith, how they should be displayed, and other pertinent issues. This was seen to be more authentic in that it respected the fact that each religion had different needs and concerns, and did not impose a one-size-fits-all strategy. </p>
<p>This stand-out approach should be observed by those working to <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/decolonising-museums/supporting-decolonisation-in-museums/museums-as-spaces-and-places/">decolonise the museum space</a>. It remains a model for other museums of this kind in the challenges it set itself and the questions it sought to answer. </p>
<p>And in keeping with its mission of reflecting religion as it is lived in ordinary everyday lives, it will continue to evolve, its efforts ongoing to foster understanding, tolerance and common ground.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180002/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rina Arya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The only UK museum dedicated to the dialogue between art and religion, St Mungo’s serves a vital function in promoting interfaith dialogue and understanding.Rina Arya, Professor of Visual Culture and Theory, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1663342021-09-27T20:14:32Z2021-09-27T20:14:32ZFree speech doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want, wherever. Here’s how to explain this to kids<p>Melbourne has seen days of anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination protests with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-24/protests-condemned-rallies-enter-fifth-day/100488196">hundreds of arrests</a> made. Many protesters hold right-wing and extremist views. </p>
<p>Police say <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-25/protests-melbourne-anti-lockdown-vaccination-police/100491248">people have been arrested</a> for breaching the chief health officer’s directions, as well as drug-related offences and outstanding warrants. But protesters say the crackdown shows their views are being silenced and the legitimate right to protest — a democratic right that links to freedom of speech — is being squelched. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1440622020010528770"}"></div></p>
<p>These protests raise important questions about the nature of freedom of speech. Do the actions of the police represent an attempt to limit what people can say, think or believe? </p>
<p>Such concepts can be difficult enough for adults to deal with. But they can be far more confusing for children.</p>
<h2>What do kids need to know about free speech?</h2>
<p>The First Amendment to the United States Constitution proclaims freedom of speech as a right for all citizens. The Australian <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/rights-and-freedoms/freedom-information-opinion-and-expression#:%7E:text=The%20Australian%20Constitution%20does%20not,government%20created%20by%20the%20Constitution.">constitution</a> does not have such an explicit statement regarding free speech. But Australia is a party to seven core international human rights treaties and the right to freedom of opinion and expression is contained in articles 19 and 20 of the <a href="https://www.info.dfat.gov.au/Info/Treaties/treaties.nsf/AllDocIDs/8B8C6AF11AFB4971CA256B6E0075FE1E">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>.</p>
<p>In Australia, freedom of speech is taught explicitly as a concept as part of <a href="https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/resources/curriculum-connections/dimensions/?Id=54181&YearLevels=42685&searchTerm=%22Freedom+of+speech%22#dimension-content">the year 8 civics and citizenship curriculum</a>. Depending on the school and state, this amounts to about four lessons exploring democratic freedoms that allow for participation in Australian society. </p>
<p>But in practical terms, if a child gets sick at the wrong time and needs to miss school they’ll never learn about the most fundamental aspects of their own citizenship at school.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/freedom-of-speech-a-history-from-the-forbidden-fruit-to-facebook-119597">Freedom of speech: a history from the forbidden fruit to Facebook</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Children need to understand that when we talk about freedom of speech we’re actually talking about (at least) two things: freedom of opinion or belief, and freedom of expression.</p>
<p>In Australia, <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/human-rights-and-anti-discrimination/human-rights-scrutiny/public-sector-guidance-sheets/right-freedom-opinion-and-expression">freedom of opinion gives us the right to hold a belief without interference, exception or restriction</a>. We have the right to believe anything we want. We can believe the earth is flat or that alien cabals rule the world. </p>
<p>Freedom of expression is more complicated though. We have the right to say what we want — to give our opinions, advertise, display art and protest — but within limits. Most people are aware of these limits: we aren’t allowed to say fighting words, slander another person’s name, cause a panic, or incite violence, for example.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1440233441732165633"}"></div></p>
<p>A useful analogy, understandable by most children, is that we have the right to drive freely on roads provided we observe limits on speed, places we can park, how we negotiate the roads with others and the amount of alcohol we have consumed.</p>
<p>Simplistically, limits on what we say, where we say it and how we act are, therefore, like limits on the road, designed to optimise both our rights and public harmony. </p>
<p>In the case of the protesters, they are claiming and acting as if they have a right to not conform to restrictions put in place for the sake of public health and safety. In other words, they are not acknowledging any limits. </p>
<p>There are consequences to this, just as there are consequences to breaking road rules. Indeed some protesters have already <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/second-protester-tests-positive-after-melbourne-demonstrations/news-story/658e7ca898dd1d2bcf2228d19466d811">tested positive for COVID</a>, increasing the possibility of infection within the community.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423263/original/file-20210927-125336-1cjv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Traffic lights with road signs around them in Sydney." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423263/original/file-20210927-125336-1cjv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423263/original/file-20210927-125336-1cjv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423263/original/file-20210927-125336-1cjv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423263/original/file-20210927-125336-1cjv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423263/original/file-20210927-125336-1cjv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423263/original/file-20210927-125336-1cjv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423263/original/file-20210927-125336-1cjv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">You’re free to drive on the roads, but there are still rules you need to follow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/traffic-sign-downtown-sydney-australia-655295602">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But what about when the free speech is done in a privately owned sphere that is available to the public – such as on a social media platform? </p>
<h2>What about free speech in privately owned public spaces?</h2>
<p>There have been many instances <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/aug/01/sky-news-australia-banned-from-youtube-for-seven-days-over-covid-misinformation">where a news organisation</a> or person has been banned from social media platforms — the most famous example being that of ex US President <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension">Donald Trump</a>. </p>
<p>In this instance, it is not a government intervention that has blocked a person from expressing their opinions but a private entity with its own rules and regulations.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-twitter-is-not-censoring-donald-trump-free-speech-is-not-guaranteed-if-it-harms-others-153092">No, Twitter is not censoring Donald Trump. Free speech is not guaranteed if it harms others</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Let’s go back to our road example. If someone has a private road leading to a nice bluff overlooking the sea, they might allow anyone access to the bluff provided they follow conditions such as not speeding, sticking to the road and not playing loud music. If someone decided not to abide by those conditions, it is justifiable for the owner to ban them. </p>
<p>Private businesses also allow people into their stores so long as they accept certain conditions governing their behaviour. Most people think this is reasonable.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1389970965820547080"}"></div></p>
<p>But what conditions are acceptable to place on public access to private property? What if we did not allow people of a certain racial background into our coffee shop? Or certain genders? Almost no one would think that was reasonable. </p>
<p>The conversation with children, therefore, needs to be about whether limitations are fair and reasonable. </p>
<p>Private companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are allowed to set conditions for those who use their platforms. In fact, in the case of social media, you have to explicitly agree to abide by those terms to be allowed to use it.</p>
<h2>Freedom of speech means allowing others the same rights</h2>
<p>A crucial characteristics of participatory democracy is that everyone gets a say on issues of public importance, or at least every view gets a champion.</p>
<p>And if you’re free to express an idea, people are free to respond to you, and perhaps dismiss you, as they wish. Your right to be heard is not a right to be taken seriously. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zwhdf-m-UOc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The right to be heard is not the right to be taken seriously.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Kids need to be involved</h2>
<p>A final important point is that it’s not enough to tell students there are rules — they need to be active participants in constructing those rules. </p>
<p>A classic philosophical thought experiment is the paradox of tolerance, formulated neatly by the philosopher <a href="https://www.usj.edu.lb/news.php?id=9643">Karl Popper</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In democratic societies, we need to be tolerant of other beliefs, lifestyles, opinions and expression, but how do we match this with the idea of limits on free speech?</p>
<p>We can use the following questions to start discussions with our students or children:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>are there any behaviours we should find intolerable or unacceptable (such as violence, racism and homophobia)?</p></li>
<li><p>why are these behaviours intolerable — will they cause harm, or do we simply disagree with them?</p></li>
<li><p>how do we know harm occurs?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These conversations about rights and responsibilities are an essential part of a democratic education. </p>
<p>It is possible to have unlimited freedom of expression — just not in a democracy. If someone can say what they want without any regard or consequence, then they’ve merely reached the top of a dictatorship.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-rights-come-responsibilities-how-coronavirus-is-a-pandemic-of-hypocrisy-144270">With rights come responsibilities: how coronavirus is a pandemic of hypocrisy</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton is a Fellow of the Rationalist Society of Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Zaphir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Freedom of speech is a human right. But it comes with limitations, such as using the right to incite violence. Conversations around these concepts are a part of democratic education.Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project, The University of QueenslandPeter Ellerton, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Education; Curriculum Director, UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1656812021-08-19T08:54:33Z2021-08-19T08:54:33ZIndonesia’s obsession to maintain social order hinders equal treatment of minority faiths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416730/original/file-20210818-15-17fbihz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C251%2C3988%2C2407&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aprillio Akbar/Antara Foto</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A few weeks ago, Religious Affairs Minister Cholil Yaqut Qoumas became a target of public <a href="https://en.tempo.co/read/1489204/religious-freedom-group-lauds-ministers-greetings-for-bahais">criticism and praise</a> for congratulating followers of the minority Baha'i faith in Indonesia on celebrating their Nowruz holiday.</p>
<p>Nowruz is the <a href="https://bahai-library.com/walbridge_encyclopedia_nawruz">first day</a> of the Bahaʼi calendar year. It is one of nine holy days for Bahaʼi adherents.</p>
<p>Indonesian state and government officials extending holiday greetings to the followers of majority faiths is a common practice in Indonesia. It is often seen as the practice of tolerance. </p>
<p>But expanding it to the community of minority faiths, especially those who are not officially acknowledged by the state, is still considered a serious political and social sin. </p>
<p>For decades, the Indonesian government has recognised only six major religions – namely, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholicism.</p>
<p>Cholil’s holiday greeting to the Baha'i is not his first “progressive” move as the religious minister. Soon after he was installed as minister at the end of last year, he vowed to affirm the rights of Ahmadiyah and Shia, two minority faiths with sizeable followings in Indonesia. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, he requested prayers that <a href="https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2021/04/08/18015461/soal-doa-dari-semua-agama-menag-salahnya-doa-ini-apa-sih-orang-disuruh-doa">address all major religions</a> – not only Islam – be read out at events organised by his ministry.</p>
<p>Despite his more progressive, liberal leaning, it is unlikely Cholil will succeed in bringing in major reforms promoting equal treatment of minority faiths. </p>
<p>The minister faces a culture among state officials that tends to preserve “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0967828X18769393">majoritarian social order</a>”. This means the majority (either by religion, ethnicity, social class, or other identity) of the population holds certain powers or can make decisions for the entire society.</p>
<h2>Social order</h2>
<p>The inclination to preserve social order has been developed since the establishment of the Indonesian state and began in the Dutch colonial era. </p>
<p>Scholars found that this <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0967828X18769393">culture</a> survived through various eras, although the degree of implementation varied from time to time. </p>
<p>Under the authoritarian regime of Suharto, the state excessively emphasised harmony in the community. This resulted in the repression of dissent. </p>
<p>The regime often accused dissidents of being a destructive force against the country’s social order. </p>
<p>In the post-Suharto era, all branches of the state, including the judiciary, continued this culture. The majority faiths were privileged, at the expense of people who subscribed to minority faiths. </p>
<p>One example is the trial of Tajul Muluk, a Shia leader, who was <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/07/13/convicted-shiite-cleric-i-am-not-infidel.html">convicted</a> of having blasphemed Islam and disrupting social harmony. </p>
<p>Shia is a minority Islamic sect within the country’s Muslim-majority population, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims.</p>
<p>The East Java district court sentenced him to two years in jail in 2013. He appealed but, in the end, the Supreme Court doubled his sentence to <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/09/19/mk-rejects-tajul-muluk-s-request-a-judicial-review.html">four years</a> in jail. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/02/28/religions-name/abuses-against-religious-minorities-indonesia">Numerous</a> other Indonesian religious figures have been jailed for blasphemy charges after trying to introduce new religious practices or habits that were said to have deviated from religious rituals practised by followers of the majority faiths. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-competition-for-religious-authority-breeds-islamist-militancy-in-java-146919">How competition for religious authority breeds Islamist militancy in Java</a>
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<h2>Monotheism</h2>
<p>The founding ideology of Indonesia, called <em>Pancasila</em> (literally, “five principles”), comprises monotheism, civilised humanity, national unity, deliberative democracy and social justice. </p>
<p>The first principle, “Belief in One God”, is an important factor that hindered the establishment of equal treatment. </p>
<p>Indonesia’s founding father created the ideology during a series of meetings leading to independence. According to political scholar B.J. Boland, it was later used by the Ministry of Religious Affairs as an “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctvbqs4mn">operative principle</a>” to support the Muslim majority. Non-mainstream faiths have been repressed since the early years of the Indonesian state.</p>
<p>This value, which promotes both monotheism and the establishment of a more religious country, inspires and influences the formulation of laws and regulations in Indonesia. These regulations include <a href="https://www.amnestyusa.org/files/_index-_asa_210182014.pdf">the 1965 blasphemy presidential decree</a>, which has often been used to repress minority faiths. </p>
<p>President Sukarno issued the decree in 1965 to prevent conflicts between the followers of mystical beliefs or folk religions and the followers of mainstream faiths such as Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. </p>
<p>The decree became law four years later. To this day, state apparatuses often use this law to curb faiths that are claimed to be deviant sects and to criminalise their leaders.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-daily-lives-of-indonesian-youth-can-tell-us-why-they-become-more-conservative-132019">How the daily lives of Indonesian youth can tell us why they become more conservative</a>
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<h2>Uphill battle</h2>
<p>These cultural and ideological values are so well entrenched in the practices of the Indonesian state that any efforts to reform certain discriminatory laws and practices will be destined to fail. </p>
<p>For example, Indonesians have to state their religion in identity documents – one of the six religions recognised by the state for decades. </p>
<p>Followers of minority and native faiths have faced <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/11/13/native-faith-followers-survive-decades-discrimination.html">discrimination</a> for failing to comply with this requirement. They are often barred from receiving public services such as getting a marriage certificate.</p>
<p>It was not until <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/02/faith-optional-e-id-card.html">2012</a> that the Indonesian government allowed citizens, especially subscribers to nondenominational faiths, to forgo declaring their religious beliefs on the identity card. Indigenous faith followers have only been able to cite their religious preferences on identity cards since <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/05/20/indigenous-faiths-allowed-id-card.html">2015</a></p>
<p>Despite such progressive measures, and although the current religious affairs minister has shown some progressive impulses, more fundamental reforms are needed to abolish the discriminatory laws and practices. The process of reform requires major overhaul of the discriminatory cultural and ideological values behind these laws and practices. </p>
<p>Failure to do so will be harmful for freedom of religion in Indonesia, particularly in regard to ensuring equal treatment of minority faiths.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165681/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A'an Suryana tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>To put an end to discriminatory laws and practices, more fundamental reforms are needed.A'an Suryana, Visiting Fellow, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1596622021-04-28T11:21:51Z2021-04-28T11:21:51ZFour reasons why your tolerance for alcohol can change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397560/original/file-20210428-23-1ttk449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C4384%2C2747&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Drinking as much as you used to could lead to greater intoxication.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-friends-drinking-beer-open-face-1904284618">View Apart/ Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As pubs and bars reopen across England, many are excited about the opportunity to enjoy a drink with friends and family. While some evidence suggests alcohol consumption <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/one-in-three-adults-drank-more-alcohol-during-first-lockdown">increased during lockdown</a>, other reports suggest that over <a href="https://alcoholchange.org.uk/blog/2020/covid19-drinking-during-lockdown-headline-findings">one in three adults</a> drank less – or stopped altogether. </p>
<p>But though we may be excited to get back to the pub, our tolerance may be lower than it was pre-lockdown.</p>
<p>Regularly drinking a certain amount of alcohol (for example, having four pints every Friday evening after work) can lead to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051223102353/https:/pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa28.htm">increased tolerance</a>. This is where the brain adapts to the effects of alcohol (such as relaxation and improved mood), and over time more alcohol is needed to achieve the same effects. </p>
<p>In this scenario you may need to drink five pints to get the same initial “buzz” you got from four pints. Tolerance is a <a href="https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/alcohol-use-disorder-comparison-between-dsm">hallmark feature of addiction</a>. But it can also develop with regular and continued alcohol use in social drinkers.</p>
<p>Following a period of reduced alcohol use or abstinence, alcohol tolerance can decrease to levels before regular use. This means that your brain and body are “out of practice” in terms of processing and responding to alcohol. Alcohol tolerance can be explained via <a href="https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa28.htm">several mechanisms</a> – but here are four ways that tolerance may develop and change.</p>
<h2>1. Functional tolerance</h2>
<p>As we drink over the course of an evening the amount of <a href="https://www.alcohol.org/effects/blood-alcohol-concentration/">alcohol in our bloodstream</a> increases, leading to slower reaction times, lowered inhibitions and impaired judgement. Large amounts of alcohol cause slurred speech, lack of coordination and blurred vision. </p>
<p>People who regularly drink any amount of alcohol can become tolerant to these impairments and show few signs of intoxication – even when there are large amounts of alcohol in their bloodstream. If these drinkers stop or reduce their alcohol consumption, this tolerance could be lost.</p>
<p>But if they start drinking at their previous levels again, alcohol-related impairments in cognition and behaviour could return – but after having smaller amounts of alcohol. These changes in tolerance reflect the brain’s desensitisation (increased tolerance) and resensitisation (reduced tolerance) to alcohol at the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0196064486801196">cellular level</a>.</p>
<h2>2. Environmental-dependent tolerance</h2>
<p>Tolerance can develop much more quickly if alcohol is always consumed in the same environment – for example, if you only drank at home during lockdown. This is a sub-type of functional tolerance.</p>
<p>This is because familiar “cues” – such as your home setting – are repeatedly paired with alcohol’s effects. This leads to a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2270057/">conditioned compensatory response</a>. This response counters alcohol’s impairing effects, and we may not feel as “intoxicated” as a result.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young man drinks a bottle of beer with a snack at night in front of his computer." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397563/original/file-20210428-25-1lrogu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397563/original/file-20210428-25-1lrogu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397563/original/file-20210428-25-1lrogu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397563/original/file-20210428-25-1lrogu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397563/original/file-20210428-25-1lrogu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397563/original/file-20210428-25-1lrogu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397563/original/file-20210428-25-1lrogu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">If you’re used to drinking at home, drinking in the pub could lead to feeling more intoxicated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/handsome-man-working-remotely-sitting-home-1942494121">Jelena Zelen/ Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But when we drink in a new environment – such as going to the pub for the first time in six months – the compensatory response is not activated, making us more prone to experiencing alcohol’s effects. So even if you’ve still been consuming large amounts of alcohol at home during lockdown, you may find you feel alcohol’s effects to a greater degree when drinking the same amount as normal in a pub or bar.</p>
<h2>3. Learned tolerance</h2>
<p>Developing tolerance can be sped up if we repeatedly perform the same task or activity under the influence of alcohol.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00421426">Studies of rats</a> have shown that animals trained to navigate a maze while intoxicated actually performed better and were more [tolerant to the effects of the alcohol] than those who didn’t receive alcohol during training.</p>
<p>In humans, this type of tolerance can be shown in the performance of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42545425">well-practiced games</a> played under the influence of alcohol. For example, an person who typically plays darts sober would likely experience impairment in performance if intoxicated. But if a person regularly drinks while playing darts, they may experience no alcohol-related impairment because of their <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S074183299190221H">learned tolerance</a>.</p>
<p>If you regularly played darts or pool at the pub prior to lockdown, a loss of learned tolerance could mean that you don’t play as well as you used to when you have a game after a few drinks.</p>
<h2>4. Metabolic tolerance</h2>
<p>While the other three types of tolerance focus on alcohol’s effects on the brain, metabolic tolerance refers instead to the rapid elimination of alcohol from the body following prolonged or heavy alcohol consumption. </p>
<p>Repeated alcohol use causes the liver to become <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484320/">more “efficient” at eliminating alcohol</a> from the body. This results in a reduction of alcohol in the bloodstream, alongside its intoxicating effects. Similar to functional tolerance, as metabolic tolerance develops, a greater amount of alcohol is needed to experience the same effects as you experienced initially. </p>
<p>So drinking lower amounts of alcohol during lockdown could mean that your liver is less effective at “clearing” alcohol from the body. As a result, you’ll feel the intoxicating effects even from lower amounts of alcohol. Equally, increased alcohol consumption during lockdown could lead to increased metabolic tolerance, where a greater amount of alcohol is needed to feel intoxicated. </p>
<p>Tolerance is an important factor in understanding our drinking habits. It’s also important to remember that drinking as much as you used to after a period of drinking less (or not at all) could lead to greater intoxication, blackout and accidents. So if you plan to head back to the pub with friends now that lockdown is over, be mindful of how your drinking has changed so you can stay safe and enjoy that first tipple.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Adams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tolerance happens when the brain adapts to the effects of alcohol – eventually causing us to need more to achieve the same effects.Sally Adams, Lecturer in Health Psychology, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1435882020-09-01T12:24:13Z2020-09-01T12:24:13ZCan a college course teach students to ‘unlearn’ racism?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354446/original/file-20200824-16-dvgrjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C35%2C4742%2C3126&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can a college course help students understand people of different races?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakUniversities/a447a73de8904af9949f013823f570c7/photo?Query=campus%20AND%20students&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=7298&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Gerry Broome</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Many Americans are asking how they can be more sensitive to members of different racial groups, a desire fueling sales of books like “How to be an Anti-racist” and the presence of “Hate has no home here” signs in front yards. But how to achieve that goal is anything but clear. Jeni Cross is a sociologist at Colorado State University who says she’s found an effective approach in her course ‘Social Production of Reality.’</em></p>
<h2>Can a college course unteach racism?</h2>
<p>Many of my students tell me it can. They say my course improves their tolerance toward others, allows them to put themselves in another person’s shoes and makes them more willing to take action to end discrimination and inequality. </p>
<p>Twenty years ago, I started asking this question on my final exam: “What is one thing you’ve learned from this class that you’ll remember long after this class is over?” Year after year, about 25% of the class says something like, “I have learned to be more tolerant of people who are different from me.” </p>
<p>When this first started happening, I was surprised. I never once mention the word tolerance in class, nor is increasing tolerance a learning objective.</p>
<p>When I asked for more detail, every student detailed how the class increased awareness of their own thoughts, how they their increased effort to suspend judgment and made new efforts to listen and understand the viewpoint and experiences of others. Many also described taking new actions based on seeing their own privilege more clearly.</p>
<p>One student said, “I will remember that some people’s reality is different and not the same as mine. I learned a lot about others culturally and maybe a glimpse of what it’s like to be a minority or ‘different’ in some way. That has helped me to be more compassionate.” </p>
<p>I used a survey to compare how students’ attitudes changed in a variety of social science classes – not just my own. I found that student attitudes about their political ideology, empathy and race changed very little after most classes. My course stood out because attitudes related to both race and empathy improved substantially. </p>
<p>So what sets my course apart? I believe it is the focus on teaching students to be aware of their own thoughts and judgments and how those thoughts shape their actions.</p>
<h2>What does your course say about race?</h2>
<p>Rather than focus on race, the class explores theories which emphasize the social nature of reality. One example is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03389-6">Thomas Theorem</a>, which states that when people define a situation as real, then it is real in its consequences. </p>
<p>Take baseball. Fans may argue with the umpire’s call, but we agree to give the umpire authority and so the scoreboard and history books record that call, thus making it reality. Believing that there will be a toilet paper shortage can create one if enough people believe it, even when the supply of toilet paper hasn’t changed. Race, like baseball and toilet paper shortages, becomes real because of how we see it, define it and then act toward each other based on those meanings.</p>
<p>Sociologists <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Racial-Formation-in-the-United-States/Omi-Winant/p/book/9780203076804">Michael Omi and Howard Winant</a> wrote, “Race is not something rooted in nature…but it is not an illusion. While it may not be real in a biological sense, race is indeed real as a social category with definite social consequences.” Race is created not from our biology, but from the ways in which we understand ourselves, interact with others and build our society. </p>
<h2>Why does ‘race’ feel so real?</h2>
<p>We are constantly reinforcing the idea of race and our individual identities. While our <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK24694/">racial identities cannot be identified by genetic uniqueness</a>, we have taught ourselves to see race in our skin color, facial features, hair texture and culture. Race then becomes socially and culturally real, with some really unjust consequences. Blacks are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2019.1593007">3-5 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than whites</a>. Black women are <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html">three times more likely to die in a pregnancy-related death than white women</a>. These facts are real, and they are produced not by biology but by social relationships, health and environmental inequalities, policies and institutional practices that treat Black men and women differently than white men and women.</p>
<p>We are faced with a paradox. As long as we see and label race, we then act as though it is a meaningful difference, which ultimately produces unequal consequences. In contrast, if we act as though we don’t see race or claim <a href="https://rowman.com/isbn/9781442276239/racism-without-racists-color-blind-racism-and-the-persistence-of-racial-inequality-in-america-fifth-edition">color blindness</a>, then we are denying that race is a vital social category in our culture which shapes all our lives. </p>
<p>Sociologist <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418816958">Eduardo Bonilla Silva</a> argued that developing empathy <em>with</em> others is one of the prerequisites for redefining the racial order. While the students in my class call it tolerance, their descriptions are better named empathy.</p>
<h2>How can one semester matter?</h2>
<p>One semester is all it takes to learn to become aware of your own thoughts and to actively choose to change your judgments and build a new capacity for empathy. When we endeavor to deeply understand other people’s experiences, we also build the capacity and will for new actions. Like all things, it takes practice to make it a habit. All semester I tell the students, “In every moment, every interaction, you have a choice, a choice to repeat the scripts you were taught and reinforce our current social rules and experiences, or to choose a new path and create a new reality.” </p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Does the color of the instructor matter?</h2>
<p>Teaching about race and racism brings challenges for all instructors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13613320802478960">regardless of their own race</a>. What’s more, it is problematic to leave this challenging work only to instructors of color, who are a minority in American higher education.</p>
<p>Building trust and being vulnerable, telling stories of my own mistakes and growth, makes it possible for a white woman like me to talk about race in ways that help white students not feel defensive and allow students of color to feel safe. I can’t say I’ve always been perfect, but my students have been brave enough to teach me and learn with me to build our capacity for empathy and action.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer E. Cross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many Americans want to become more open to people of other races but don’t know how. A professor in Colorado shares what works in her sociology class.Jennifer E. Cross, Professor of Sociology, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1305252020-08-10T14:53:13Z2020-08-10T14:53:13ZThe brain’s autocomplete feature oversimplifies complex issues and impedes tolerance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351172/original/file-20200804-14-a2vt4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C7%2C5160%2C3437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Autocomplete is a search engine function that tries to predict the terms being entered into the search bar, and offers suggestions for related searches.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Enter any of the following words into your browser’s search bar: progressive, liberal, conservative, evangelical, right wing, gay, straight, Muslim, Republican or Democrat. Do you notice that other terms that the algorithms think are related appear automatically?</p>
<p>Where you have paused — maybe to think more or to press the Enter key — autocomplete has stepped in to finish what you started. </p>
<p>Similarly, when we think of those political terms, the brain kicks in too. And, like autocomplete, it completes our thoughts — and not always for the better. The hostilities in our civic discourse are often exacerbated by this feature of our cognition. We live in an era of extreme political and social polarization: this autocomplete instinct undermines the possibility of effective deliberative democracy.</p>
<h2>‘Lazy’ reasoning</h2>
<p>Recent scholarship on human cognition demonstrates that we have evolved to be both biased and lazy reasoners. According to cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, we become “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237827">[b]iased because human reason overwhelmingly finds justifications and arguments that support the reasoner’s point of view, lazy because reason makes little effort to assess the quality of the justifications and arguments it produces</a>.” We have evolved shortcuts that allow us to assess situations quickly and act accordingly. </p>
<p>These shortcuts allow for efficiencies that make life workable. When applied to our social and civic lives, this often contributes to polarization. As cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue in <em>The Knowlege Illusion</em>, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533524/the-knowledge-illusion-by-steven-sloman-and-philip-fernbach/">[i]nstead of appreciating complexity, people tend to affiliate with one or another social dogma</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351405/original/file-20200805-237-5x6ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo from behind of a woman who appears to be offended looking over her shoulder at a man sitting next to her in an office meeting setting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351405/original/file-20200805-237-5x6ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351405/original/file-20200805-237-5x6ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351405/original/file-20200805-237-5x6ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351405/original/file-20200805-237-5x6ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351405/original/file-20200805-237-5x6ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351405/original/file-20200805-237-5x6ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351405/original/file-20200805-237-5x6ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Relying on mental autocomplete can create situations where collaboration and communication is difficult.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Response anxiety</h2>
<p>I grew up having lively political debates with my parents around our dinner table. Since then, I’ve been ready, willing and able to jump into the fray of civic discourse in almost any context with very little prompting. Recently, however, I have become anxious and often just keep my mouth shut.</p>
<p>I am an active, practising Christian who has spoken and written about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51507-0_14">the relationship between faith and civic life</a>. I used to quite freely identify myself as a Christian and acknowledge that <a href="https://education.uottawa.ca/sites/education.uottawa.ca/files/revue_edu_en_fall_2013.pdf">my scholarship and civic participation are shaped by my faith</a>. </p>
<p>Given the highly controversial and often toxic participation of the so-called Christian right in civic life in both Canada and the United States, I am now often reluctant to show my colours this way. I worry that people’s natural tendency to efficient — or lazy — reasoning will cause them to default to mental autocomplete to categorize me and my views rather than engaging in the more difficult and complex work of really listening and seeking to understand.</p>
<p>Search engines learn from previous input to make current and future online work more efficient. When I want to order a book online, register for a conference or fill out a form to apply for some kind of service, as I start to type my name in the first box the browser’s memory calls up the rest of my information – last name, address, phone number, email, etc. — and completes the form for me. Like my brain, it looks for ways to help me move quickly and easily through the process.</p>
<h2>Managing identities</h2>
<p>The problem is that I have two online identities: a personal identity and a professional one, each with different addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. My browser can’t distinguish which of these is appropriate for the task at hand and often defaults to the wrong one.</p>
<p>I see a similar thing happening in civic discourse when a person expresses a view that is identified with an easy political label. When I tell people I am an academic, for example, they often make the assumption that my positions on political or social issues will all fall on the left, or progressive, end of the spectrum. Many people characterize professors as inevitably liberal and a process of mental autocomplete kicks in and fills in all kinds of other boxes automatically. </p>
<p>Mental autocomplete assumes that if we know one thing about a person’s political orientation, we can automatically attribute many other things to them. This is an example of what Sloman and Fernbach refer to as “the knowledge illusion,” which includes our tendency to simplify when “most things are complicated, even things that seem simple.”</p>
<p>Most people’s social and political beliefs are too complex to be captured by autocomplete and require nuanced understanding that moves beyond simplistic categories. As political theorist David Moscrop argues, “<a href="https://gooselane.com/products/too-dumb-for-democracy">[d]emocracy calls each of us to do something that we have not specifically evolved to do: engage in complex and often abstract reasoning</a>.” </p>
<h2>Hard boundaries for complex ideas</h2>
<p>The possibility of being misunderstood has always been there of course, but in today’s hyperpartisan, angry public square it seems much more dangerous. </p>
<p>Identifying or being identified with a particular position can result in widespread and caustic condemnation. It is not that some positions don’t deserve condemnation, but positions and the people that hold them, deserve careful consideration before being judged. </p>
<p>Our civic discourse seems less about wrestling with moving toward the common good, and more about defining boundaries between and among people. This is not consistent with a healthy democratic ethos that values diverse perspectives and recognizes the need for compromise. </p>
<p>Using autocomplete oversimplifies both individuals and the positions they take, and makes collaboration more difficult. I can turn off the autocomplete feature of my search engine and make sure that the correct information gets entered — as a society, we would do well to learn how to override our cognitive autocomplete.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130525/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Sears receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</span></em></p>Our brains use a function similar to a search engine’s autocomplete feature, but sometimes we get it wrong.Alan Sears, Honorary Research Professor, Faculty of Education, University of New BrunswickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1243862019-12-05T12:39:34Z2019-12-05T12:39:34ZHow toys became gendered – and why it’ll take more than a gender-neutral doll to change how boys perceive femininity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294891/original/file-20190930-194824-1v5xmtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many boys are taught they shouldn't do 'girl things' like ballet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cute-little-kids-dancers-on-white-768091609?src=mFwaINH6cneNM24_bMBYKg-1-0">UvGroup/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Parents who want to raise their children in a gender-nonconforming way <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/11/26/gender-neutral-dolls-adult-shoppers-skeptical/4250262002/">have a new stocking stuffer</a> this year: the gender-neutral doll. </p>
<p>Announced in September, Mattel’s new line of <a href="https://news.mattel.com/news/mattel-launches-gender-inclusive-doll-line-inviting-all-kids-to-play">gender-neutral humanoid dolls</a> don’t clearly identify as either a boy or a girl. The dolls come with a variety of wardrobe options and can be dressed in varying lengths of hair and clothing styles. </p>
<p>But can a doll – or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-pink-and-blue-the-quiet-rise-of-gender-neutral-toys-95147">growing list of other gender-neutral toys</a> – really change the way we think about gender? </p>
<p>Mattel says it’s responding to research that shows “kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms.” Given the <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1111/jora.12488">results of a recent study</a> reporting that 24% of U.S. adolescents have a nontraditional sexual orientation or gender identity, such as bisexual or nonbinary, the decision makes business sense.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://hdfs.msu.edu/people/faculty/mass-megan-kphd">developmental psychologist</a> who researches gender and sexual socialization, I can tell you that it also makes scientific sense. <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1999-11924-002">Gender is an identity</a> and is not based on someone’s biological sex. That’s why I believe it’s great news that some dolls will better reflect how children see themselves.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, a doll alone is not going to overturn decades of socialization that have led us to believe that boys wear blue, have short hair and play with trucks; whereas girls like pink, grow their hair long and play with dolls. More to the point, it’s not going to change <a href="http://www.meganmaas.com/blog/you-say-girl-like-its-a-bad-thing">how boys are taught</a> that masculinity is good and femininity is something less – a view that <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TZgnU_QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my research shows</a> is associated with sexual violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Girl toys tend to be pink.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Nick Ut</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pink girls and blue boys</h2>
<p>The kinds of toys American children play with tend to adhere to a clear gender binary. </p>
<p>Toys marketed to boys tend to be more aggressive and involve action and excitement. Girl toys, on the other hand, are usually pink and passive, emphasizing beauty and nurturing. </p>
<p>It wasn’t always like this. </p>
<p>Around the turn of the 20th century, <a href="https://newdream.org/blog/2011-10-gendering-of-kids-toys">toys were rarely marketed</a> to different genders. By the 1940s, manufacturers quickly caught on to the idea that wealthier families would buy an entire new set of clothing, toys and other gadgets if the products were marketed differently for both genders. And so the idea of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hyCP94EAb3kC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">pink for girls and blue for boys</a> was born. </p>
<p>Today, gendered toy marketing in the U.S. is stark. <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-the-toy-aisles-that-teach-children-about-gender-stereotypes-59005">Walk down any toy aisle</a> and you can clearly see who the audience is. The girl aisle is almost exclusively pink, showcasing mostly Barbie dolls and princesses. The boy aisle is mostly blue and features trucks and superheroes. </p>
<h2>Breaking down the binary</h2>
<p>The emergence of a gender-neutral doll is a sign of how this binary of boys and girls is beginning to break down – at least when it comes to girls. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/19/most-americans-see-value-in-steering-children-toward-toys-activities-associated-with-opposite-gender/">A 2017 study</a> showed that more than three-quarters of those surveyed said it was a good thing for parents to encourage young girls to play with toys or do activities “associated with the opposite gender.” The share rises to 80% for women and millennials.</p>
<p>But when it came to boys, support dropped significantly, with 64% overall – and far fewer men – saying it was good to encourage them to do things associated with girls. Those who were older or more conservative were even more likely to think it wasn’t a good idea. </p>
<p>Reading between the lines suggests there’s a view that traits stereotypically associated with men – such as strength, courage and leadership – are good, whereas those tied to femininity – such as vulnerability, emotion and caring – are bad. Thus boys receive the message that wanting to <a href="https://www.femalista.com/comic-shows-why-boys-develop-sexism-from-early-age-by-interactions-with-adults/?fbclid=IwAR1eP0fcqO69xN7ylUt-IH27AFkQjp-Ex3T0-fczXXtLFIZQXqhI16Ix7UA">look up to girls is not OK</a>.</p>
<p>And many <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/10/how-men-get-penalized-for-straying-from-masculine-norms">boys are taught over and over</a> throughout their lives that exhibiting “female traits” is wrong and means they aren’t “real men.” Worse, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984315000223">they’re frequently</a> <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-27429-001">punished</a> <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2016-59613-001">for it</a> – while exhibiting masculine traits like aggression are often rewarded.</p>
<p><iframe id="rbkBH" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rbkBH/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>How this affects sexual expectations</h2>
<p>This gender socialization continues into emerging adulthood and affects men’s romantic and sexual expectations. </p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9281-6">2015 study I conducted with three co-authors</a> explored how participants felt their gender affected their sexual experiences. Roughly 45% of women said they expected to experience some kind of sexual violence just because they are women; whereas none of the men reported a fear of sexual violence and 35% said their manhood meant they should expect pleasure. </p>
<p>And these findings can be linked back to the kinds of toys we play with. Girls are taught to be passive and strive for beauty by <a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-little-girls-to-lead-77146">playing with princesses</a> and putting on makeup. Boys are encouraged to be more active or even aggressive with trucks, toys guns and action figures; building, fighting and even dominating are emphasized. <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0868-2">A recent analysis of Lego sets</a> demonstrates this dichotomy in what they emphasize for boys – building expertise and skilled professions – compared with girls – caring for others, socializing and being pretty. Thus, girls spend their childhoods practicing how to be pretty and care for another person, while boys practice getting what they want.</p>
<p>This results in a <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s12119-012-9163-0">sexual double standard</a> in which men are the powerful actors and women are subordinate. And even in cases of sexual assault, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1023/A:1021342912248">research has shown</a> people will put more blame on a female rape victim if she does something that violates a traditional gender role, such as cheating on her husband – which is more accepted for men than for women. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0278-0">2016 study</a> found that adolescent men who subscribe to traditional masculine gender norms are more likely to engage in dating violence, such as sexual assault, physical or emotional abuse and stalking. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mattel’s new line of dolls come with clothes for all genders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://news.mattel.com/multimedia/creatable-worldTM">Mattel</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Teaching gender tolerance</h2>
<p>Mattel’s gender-neutral dolls offer much-needed variety in kids’ toys, but children – as well as adults – also need to learn more tolerance of how others express gender differently than they do. And boys in particular need support in appreciating and practicing more traditional feminine traits, like communicating emotion or caring for someone else – skills that are required for any healthy relationship.</p>
<p>Gender neutrality represents <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender-neutral">the absence of gender</a> – not the tolerance of different gender expression. If we emphasize only the former, I believe femininity and the people who express it will remain devalued.</p>
<p>So consider doing something gender-nonconforming with your children’s existing dolls, such as having Barbie win a wrestling championship or giving Ken a tutu. And encourage the boys in your life to play with them too.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybusy">Sign up for good Sunday reading.</a> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan K. Maas receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>Mattel created a new line of dolls because of research suggesting kids don’t want toys ‘dictated by gender norms’ – but supplanting those norms will take a lot more than that.Megan K. Maas, Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106072019-05-07T01:31:40Z2019-05-07T01:31:40ZHow intolerance can persist in democratic countries: the case of Indonesia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271281/original/file-20190428-194603-1u9c8e0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C991%2C664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Democracy can still perform in Indonesia despite the absence of tolerance. Fifteen years after the Acehnese tsunami, various religious people visited mass graves built by Muslims in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is tolerance among different groups a prerequisite for democracy?</p>
<p>Indonesia’s case shows that it’s not. Democracy, a system of government based on elected representation, is thriving in the world’s most populous Muslim country. Democratically elected presidents have governed Southeast Asia’s largest economy since the fall of Soeharto’s authoritarian regime in 1998. The country has just carried out elections in April. </p>
<p>At the same time intolerance of minority groups is widespread. </p>
<p>The capital, Jakarta, and former capital, Yogyakarta, located about 500km southeast from Jakarta, are top of the list on the <a href="https://www.bps.go.id/dynamictable/2017/05/04/1241/indeks-demokrasi-indonesia-idi-menurut-provinsi-2009-2017.html">Indonesia Democracy Index</a>. But they are also listed as <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/10t_zzYEUnz63C2P5q5lc7q7yR_zUEVh1/view">the most intolerant cities</a>, according to human rights advocacy group Setara Institute. Its latest report indicates that this is due to poor regulation and governance in response to intolerant practices in both cities.</p>
<p>Referring to these cases in Jakarta and Yogyakarta, we argue that democracy and tolerance are independent of each other. </p>
<p>Democracy can still perform in Indonesia despite intolerance of minority groups. To ensure that consensus as a prerequisite for a democratic society can be reached, the minority has no choice but to keep silent and succumb to the power of the majority. </p>
<h2>Democratic but intolerant in Yogyakarta and Jakarta</h2>
<p>Last year, Indonesia’s Statistics Agency published a report showing the <a href="https://www.bps.go.id/dynamictable/2017/05/04/1241/indeks-demokrasi-indonesia-idi-menurut-provinsi-2009-2016.html">Indonesian Democracy Index improved in 2017</a>, compared to 2016. The index rates each province in Indonesia based on its civil liberties, political rights and democratic institutions. </p>
<p>Yogyakarta, the seat of the Javanese monarch Hamengkubuwono X, has always <a href="https://www.bps.go.id/pressrelease/2018/08/15/1534/indeks-demokrasi-indonesia--idi--tingkat-nasional-2017-mengalami-peningkatan-dibandingkan-dengan-idi-nasional-2016.html">secured top spot</a> in the index in the past few years. </p>
<p>However, Yogyakarta’s tolerance index was the <a href="http://setara-institute.org/indeks-kota-toleran-tahun-2017/">sixth-lowest</a> compared to 93 other cities in 2017. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://crcs.ugm.ac.id/news/12185/unduh-buku-krisis-keistimewaan-di-yogyakarta.html">Centre for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies</a> identified around 66 violent conflicts in Yogyakarta between 2011 and 2016. In the latest case this year, <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/indonesias-yogyakarta-city-in-spotlight-as-more-crosses-desecrated">11</a> wooden crosses at a Christian cemetery in Yogyakarta were destroyed. A village in Yogyakarta also recently <a href="https://kumparan.com/@kumparannews/slamet-ditolak-tinggal-di-dusun-karet-bantul-karena-bukan-muslim-1554185490394432521">barred</a> a non-Muslim from living in their village.</p>
<p>A similar pattern can be found in Jakarta.</p>
<p>The capital was rated <a href="https://www.bps.go.id/dynamictable/2017/05/04/1241/indeks-demokrasi-indonesia-idi-menurut-provinsi-2009-2016.html">Indonesia’s most democratic city</a> for three years: 2014, 2015 and 2017.</p>
<p>In 2016, <a href="https://jakarta.bps.go.id/pressrelease/2017/09/14/249/indeks-demokrasi-indonesia--idi--provinsi-dki-jakarta-2016-mencapai-angka-70-85.html">Jakarta lost that title</a> due to a combination of acts of communal violence by sections of society and a poor response from the local administration in handling these violent cases. Jakarta ranked 24th out of 34 provinces in 2016. </p>
<p>However, similar to Yogyakarta, Jakarta scored the lowest in the tolerance index in <a href="http://setara-institute.org/indeks-kota-toleran-tahun-2017/">2017</a>. </p>
<p>Jakarta gained its status as an intolerant city after intolerant practices by Muslim conservatives marred its gubernatorial election in 2017. In the end, the conservative groups ousted Christian-Chinese incumbent Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama. </p>
<p><iframe id="IoCnt" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/IoCnt/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Between democracy and tolerance</h2>
<p>There are at least two conditions to have a democratic society. First, it must ensure <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300194463/democracy">equality</a> for all actors to participate in decision-making processes. </p>
<p>Second, when <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.1990.0047">conflicts arise</a>, society can manage them within defined and universally accepted boundaries.</p>
<p>For example, imagine that you are attending a public forum or discussion to choose a leader for your community. The organiser announces that each one of you has the same right to participate and you are delighted to hear that. As the debates continue between different sides defending their arguments, you realise that things may become uncontrolled as no one wants to compromise and no one wants to lose. </p>
<p>Hours later, everybody is tired, and someone finally says: “Let’s remember that each one of us should have the same right to participate, therefore, let’s ask each one of us who is the better leader, then the one who has the most support wins.” </p>
<p>There you have the ideal condition that most democracies imagine today: participation and manageable conflict.</p>
<p>Let’s turn to tolerance. We define tolerance as putting up with those we disagree with, dislike, or who are different from us, without coercion. Don’t forget that the act of tolerance means that one side (the one that tolerates) accepts the other side (the one that is tolerated) so it masks unbalanced <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511487392">power relations</a>. Therefore, in the context of plural communities, tolerance from both sides is needed. </p>
<p>From the conceptual exercise, we can argue that tolerance is highly relevant in democracies because disagreements, dislikes and differences are inevitable in plural communities. </p>
<h2>Intolerant practices in the democratic sphere</h2>
<p>It is also important to note that consensus in a democratic society can be reached through domination by the majority that silences the minority. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.dw.com/id/noelle-neumann-pionir-peneliti-opini-publik-di-jerman/a-5398080">Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann</a>, a leading German researcher on public opinion, calls the process a “spiral of silence”. </p>
<p>From the “spiral of silence framework”, we can see how an idea takes hold in society. </p>
<p>We can see how this concept works through analysing how the rejection of Ahok, which was based on racial and religious grounds, could be accepted.</p>
<p>Ahok’s rejection was made possible through a mainstreaming of Islamic values via popular culture and daily lives. This process is called “<a href="https://law.unimelb.edu.au/centres/cilis/research/publications/cilis-policy-papers/normalising-intolerance-elections,-religion-and-everyday-life-in-indonesia">normalisation</a>”. </p>
<p>As a result of this normalisation, it is difficult to counter the intolerant narratives without being accused of being anti-Islam. Living in a Muslim-majority country, people fear the anti-Islam label. </p>
<p>A similar thing also happens in Yogyakarta. The minority tends to accept mistreatment by the majority as they feel the power of the majority is so big that it doesn’t leave any option for the minority but to succumb. They also feel that their fight against <a href="https://kontras.org/2018/11/16/kitaberhak-catatan-atas-hari-toleransi-internasional-2018/">intolerant practices</a> will be useless as those in authority and legal enforcers tend to defend the majority. </p>
<p>Both processes of mainstreaming and normalisation are arguably part of efforts to push ideas belonging to the majority to dominate the public sphere, while at the same time suppressing opposing ideas belonging to minority groups. </p>
<p>Democracy in Indonesia, then, seems to allow the majority to rule over the minority. What is happening in Jakarta and Yogyakarta shows that consensus in a democratic setting can be continuously achieved, but it will not always be a tolerant one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110607/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jimmy Daniel Berlianto Oley terafiliasi dengan The SMERU Research Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yudi Fajar M Wahyu terafiliasi dengan The SMERU Research Institute. </span></em></p>Let’s rethink the way we understand democracy and tolerance.Jimmy Daniel Berlianto Oley, Junior Researcher, SMERU Research InstituteYudi Fajar M Wahyu, Senior Researcher, SMERU Research InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1140822019-04-17T23:24:43Z2019-04-17T23:24:43ZHow old ideas about tolerance can help us live more peacefully today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266042/original/file-20190327-139345-s5djws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C13%2C2982%2C1980&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pierre Bayle said all peoples’ beliefs and rituals should be tolerated out of respect for their fundamental humanity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joshua Earle/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is telling that the greatest early modern philosophical defender of tolerance was a refugee. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/bayle/">Pierre Bayle</a>, a Protestant, fled his native France in 1681. He would lose several family members in the persecution of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenots">the Huguenots</a> after Louis XIV revoked the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Nantes">Edict of Nantes</a> in 1685.</p>
<p>Largely forgotten, Bayle’s writings were among <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2016/08/tolerant-philosopher-why-pierre-bayle-forgotten-figure-enlightenment">the most widely read</a> of the 18th century. </p>
<p>In the wake of the tragic attack in Christchurch, and the wider rise of anti-liberal forces globally, we face urgent questions surrounding the reasons for and limits of tolerance.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-to-start-reading-philosophy-51745">Where to start reading philosophy?</a>
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<p>Bayle’s writings defending this value are newly timely today.</p>
<h2>What did Bayle say about tolerance?</h2>
<p>Bayle’s first statement on tolerance, his 1682 <a href="https://feralphilosophy.com/2018/09/25/how-a-huguenot-philosopher-realised-that-atheists-could-be-virtuous/">Various Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet</a>, is arguably his most radical. </p>
<p>Bayle claimed a society would need to protect religious beliefs if those beliefs decisively shaped and improved people’s conduct. </p>
<p>But history shows this is not the case. </p>
<p>People of all orthodoxies and faiths don’t behave as their faith would dictate, and exhibit the same human traits:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ambition, avarice, envy, the desire to avenge oneself, shamelessness, and all the crimes that can satisfy our passions are seen everywhere.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bayle would point to crusaders, such as those presently being heroised by many on the far and alt-right. <a href="https://books.google.by/books?id=0Q-CaF9tZK8C&hl=ru">He believed them</a> to be evidence, of how even Christianity, a religion of divine love, has been invoked to sanctify “the most frightful disorders ever heard of”.</p>
<p>Bayle concludes all people should be tolerated based on what they do, not what they say. This means even <a href="https://qrius.com/how-a-philosopher-realised-that-atheists-could-be-virtuous/">a society of atheists</a>, with good laws, could be as virtuous as a society of religious believers.</p>
<h2>Why were his ideas controversial?</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265540/original/file-20190325-36267-17ljb94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265540/original/file-20190325-36267-17ljb94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265540/original/file-20190325-36267-17ljb94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265540/original/file-20190325-36267-17ljb94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265540/original/file-20190325-36267-17ljb94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265540/original/file-20190325-36267-17ljb94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265540/original/file-20190325-36267-17ljb94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Pierre Bayle by Louis Ferdinand Elle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikimedia</span></span>
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<p>Bayle’s Various Thoughts caused predictable outrage. For this extraordinary text contains <a href="https://www.suhrkamp.de/buecher/tolerance_in_conflict-rainer_forst_29282.html?d_view=english">the first distinctly secular justification</a> of multicultural tolerance.</p>
<p>It does so by critically distinguishing the basic dignity of a person and their religious, cultural identity. He says all peoples’ beliefs and rituals should be tolerated, out of respect for their fundamental humanity.</p>
<p>This distinction, which we often take for granted today, was far from universally accepted.</p>
<p>And in the current political climate, it can seem we are increasingly accepting the idea that different groups can only ever criticise their opponents, never their own side.</p>
<p>By contrast, Bayle, a Christian, draws on specifically Christian arguments for toleration, at the same time as he criticises the actions and beliefs of other Christians.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-charlottesville-how-we-define-tolerance-becomes-a-key-question-83793">After Charlottesville, how we define tolerance becomes a key question</a>
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<p>As a Protestant, for instance, Bayle claims that is as deeply <em>wrong</em> as it will be ultimately <em>fruitless</em> to try to force people to renounce their freely-formed beliefs, even if they are heretical. This would mean compelling them to go against their God-given consciences, a sin against both God and man.</p>
<h2>The limits of tolerance</h2>
<p>Yet Bayle grasps the limits of justifying tolerance for different faiths by recourse to specifically Christian, Protestant claims. By appealing to the inviolability of people’s consciences, he brooks a graver problem. </p>
<p>This problem has been recently, horrifically exemplified by the tragic events in Christchurch. </p>
<p><a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/chapter199.html">Fanatics</a> like the alleged Christchurch terrorist (whom The Conversation has chosen not to name) are honestly convinced of the righteousness of their actions, even when these actions involve indiscriminate slaughter of anyone belonging to another group.</p>
<p>The argument respecting freedom of conscience by itself suggests we should tolerate such “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/6663192/The_Necessity_of_Conscience_and_the_Conscientious_Persecutor_The_Paradox_of_Liberty_and_Necessity_in_Bayles_Theory_of_Toleration">conscientious persecutors</a>”. An argument that was intended to protect the vulnerable in this way ends by condoning the most odious extremists.</p>
<p>To combat this outcome, and underscore the limits of tolerance, Bayle finally introduces a further argument which would, via Voltaire, <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/complete.html#chapter452">become central</a> to the enlightenment period. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tolerance-is-more-than-putting-up-with-things-its-a-moral-virtue-31507">Tolerance is more than putting up with things – it's a moral virtue</a>
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<p>Bayle’s argument both starts from and sanctifies a liberal, almost “postmodern” acceptance of irreconcilable cultural differences between groups. </p>
<p>The sheer diversity of religious creeds in the world suggests no one group can know the deepest truths about the human condition with enough certainty to license suppressing, exiling or killing others who do not share their customs and opinions. So <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bayle-a-philosophical-commentary-on-these-words-of-the-gospel#lfBayle_div_185">Bayle writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>difference in Opinions seems to be Man’s inseparable Infelicity, as long as his Understanding is so limited, and his Heart so disordered; we should try to reduce this Evil within the narrowest limits: and certainly the way to do this is by mutually tolerating each other.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A difficult strength, not a weakness</h2>
<p>From Bayle forwards, tolerance was never a weak “anything goes” affair. </p>
<p>Those who believe they are entitled to be violently intolerant, however deeply convinced they are of their zealotry, should not be tolerated.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indulge-me-this-how-not-to-read-daniel-dennetts-comments-on-philosophy-and-self-indulgence-65099">Indulge me this: how not to read Daniel Dennett’s comments on philosophy and self-indulgence</a>
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<p>For Bayle, such people claim their creed is the only absolute truth, despite the limitations of human understanding and the many different creeds in the world. They believe they hold a moral superiority which is only warranted by egoism and force.</p>
<p>Despite its myriad critics, tolerance demands a difficult strength. </p>
<p>If Bayle is right, respect for difference above all rests upon recognising <em>our own</em> limitations; limitations we share as finite human beings with others whom it is always simpler to dismiss, exoticise, or demonise as wholly alien. </p>
<p>This is neither flattering, nor easy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114082/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Sharpe works for Deakin University, where he teaches philosophy. He has also written on political and critical theory, and the history of ideas. He'd like to thank Mr. Benjamin Walters for the continuing discussions on these and related issues.</span></em></p>Pierre Bayle, one of the most widely read philosophers, said tolerance should be based on humanity, not on faith.Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/971092018-06-22T12:43:10Z2018-06-22T12:43:10ZThe predicament of diversity: re-boot for diversity 3.0<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222862/original/file-20180612-112623-suksqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C134%2C2048%2C1226&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pro-tolerance march in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tabor-roeder/16351899436/in/photolist-qUXL1C-ckAFmh-ckAEaj-qqzFyD-qn2LEX-2gmcuc-9X7YQM-qXbids-RFaeux-RQpPPN-7bWhzG-RH6uTK-dhcA7B-SkeSmg-q5tqAG-S93UyB-RgMacW-QDDdV2-4vAyK1-RjKbKS-5i7QV4-e9kfAC-atZrsM-9XaVJ7-RMEbX9-RDBRdY-SkdKwB-QyPkKf-ckAJEd-TgHuFT-ckAYsW-Rh826L-ckAQDw-4W6Zsn-cHu4B-9XaRdU-ckADkq-8d8o6u-RH6uSH-atZfi6-9XaR29-cHu4C-9jaUcb-9X7YsB-ckAMSG-qXbimU-qEFdHA-ckAHBm-9XaQuU-SgxRvN">Phil Roeder/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Diversity” as a concept has a lexical and political value all its own, with a widespread appeal. The problem with that is, however, that no one actually has the same idea of what diversity actually <em>means</em>. There is some consensus that the concept has, over time, morphed into something that it was not originally intended to be. Denise Green’s <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042085904265109?journalCode=uexa">2004 study</a> looks at the University of Michigan’s response to a 1997 affirmative action case, and argues that legal precedents such as this one moved the cursor away from social and racial justice towards a narrower, simplified idea about diversity. </p>
<p>Walter Benn Michael’s 2006 book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250099331/ref=as_at?creativeASIN=1250099331&linkCode=w61&imprToken=EafxYZKQYtqCBq7uYfTgKg&slotNum=2&tag=thneyo0f-20"><em>The Trouble with Diversity</em></a> views it as a conservative concept that shifts the focus from social and racial <em>inequality</em> to the diversity of <em>identity</em>, sweeping the important issues under the carpet. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/the-weakening-definition-of-diversity/393080/">Millennials have been demonstrated</a> to associate the concept more with diversity of “experiences” and viewpoints instead of with issues of race and gender. <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8757.html">Scott Page’s work</a> has demonstrated that among all diversity metrics, one very important one – cognitive diversity – is the real game-changer in the workplace. </p>
<p>This diversity of definitions illustrates the precise problem with diversity: it cannot be “all things to all people” without losing some of its earlier focus. Longer-term struggles for equality and civil rights get diluted in this eclectic mix, and <a href="http://theconversation.com/are-identity-politics-emancipatory-or-regressive-94434">identity politics</a> cloud the path forward. It seems that diversity as a concept is so appealing, and so emblematic of our global era, that it has simply brought “too many cooks into the kitchen”; creating distractions away from the focus of the pressing social issues we face in modern democracies.</p>
<h2>Desperately seeking diversity</h2>
<p>Sociologist Ellen Berrey’s 2015 study, <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo19910067.html"><em>The Enigma of Diversity</em></a>, examines how diversity actually plays out in three different sectors of society – a large publicly traded company, a mixed neighbourhood in Chicago, and the University of Michigan. Berrey’s six-year ethnography reveals once more that diversity clearly means <em>different things to different constituencies</em>. Her more worrying conclusions demonstrate that the diversity concept is mobilized by different groups with different interests in a way which has significantly <em>weakened the demand for racial and social justice</em>.</p>
<p>So diversity still remains, despite all positive evidence of its value, and the noble efforts to make it work, more an aspirational ideal than a reality in the global workplace today. Calls for <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/its-time-for-diversity-20-more-women-from-different-backgrounds-9969623.html">“diversity 2.0”</a> have focused on <em>gender equality</em> and diversity of <em>experience</em>, specifically in Silicon Valley, where a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-silicon-valley-is-trying-to-fix-its-diversity-problem">diversity drama</a> has been playing out among tech firms, even inspiring the popular HBO series <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-silicon-valley-nails-silicon-valley"><em>Silicon Valley</em></a>. Adding to the drama, a polemic and provocative <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf">anti-diversity manifesto</a> written by Google engineer James Damore was leaked last summer.</p>
<p>Finally, with the explosion of digital content and connected online users, we have paradoxically come to lack a diversity of <em>viewpoints</em>. When Google introduced personalised search algorithms in 2009, it translated into the fact that no two people obtain the same search results, creating an information <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=-FWO0puw3nYC&oi=fnd&pg=PT3&dq=calls+for+information+diversity+filter+bubble&ots=g4IuFvuWNZ&sig=i_uqFeupZbD3Tsp4FI-m0SQ7fHg#v=onepage&q&f=false.">filter bubble</a> where we cannot capture the ideas of others as easily. Living in this bubble prevents us from gaining access the same online information as our family, friends and close acquaintances. Imagine then what this means when it comes to viewing the same content as those who are very different from us. By generating overwhelmingly one-sided content, tailored for our individual preferences, Google funnels us into social “silos” where we do not have exposure to diversity of opinions and ideas.</p>
<p><a href="http://cascade.cs.illinois.edu/publication/p2359-liao.pdf">Studies demonstrate</a> that these silos further entrench our preferences when it comes to information selection. So whereas we aspire to diversity of opinion and information, the very tools we use to connect to others prevent us from our full diversity potential.</p>
<h2>Race: a human invention</h2>
<p>If information diversity has been sabotaged by digital media platforms, questions of <em>social and racial diversity</em> need to get put back on the front burner to address issues of fairness and justice. Nowhere does the unfinished business of diversity play out more visibly and dramatically than in the United States, with its long and violent history of race that, for Princeton historian Nell Irving Painter, is itself “an idea” based neither on science nor fact, constructed by humans for human purposes. Painter’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/books/review/Gordon-t.html"><em>History of White People</em></a> traces a long and tortured heritage of “whiteness” dating from Antiquity up to the present-day America of mass incarceration and the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/blacklivesmatter?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Ehashtag">#blacklivesmatter</a> movement. The implications of race-as-an-invention are startling, because it means that we are actually perpetuating and giving currency to a flawed, “imagined” concept in day-to-day life.</p>
<p>We should actually question the terms we use – instead of <em>race</em>, terms like <em>ethnicity</em> or <em>skin colour</em> that have observable scientific grounding. This begs a broader question: do we actually believe that race exists in reality? Do we have to use the word <em>race</em>? We may question its existence today, but a good many white European and American male scientists certainly believed it existed in the past. If we turn our attention to the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03612759.2006.10526967">history of science and its intersection with “race”</a> throughout the 18th and 20th centuries, we see how ‘race’ as a concept paved the way for not only slavery and the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300181364/american-genocide">genocide of native Americans</a>, but also for Hitler’s <a href="http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395043">racist ideology</a> against the Jews and other minority groups. Although social Darwinism, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2967206?seq=1">scientific racism</a>, and <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/The-Mismeasure-of-Man/">biological determinism</a> have been thoroughly debunked, we remain the heirs to these defective, racial supremacist ideas which infiltrate the very ways we talk about diversity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222856/original/file-20180612-112637-12uso42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222856/original/file-20180612-112637-12uso42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222856/original/file-20180612-112637-12uso42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222856/original/file-20180612-112637-12uso42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222856/original/file-20180612-112637-12uso42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222856/original/file-20180612-112637-12uso42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222856/original/file-20180612-112637-12uso42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Solidarity march in London, February 4, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alisdare Hickson/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Racial justice: the diversity elephant in the room</h2>
<p>So while most people think that diversity is a good idea, it remains, like race, more an <em>idea</em> than a fact. And it appears to have effectively shifted our attention away from the festering and indisputable problem of racial inequality. European countries continue to struggle with racial discrimination due to postcolonial legacies, as well as the influx of desperate asylum-seekers and migrant workers. France began to respond to its racial inequity problems <a href="https://www.sss.ias.edu/files/pdfs/Fassin/Racialization.pdf">in the 1990s</a>and Germany has seen a shift from a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.1995.9993862">class-based to an ethnicity-based</a> welfare state. Scholars in the UK have focused on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2018.1409902?src=recsys">popular culture and black youth</a> and on the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2018.1409902?src=recsys">problems of blackness</a> in the academic environment. Again, the United States stands out among advanced economies in terms of its racial inequities. </p>
<p>These disparities are manifested everywhere in the US – in the <a href="http://lj.uwpress.org/content/26/1/10.short">urban space</a>, in the way <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4678876/">people think about their health</a>, and simply in the ways racism is shown to be deeply <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1446334/pdf/10936998.pdf">embedded in institutions</a>. Drawing attention to this elephant in the room, Bryan Stevenson’s <a href="https://eji.org/racial-justice">Equal Justice Initiative</a> has made strides to clarify those areas of society where the inequities reside and to educate citizens about their shared history of racial injustice.</p>
<p>Yet this is nothing new. A <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/american-racial-and-ethnic-politics-in-the-21st-century-a-cautious-look-ahead/">report</a> put out by the Brookings Institute in 1998, years before Obama’s election, envisioned a tenuous future for black-white relations, noting that even affluent and successful African-Americans expressed a particular rage at their consistently unequal treatment. Today, thanks to <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/08/15/social-media-conversations-about-race/">social media conversations about race</a> and their viral nature, we seem to be experiencing a crescendo effect in terms of the number reported incidents involving minorities. These conversations and video evidence continue to pile up, spanning from everyday discriminatory grievances to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5761867/">fatal shootings by police</a> and retaliatory actions taken in the aftermath. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/...us-race.../66548936-4aa8-11e6-90a8-fb84201e06...">Polls</a> show that Americans are more cynical than ever about race relations.<br>
Diversity and race keep getting confused, amalgamated, or co-opted for different political gains and purposes. Harvard President Drew Faust published a letter on June 12th 2018 in support of <a href="https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2018/defending-diversity">“Defending Diversity”</a> as the school prepares to defend the integrity of its diversity policy and admissions process in an upcoming <a href="https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/diverse-education">legal battle</a>. Student body diversity is for Faust the inclusion of “people of <em>different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives</em>”, an ideal that just about anyone would find laudable and worthwhile. And yet this concept of diversity is, as we have seen, just broad enough for anti-diversity special interest groups like <a href="https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/">Students for Fair Admissions</a> to cherry-pick admissions data and instrumentalize <em>race</em> once more as the culprit behind what they allege are unfair, biased, and unconstitutional admissions processes.</p>
<h2>Diversity 3.0</h2>
<p>And yet there are signs of hope for the future of diversity. Generation Z is said to be <a href="http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/generation-z-profile-2017-9">even more inclusive and tolerant</a> than its predecessor, the Millennial generation. There has been a shift from studying race relations and racism towards understanding racialization, a process of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870120049806">“ascribing physical and cultural differences to individuals and groups”</a> which demonstrates a deeper and broader understanding of society’s unfinished business. Studies show that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304747383_Racism_Racial_Resilience_and_African_American_Youth_Development_Person-Centered_Analysis_as_a_Tool_to_Promote_Equity_and_Justice">minority youth can be extraordinarily resilient</a> in the face of racism, and that novel forms of therapy can help them cope. </p>
<p>Movements such as <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NeverAgainMSD/">#neveragainMSD</a> show us that young people can rise to their political calling, organize a grassroots movement, and inspire an entire nation to pressure government and special-interest groups. Activist groups like <a href="http://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/">Showing Up for Racial Justice</a> demonstrate that majority groups can take a stand to speak out forcefully against racism and challenge the permission structures that make it possible. There remains so much more to be done. </p>
<p>Next on the agenda, in my upcoming article, I will explore how educators can play a vital role in raising awareness and in moving the conversation about diversity in more productive directions through practice scenarios in the classroom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97109/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Mielly ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Diversity is an enormously appealing and powerful concept, yet it can also distract us from the focus we need to face today’s pressing social issues. So what’s the way forward?Michelle Mielly, Associate Professor in People, Organizations, Society, Grenoble École de Management (GEM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/979152018-06-07T10:52:49Z2018-06-07T10:52:49ZWhy Jefferson’s vision of American Islam matters today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222236/original/file-20180607-137312-1fyrty3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump sits down for an iftar dinner, in the State Dining Room of the White House.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After last year’s deliberate <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/eid-al-fitr-donald-trump-white-house-stops-tradition-muslim-american-ramadan-fast-religious-freedom-a7806836.html">break with tradition</a>, President Donald Trump has resumed the iftar dinner – the sundown meal during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. An <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/">estimated 3.3 million American Muslims</a> celebrate <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ramadan-is-called-ramadan-6-questions-answered-77291">Ramadan</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222073/original/file-20180606-137312-1c9hare.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222073/original/file-20180606-137312-1c9hare.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222073/original/file-20180606-137312-1c9hare.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222073/original/file-20180606-137312-1c9hare.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222073/original/file-20180606-137312-1c9hare.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222073/original/file-20180606-137312-1c9hare.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222073/original/file-20180606-137312-1c9hare.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The place setting for the President prior to an Iftar dinner in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The month of Ramadan marks the time when Prophet Muhammad is believed to have first received revelations from God and <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/07/15/president-obama-hosts-iftar-dinner-white-house">has been celebrated</a> <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/ramadan/2004/">at the White House</a> since 1996. It was Hillary Clinton who started the tradition as first lady. However, last year, the Trump White House <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/the-white-house-wont-commemorate-ramadan-with-its-traditional-reception-60980">did not host</a> the traditional reception. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-ramadan-usa-tillerson-exclsu-idUSKBN18M2IE">Neither did the State Department</a> under Secretary Rex Tillerson, even though the holiday has been commemorated there since 1999. </p>
<p>Despite the relatively recent nature of these formal celebrations, the fact is that Islam’s presence in North America dates to the founding of the nation, and even earlier, as my book, <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/170879/thomas-jeffersons-quran-by-denise-a-spellberg/9780307388391/">“Thomas Jefferson’s Qur'an: Islam and the Founders,”</a> demonstrates. </p>
<h2>Islam, an American religion</h2>
<p>Muslims arrived in North America as early as the 17th century, eventually composing 15 to 30 percent of the <a href="http://www.theroot.com/african-slaves-were-the-1st-to-celebrate-ramadan-in-ame-1790876253">enslaved West African population</a> of British America. Muslims from the Middle East did not begin to immigrate to the United States as free citizens until the late 19th century. Key American Founding Fathers demonstrated a marked interest in the faith and its practitioners, most notably Thomas Jefferson. </p>
<p>As a 22-year-old law student in Williamsburg, Virginia, <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/quran">Jefferson bought a Qur’an</a> – 11 years before drafting the Declaration of Independence. </p>
<p>The purchase is symbolic of a longer historical connection between American and Islamic worlds, and a more inclusive view of the nation’s early, robust view of religious pluralism.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171508/original/file-20170530-23656-yzcaus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171508/original/file-20170530-23656-yzcaus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171508/original/file-20170530-23656-yzcaus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171508/original/file-20170530-23656-yzcaus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171508/original/file-20170530-23656-yzcaus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171508/original/file-20170530-23656-yzcaus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171508/original/file-20170530-23656-yzcaus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jefferson purchased a Qur'an much before drafting the Declaration of Independence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thegreatshadow/262245901/in/photolist-pb5z4-5XfcXM-rBhT-a8N378-91aRcL-nXh13M-7gM5Fy-a31oEu-9LxaJN-fwRG3V-3rE9g-6T8Tma-5cUHnr-a8N2f2-a8N2BK-a8MZKT-CCeMe-5Vu9sp-fEyRFX-hSneYW-CLgmp6-bmY5Gu-8VMBAZ-5tCVjB-RiVRAE-bUiB4q-g23JhP-ai5nPC-BcaCi-8nmcUb-o62hYr-DVJBX-cB3Mco-DVJFZ-hNVGpk-dGEGTX-N6Gdf-9b1vm4-5AfUn-g7y8cP-55cpW-frAujP-iHUQ-2gK3Y-4k55vj-8BLQy-nY8mnX-fsS7a-pPZFpD-98phSQ">SSk Graphy</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although Jefferson did not leave any notes on his immediate reaction to the Qur’an, he did criticize Islam as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Rzxlz64cRiUC&pg=PT134&lpg=PT134&dq=jefferson+islam+stifling+free+enquiry&source=bl&ots=vZ5mMQCqBt&sig=EjbI3c84tPpi-lEYxiDFi6-A6TM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGhKn7oITUAhUL6IMKHWCUDvMQ6AEILzAC#v=onepage&q=jefferson%20islam%20stifling%20free%20enquiry&f=false">“stifling free enquiry”</a> in his early political debates in Virginia, a charge he also leveled against Catholicism. He thought both religions fused religion and the state at a time he wished to separate them in his commonwealth.</p>
<p>Despite his criticism of Islam, Jefferson supported the rights of its adherents. Evidence exists that Jefferson <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/10/05/our_founding_fathers_included_islam/">had been thinking privately</a> about Muslim inclusion in his new country since 1776. A few months after penning the Declaration of Independence, he returned to Virginia to draft legislation about religion for his native state, writing in his private notes a paraphrase of the English philosopher John Locke’s 1689 <a href="http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0205/tolerance.html">“Letter on Toleration”</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“(He) says neither Pagan nor Mahometan (Muslim) nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The precedents Jefferson copied from Locke echo strongly in his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0132-0004-0082">which proclaims</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“(O)ur civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The statute, drafted in 1777, <a href="http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_Statute_for_Establishing_Religious_Freedom_1786#">became law in 1786</a> and inspired the Constitution’s “no religious test” clause and the First Amendment. </p>
<h2>Jefferson’s pluralistic vision</h2>
<p>Was Jefferson thinking about Muslims when he drafted his famed Virginia legislation? </p>
<p>Indeed, we find evidence for this in the Founding Father’s 1821 autobiography, where he recorded that a final attempt to add the words “Jesus Christ” to the preamble of his legislation failed. And this failure led Jefferson to affirm that he had intended the application of the Statute to be “universal.” </p>
<p>By this he meant that religious liberty and political equality would not be exclusively Christian. Jefferson <a href="http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/1399">asserted in his autobiography</a> that his original legislative intent had been “to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan [Muslim], the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.” </p>
<p>By defining Muslims as future citizens in the 18th century, in conjunction with a resident Jewish minority, Jefferson expanded his “universal” legislative scope to include every one of every faith.</p>
<p>Ideas about the nation’s religiously plural character were tested also in Jefferson’s presidential foreign policy with the Islamic powers of North Africa. President Jefferson welcomed the first Muslim ambassador, who hailed from Tunis, to the White House in 1805. Because it was Ramadan, the president moved the state dinner from 3:30 p.m. to be <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/tunisian-envoy">“precisely at sunset,”</a> a recognition of the Tunisian ambassador’s religious beliefs, if not quite America’s first official celebration of Ramadan. </p>
<h2>A White House tradition</h2>
<p>Muslims once again provide a litmus test for the civil rights of all U.S. believers. Even though this administration resumes the traditional White House Ramadan celebration in 2018, many prominent American Muslims <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/politics/trump-iftar-muslims/index.html">have publicly stated</a> that, even if invited, they would not attend. Many American Muslim have not forgotten Trump’s many <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/22/donald-trumps-outrageous-claim-that-thousands-of-new-jersey-muslims-celebrated-the-911-attacks/https://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/trump-close-mosques-216008;">wrong assertions</a> against them. Currently, the legality of this administration’s <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/white-house-iftar-wont-mask-trumps-anti-muslim-agenda-opinion-942512">Muslim ban</a> is pending before the Supreme Court. </p>
<p>Regardless of the stated anti-Islamic political views of this president, Ramadan still provides a moment to remember that Islam has long been practiced in America.
Its adherents remain a pivotal part of its founding history. The presence of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-trump-missed-in-his-address-on-tolerance-american-muslims-78021">Muslims in America</a>, as American citizens, has now been acknowledged by the Trump administration, in this year’s markedly more inclusive 2018 statement about Ramadan. The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/presidential-message-ramadan/">statement reads in part</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Ramadan reminds us of the richness Muslims add to the religious tapestry of American life. In the United States, we are all blessed to live under a Constitution that fosters religious liberty and respects religious practice.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today, Muslims are fellow citizens, and their legal rights represent an American founding ideal still besieged by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/20/i-think-islam-hates-us-a-timeline-of-trumps-comments-about-islam-and-muslims/?utm_term=.3316eff5a1e5">fear mongering,</a> a practice at odds with the best of our ideals of universal religious freedoms. Despite demonstrating more public hostility toward Islam than any previous administration, the White House celebration of Ramadan this year underscores a more important, implicit historical reality: Muslims have practiced their faith here for centuries and will continue to do so. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jeffersons-vision-of-american-islam-matters-today-78155">first published</a> on May 31, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denise A. Spellberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As President Trump resumes an annual tradition of celebrating Ramadan, it provides a moment to remember that Islam has long been practiced in America.Denise A. Spellberg, Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/875802018-01-19T11:40:59Z2018-01-19T11:40:59ZTolerating distraction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202347/original/file-20180117-53307-9wrdp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should we be more patient with those we view as distracted?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/654532294?src=goBiye55Vs3JMtGBl0UU_A-1-78&size=huge_jpg">Serhii Bobyk/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A constant complaint in our unpredictable world is that we live in an age of distraction. </p>
<p>I am quick to label students who stare at their phones in my class distracted; politicians <a href="http://time.com/4523851/donald-trump-apology-access-hollywood/">dismiss inconvenient questions</a> by calling them a distraction; and when we find distraction in ourselves, we blame it on technology. In other words, we think of attention as a rare and valuable commodity, and we assume that distraction is a problem with an identifiable cause. </p>
<p>Consider for a moment, what would a medieval monk or a 17th-century preacher make of our complaints about modern distraction? </p>
<p>I argue, they would, in all likelihood, find them strange. To be sure, they too felt distracted, all the time. But, as my research on premodern Christianity shows, they thought of distraction as the human condition itself. Above all, they maintained a remarkably patient attitude toward it.</p>
<h2>Are attention and distraction similar?</h2>
<p>I offer an account of this Christian prehistory of attention and distraction in my book, <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo24957377.html">“Death Be Not Proud: The Art of Holy Attention</a>.” Although I wrote the book as a Renaissance scholar, while working on it I was constantly reminded of the topic’s relevance in contemporary life. What has intrigued me most then and now is the cultural values we associate with distraction and attention.</p>
<p>The dichotomy between good attention and bad distraction is so fundamental that it is written into the very language we use to talk about attending. Consider the phrase “I pay attention.” It implies that attention is valuable, a type of currency we deliberately and consciously invest in. When I pay attention, I am in control of my action, and I am aware of its value. </p>
<p>Now compare this with the phrase “I am distracted.” Suddenly we are dealing with a passive and vulnerable subject who suffers an experience without doing much to contribute to it. </p>
<p>But there are reasons to question this dichotomy. Students who are “distracted” by their phones could just as well be described as paying attention to their Facebook feed; the question that the politician dismisses as a distraction probably calls attention to a matter that actually deserves it. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Do attention and distraction refer to the same behavior?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elderly-couple-listening-music-on-mp3-102460025?src=z1JNNA0CJwLZ72mrJB9SRw-1-17">StockLite/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, it is reasonable to ask whether attention and distraction are simply two morally and culturally charged terms referring to what in reality is the same behavior. We label this behavior distraction when we disapprove of its objects and objectives; and we call it attention when we approve of them. </p>
<p>One would expect this moralizing discourse of attention and distraction to be especially prevalent in Christianity. In popular imagination, medieval monks shut out the outside world, and Reformation preachers have issued stern warnings to their congregation to resist the distractions of life.</p>
<p>But while it is true that historical Christianity took distraction seriously, it also had a nuanced and often remarkably tolerant attitude toward it.</p>
<h2>Early views toward distraction</h2>
<p>Consider the <a href="http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/JohnDonne/id/3153/rec/6">following passage</a> from the English poet and preacher John Donne’s 17th-century sermon: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I am not all here, I am here now preaching upon this text, and I am at home in my Library considering whether S[aint] Gregory, or S[aint] Hierome, have said best of this text, before. I am here speaking to you, and yet I consider by the way, in the same instant, what it is likely you will say to one another, when I have done. You are not all here neither; you are here now, hearing me, and yet you are thinking that you have heard a better Sermon somewhere else, of this text before.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Donne was known to his contemporaries as a masterful speaker, and this passage shows why: In just a few sentences, he calls his congregation’s attention to their distractedness and admits that even he, the preacher is only partly focused on the here and the now. In other words, Donne uses the distraction he shares with his audience to forge both a community and a moment of attentiveness. </p>
<p>Its rhetorical flair aside, Donne’s sermon expresses an old and fairly orthodox Christian view about distraction’s ubiquity. The most influential early exponent of this view is St. Augustine, one of the Church Fathers of Western Christianity. In his autobiographical work, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=sDdRAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=augustine+the+confessions&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrkK33xs_YAhUCy2MKHWb2DHcQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=augustine%20the%20confessions&f=false">The Confessions</a>,” Augustine observes that every time we pay attention to one thing, we are distracted from infinitely many other things. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St. Augustine, Lightner Museum, Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiffany_Window_of_St_Augustine_-_Lightner_Museum.jpg">Louis Comfort Tiffany via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This simple observation has far-reaching implications. </p>
<p>First, Augustine sees attention and distraction as merely different aspects of the same action. But instead of moralizing these aspects, he finds the inevitability of distraction to be a fundamental feature of the human condition, that is, the very thing that distinguishes us from God.</p>
<p>Augustine’s God is not only omniscient and omnipotent but also <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120111.htm">omni-attentive</a> – not a term that Augustine uses, but he describes God as being able to attend to all things in both time and space simultaneously. </p>
<p>This is a complicated claim, but for now it is enough for us to see its consequences: Human creatures may aspire to be God-like in their acts of attention, but every such act produces more evidence that they are in fact humans – which in turn will make them appreciate attention even more. </p>
<h2>What is the relevance of distraction?</h2>
<p>The modern anxiety about distraction betrays a good deal about us. Insofar as we associate attention with power and control, it reflects our fears of losing both in an increasingly unpredictable cultural and natural climate. We also find ourselves living in an economy where we pay for cultural goods with our attention, so it makes sense that we worry about running out of a precious currency.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Distraction, a valuable experience?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/daliscar/28176621700/in/photolist-JVSxYq-s9yu9L-HUXXs-F6F7f3-i8SCMd-9vAzN2-W8gdZ4-x8T3v-dU9Epk-AedDdL-7Kf6BE-5zBZ4R-9xxf8P-4p43bQ-4gjVkU-FAk2H-qV9Yjy-pyvcJh-brXyci-V7X8SP-HHWonJ-oVQZYN-BQp7X-4vAtF6-FqhpG-qgUcbp-exocB3-QVwsDJ-asV1xj-8A2oaR-tPNPV-Uub4FL-7A7nv6-6ULtbt-9W5d5q-5oYjVk-eeqeNP-84R3R-8DMvx-9qZgdm-6ZKCPC-kUPawn-gwmAC2-bzTo93-6FKjPY-qFHjF5-MeoyfH-5VnWpq-hnnoBc-dAaBqG">daliscar1</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is then intriguing to see how historical Christian views about attention and distraction both foreshadow some of these anxieties and counter them. For Augustine and his followers, attention was a rare and valuable experience, perhaps even more than for us since they associated it with the divine. </p>
<p>One might expect that as a result they should have simply dismissed distraction. The fact that they didn’t is what gives their thoughts continuing relevance today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Marno received funding from the Hellman Foundation and the Andrew D. Mellon Foundation. </span></em></p>We disapprove of distraction and consider attention as being valuable. What if they were, in fact, morally charged words, referring to the same behavior? Here’s what early Christian monks thought.David Marno, Associate Professor, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/837932017-10-02T00:59:59Z2017-10-02T00:59:59ZAfter Charlottesville, how we define tolerance becomes a key question<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187698/original/file-20170927-12284-rp1eve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protests in Charlottesville in the US turned violent recently, leading to the death of one person.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Joshua Roberts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been a little over a month since a group of white nationalists <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/charlottesville-attack-170813081045115.html">marched in Charlottesville, Virginia</a>, some chanting Nazi slogans. Clashes with counter-protesters turned violent, leading to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/heather-heyer-charlottesville-victim.html?mcubz=3">tragic death</a> of counter-demonstrator Heather Heyer. </p>
<p>Since then, the value of tolerance has been under the spotlight. Tolerance seems to be a good thing, but do we have to tolerate <em>this</em>? Do we have to tolerate people and ideas that are intolerant? And if we don’t, are we abandoning the goal of tolerance?</p>
<h2>The ladder of tolerance</h2>
<p>In 1945 the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, having escaped the Nazis just before the second world war, published a book, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9984.html">The Open Society and Its Enemies</a>. </p>
<p>It included, in a footnote, what Popper called “the paradox of tolerance”. Complete tolerance is an impossible goal for Popper, because if we tolerate even the intolerant:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since Charlottesville, Popper has been <a href="https://twitter.com/JennYates/status/898595056306749440">rediscovered on social media</a>. He captured an important question, writing in a different time but one with echoes of our own. </p>
<p>The most famous of all books written in political philosophy over the century, John Rawls’ <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674000780&content=reviews">A Theory of Justice</a>, drew related conclusions. A society that values freedom should try to tolerate the intolerant, Rawls said. But if the intolerant start to endanger the free society itself, then we do not have to tolerate them. </p>
<p>For both philosophers, the message seems to be that tolerance is good, but perhaps in moderation.</p>
<p>We think the whole idea of tolerance needs to be thought about differently, in a way that distinguishes <em>levels</em> of tolerance. </p>
<p>First, there is tolerance versus intolerance of ordinary or “base-level” behaviours. We call this first-order tolerance. If a person is first-order tolerant or intolerant, this will show in how they behave. If they are intolerant, they might threaten or abuse others. </p>
<p>That creates a new choice about tolerance – do you tolerate <em>those</em> behaviours? If so, this would be second-order tolerance. There can also be third-order and fourth-order tolerance, but most of the time it is the first and second orders that matter.</p>
<p>There is a sort of ladder here, with tolerance (and intolerance) at higher and lower levels. But what is the difference between the “base-level” behaviours and the others? We’ll look at two examples. </p>
<p>First, think about behaviours that are <em>private</em>, such as who you have sex with. You might choose to have heterosexual sex, homosexual sex, sex involving a non-binary individual, or some other kind. (Assume all these behaviours are between consenting adults.) </p>
<p>Liberal democracies have become much more tolerant about sex and other private behaviours over recent decades. Gay male sex was illegal in New South Wales <a href="http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/national-news/new-south-wales-news/30-years-since-homosexuality-was-decriminalised-in-nsw/123148">until 1984</a>, for example. Decriminalising gay sex is an example of first-order tolerance.</p>
<p>Many countries and states also now have anti-discrimination laws, aimed at preventing intolerance of homosexuality, among other things. That is second-order intolerance. </p>
<p>Our society is now intolerant of those who are intolerant of homosexuality; they can be legally penalised. Is that a failure of tolerance? Would complete tolerance involve being tolerant of their intolerance? Not really.</p>
<p>There is a sensible goal here – the goal of first-order tolerance – and that is not a compromise. Societies like ours have decided that tolerance of private sexual choices is valuable and important. To <em>protect</em> tolerance of those private behaviours, we have to be second-order intolerant. A combination of first-order tolerance and second-order intolerance makes sense in a case like this.</p>
<h2>What tolerance requires to thrive</h2>
<p>But that example seems far from the situation we face with neo-Nazis and the like. Their behaviours are not “private”. They are marching around in public, chanting. How is our framework applicable to a case like that? </p>
<p>We think the same principles can be applied. Above we used a “private” behaviour to introduce the distinction between first-order and second-order tolerance, but that was not essential. </p>
<p>What is essential to the behaviours that get the story rolling is that they are not attempts to interfere with others’ choices. That is what defines the “base” level. First-order tolerance in the case of speech is tolerance of what people say when they are not interfering with the choices of others.</p>
<p>There is a slogan associated with the 18th-century French philosopher Voltaire (though it <a href="https://www.themarysue.com/voltaire-beatrice-evelyn-hall/">seems to have been invented</a> by the English author Beatrice Evelyn Hall, writing years later): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is another example of first-order tolerance and second-order intolerance. The Voltaire-figure allows people to say things he does not approve of (first-order tolerance), and will also interfere with those who try to prevent the person speaking (second-order intolerance). </p>
<p>The Voltaire slogan illustrates the way first-order tolerance and second-order intolerance can be applied to speech, and also illustrates how tricky the situation can be. </p>
<p>If someone tries to interfere with another person stating their opinions, this interference will often take the form of speech – threats, abuse, and so on.</p>
<p>So Voltaire, to protect free speech, will have to oppose some kinds of speech. How can he decide which speech to defend and which to oppose? He can defend speech which is not an attempt to prevent others making their own choices, even if the speech is controversial. He won’t defend speech which is first-order intolerant, or speech which does even greater harm, such as speech that incites violence.</p>
<p>When people who believe extreme political views want to express their opinions, we can tolerate their speech and argue back. We can be first-order tolerant. </p>
<p>Tolerance need not imply approval, and when we argue back to them we can express our disagreement under the same umbrella of protection afforded by a first-order tolerant society. </p>
<p>But when people refuse to be tolerant, we can refuse to tolerate those behaviours. That refusal should not be violent or unreasoning, and should not target behaviours that would otherwise receive protection; the aim is not “tit-for-tat”, a reply to intolerance in its own coin. The aim is instead to protect, using reasonable means, the field of first-order tolerance.</p>
<p>This is not a compromise, or a failure to fully live up to the ideal of tolerance. It’s a policy based on a better understanding of what tolerance requires to thrive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our society is now intolerant of those who are intolerant of others; they can be legally penalised. But is that in itself a failure of tolerance?Peter Godfrey-Smith, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of SydneyBenjamin Kerr, Professor, Department of Biology, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/835382017-09-12T15:16:32Z2017-09-12T15:16:32ZHow tolerance enhances democracy and the quest for human flourishing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185667/original/file-20170912-12493-1v04bhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For Socrates, tolerance is fundamentally about equality and the pursuit of truth. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>More and more, educational leaders and managers in schools and universities are being confronted with various expressions of hate speech.</p>
<p>In Cape Town, South Africa, a group of high school boys <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/boys-at-top-cape-town-school-in-trouble-over-racist-song-20170120">compiled a song</a> which included the lyrics: “I feel pain unearthly because of my hatred of <a href="http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/usr/cci/publications/aria/download_issues/2004/2004_MS4.pdf">kaffirs</a>”. The word “kaffir” is an apartheid-era racial slur and possibly the most offensive word in the South African lexicon. At the University of Witwatersrand, also in South Africa, the phrase <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Kill-a-Jew-graffiti-found-at-a-university-in-South-Africa-471486">“Kill a Jew”</a> was spray-painted on one of its main buildings. </p>
<p>Similarly, in the US, <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865687682/White-nationalist-posters-appear-on-Weber-State-campus.html">racist flyers</a> were found posted on the campus of Weber State University in Utah. The flyers were recruiting students to the white supremacist <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/alt-right-a-primer-about-the-new-white-supremacy">Alt-Right movement</a> and declared that “diversity is a code word for White genocide”. </p>
<p>In May this year Stellenbosch University in South Africa became another example. Three students put up <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/nazi-inspired-posters-at-stellenbosch-uni-causes-public-outrcry/">Nazi-inspired posters</a> on campus advertising an “Anglo-Afrikaner student” event under the motto “Fight for Stellenbosch”. </p>
<p>The incident caused a massive outcry and the university acted immediately and decisively to condemn the inflammatory hate speech. The students were <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/07/14/stellenbosch-university-trio-found-guilty-in-nazi-posters-case">found guilty</a> of contravening the <a href="http://www.sun.ac.za/english/welcome/Documents/US_Disciplinary%20Code%202016.pdf">Student Disciplinary Code</a>, which states that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A student shall not act in a manner that is racist, unfairly discriminatory, violent, grossly insulting, abusive or intimidating against any other person.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"885927155162468352"}"></div></p>
<p>Incidents like these bring to the fore the question of how institutions of learning can and should be responding to such controversies, which lay bare our simmering intolerance of difference and “otherness”. </p>
<p>In our latest book, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319581088">Tolerance and Dissent within Education: On cultivating Debate and Understanding</a>, we look at how the concept of tolerance might be understood, cultivated and enacted in and through education. </p>
<p>One of the arguments we make is that schools and universities should deliberately widen the exposure of students and learners to a diversity of people and views. This will develop their capacities as democratic citizens and enhance the human quest for flourishing in everyday social life. </p>
<h2>What is tolerance?</h2>
<p>Andrew Murphy, a scholar from Rutgers University, <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.2307/3235269">describes tolerance as</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the self-restraint of not restricting or reducing the rights or autonomy of others, or other ways of being and acting. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But in a global context of <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/gashc4182.doc.htm">heightened bigotry</a>, some people see an appeal to tolerance as a defence of hate speech or racism. This is not what tolerance is. All views and actions should only be tolerated to the extent that they don’t harm others – physically, psychologically or emotionally. </p>
<p>According to the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, tolerance is about <a href="http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/tolerance-and-the-ethical-life/">the pursuit of truth</a>. It is about being prepared to see the value of another person’s perspective or truth. This necessarily means humbling oneself and acknowledging one’s own limitations and fallibility. Tolerance, then, is fundamentally about equality; about recognising the capacity for both moral truth and error in ourselves and others. </p>
<p>Amy Gutmann from the University of Pennsylvania <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6582.html">describes tolerance</a> as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>agreeing to disagree about beliefs and practices that are a matter of basic liberty.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This, she argues, is a way to ensure larger civic participation of people, who are recognised as equals by their fellow citizens.</p>
<p>Simply put, tolerance is the choice to “agree to disagree” because we respect each other as moral and civic equals. </p>
<h2>Difference, democracy and human flourishing</h2>
<p>Whenever diverse communities of people come together there is the potential for peaceful coexistence as well as for conflict. If we were to all agree on what to think or how to act the need for tolerance would disappear. But we don’t. So exercising tolerance is an acknowledgement of difference and disagreement – and, at the same time, a decision to co-exist despite these differences, rather than destroy them or each other. </p>
<p>This is fundamental to democracy, which is about equality and the right of people to believe what they believe. Agreement or consensus may be a desired end –- if only to resolve conflict – but it is not a democratic imperative. Tolerance is the tool that helps us democratically manage the dynamics of any plural community or society. </p>
<p>But the value of tolerance goes beyond that. In protecting and cultivating diversity, tolerance also creates the conditions for human flourishing. Disagreement and dissent can be seen as processes of “mutual incitement”. When people disagree, they are in fact inciting each other to think anew and differently about established ideas or beliefs. It is through disagreement that we dislodge ourselves from rigid ways of thinking and being – and refine our ideas and positions. </p>
<h2>The responsibilities of schools and universities</h2>
<p>Schools and universities must make sure that students and learners are exposed to multiple perspectives and ways of doing things. They have to encounter different viewpoints and arguments, and especially those that disrupt their own ways of thinking and their ideas of the world. </p>
<p>It is important that the teacher’s worldview isn’t the only one propagated in the classroom. This means teaching in a way such that pupils or students are invited to bring their own identities and equal intelligence into the conversation. They must be encouraged to engage in deliberation and debate, with mutual respect. </p>
<p>Critical to any educative endeavour is an understanding that there is always the possibility of another perspective and, hence, disagreement. If educational institutions can protect learners from hate speech, whilst also successfully teaching them this this, they will prepare them to become both better democratic citizens and richer people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83538/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Schools and universities have a responsibility to protect students from hate speech while also exposing them to views that disrupt their ways of thinking and ideas of the world.Nuraan Davids, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education, Stellenbosch UniversityYusef Waghid, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Education, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/787292017-06-20T01:34:33Z2017-06-20T01:34:33ZWhy there are costs to moral outrage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174231/original/file-20170616-512-ek2kze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What exactly is outrage?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/los-angelescalifornia-january-21-2017-historic-561855349">Philip Pilosian/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Americans are morally outraged that U.S. President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html">fired</a> former FBI Director James Comey, who had been investigating possible links between Trump’s election campaign and the Russian government. Many others are angry that Comey <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/comey-accuses-trump-lying-fbi-47933407">accused</a> President Trump of lying about the FBI. Still others are mad that Trump then <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40224371">accused</a> Comey of lying under oath before Congress.</p>
<p>Soon something else will stoke people’s moral outrage. A look at any partisan news source or social media site will show people expressing <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/angry-politics-americans-addicted-101735">maximum anger</a> at all hours of the day. </p>
<p>What explains all of this outrage? </p>
<p>The world isn’t really getting worse. But people have incentives to act like it is. New technologies give virtually anyone, at any given moment, a platform to express anger. These new ways of communication, from Twitter to Facebook, allow anyone to express outrage at the newest <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/sports/football/colin-kaepernick-national-anthem-49ers-stand.html">political dust-up</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/arts/music/katy-perry-witness-interview.html">celebrity gaffe</a>. And by expressing anger in this way, people are able to communicate something <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-people-consider-themselves-to-be-morally-superior/">about themselves</a> – that they are morally sensitive, that they care about injustice – so much so that they are willing to accept the cost of being upset to show it.</p>
<p>Sometimes, however, outrage can be misplaced or excessive, and when it is, this can have bad consequences for a healthy public discourse. </p>
<h2>Outrage and moral grandstanding</h2>
<p>As moral philosophers, we are interested in how we should speak to one another about controversial and difficult moral and political issues.</p>
<p>Even the most casual observation reveals that some people don’t treat public discourse with the respect it deserves. They don’t treat moral discourse as a way to collaboratively identify problems and ways to fix them. Rather, they treat it as a way to show off how moral they are. </p>
<p>In fact, many people appear to use outrage in exactly this way. These displays of outrage are part of a larger phenomenon called “moral grandstanding,” something we explored in a recent <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/papa.12075/abstract">paper</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174233/original/file-20170616-1205-z6km3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174233/original/file-20170616-1205-z6km3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174233/original/file-20170616-1205-z6km3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174233/original/file-20170616-1205-z6km3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174233/original/file-20170616-1205-z6km3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174233/original/file-20170616-1205-z6km3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174233/original/file-20170616-1205-z6km3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Do people use outrage to show how moral they are?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/86853232?src=PyaxoJmdu_e1JGU0ZVjkwQ-1-45&size=medium_jpg">www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Here is the basic idea. Grandstanders use talk about justice, rights or morality in general to show that they are good people. Grandstanders want others to think that they care more about justice, or empathize more deeply with the poor, or more clearly understand the plight of the factory worker than the average person. Some are more modest, and just want to show that they are on the right side of history. For grandstanders, moral and political discourse is a vanity project.</p>
<p>Most people – including the authors of this piece – have been guilty of grandstanding at one time or another, and for understandable reasons. <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550616673878?legid=spspp%253B1948550616673878v1&patientinform-links=yes">Research</a> shows that individuals tend to regard themselves as morally superior to others: they think they care more about justice, or empathize more deeply with victims of wrongdoing, or have greater moral insight than the average person. When it comes to morality, people tend to give themselves pretty good reviews. </p>
<p>Furthermore, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254734042_Impression_Management_A_Literature_Review_and_Two-Component_Model">research</a> suggests that people want others to think they are moral paragons, too. And so they grandstand. </p>
<p>Grandstanding takes <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/moral-grandstanding-theres-a-lot-of-it-about-all-of-it-bad">many forms</a>. In their quest to impress others, grandstanders pile on in cases of public shaming, announce that anyone who disagrees with them about a difficult matter is obviously wrong, or make extreme and implausible claims.</p>
<p>People can also grandstand by expressing outrage. What exactly is outrage? Political scientist <a href="http://as.tufts.edu/politicalscience/people/faculty/berry">Jeffrey Berry</a> and sociologist <a href="http://as.tufts.edu/sociology/people/faculty/sobieraj">Sarah Sobieraj</a> provide a helpful characterization in their book on political opinion media, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-outrage-industry-9780199928972">“The Outrage Industry.”</a> Outrage speech, they say, is “distinctly emotional, partial, antagonistic, and opinion-based.” </p>
<p>Outrage can be a form of grandstanding because expressing outrage, whether sincere or feigned, is a way of showing how much you care about morality. According to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00254.x/abstract">research</a> by psychologist <a href="http://lskitka.people.uic.edu/">Linda Skitka</a>, people with strong moral convictions about an issue are more likely to have strong emotional responses when discussing them. </p>
<p>The use of anger to show just how serious you are about morality is familiar one. In 2014, for instance, President Barack Obama wore a tan suit during a press conference where he discussed the threat of the Islamic State. Representative Peter King was <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/president-obama-peter-king-tan-suit-rant">outraged</a>, saying of Obama’s wardrobe choice, “There’s no way any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday.” King’s response signaled that he would not tolerate any moral lapse from Obama, no matter how trivial. </p>
<p>If you want to show people how much you care about being morally upright, outrage will often do the trick. Because strong emotional responses are correlated with moral convictions, people think they can display their moral commitment by showing that they are outraged. </p>
<p>In fact, the more outraged, the better. If you are the angriest, you must be especially good. As Berry and Sobieraj say, “Outrage trades in hyperbole.” </p>
<h2>The costs of outrage</h2>
<p>In and of itself, outrage may not be all that bad. Expressions of anger can be very effective at identifying bad things in the world and motivating us to address them. But to use outrage effectively, we must protect it. Otherwise, when anger could be used to help people see that something is wrong, displays of outrage will just sound like more of the same.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174232/original/file-20170616-14532-15sv08q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174232/original/file-20170616-14532-15sv08q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174232/original/file-20170616-14532-15sv08q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174232/original/file-20170616-14532-15sv08q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174232/original/file-20170616-14532-15sv08q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174232/original/file-20170616-14532-15sv08q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174232/original/file-20170616-14532-15sv08q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Moral anger comes with costs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bristol-uk-february-4-2017-through-586748381?src=42VaPVAbBY9DY_hLb4_TFQ-4-21">1000 Words/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The problem with grandstanders is that they don’t protect anger; they abuse it. For grandstanders, just about anything can be cause for outrage. From <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/us/oberlin-takes-culture-war-to-the-dining-hall.html">Chinese food</a>, to wearing the wrong-colored <a href="http://www.latimes.com/fashion/alltherage/la-ig-obama-tan-suit-stop-freaking-out-20140828-story.html">suit</a>, to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/arts/delta-airline-trump-public-theater-julius-caesar.html">Shakespeare</a> in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/06/12/delta-pulled-funding-from-a-trump-esque-julius-caesar-but-not-for-an-obama-like-version-in-2012/?utm_term=.fa37f8627f0c">Park</a>, anything can be used to display one’s moral purity. </p>
<p>But there is good reason not to use anger this way. Indiscriminate outrage dilutes its power to identify particularly bad things. By contrast, expressing anger selectively protects it as a way to signal significant injustice. There is also evidence that exposure to outrage discourse <a href="http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/roots-and-impact-outrage-mongering-us-political-opinion-media">tends</a> to undermine tolerance of others and promote misunderstanding about political issues. Displaying and consuming lots of moral anger comes with costs. </p>
<p>People are faced with a choice, then. They can grab all the attention they can get by grandstanding about how outraged they are. In doing so they risk rendering their anger ineffective at identifying injustice. Or they can keep their outrage in reserve for when it might actually accomplish some moral good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78729/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brandon Warmke's work on the paper "Moral Grandstanding" (Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2016), which is the background for this piece, was funded in part by a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Tosi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When outrage is misplaced or excessive, it can have negative consequences for a healthy public discourse.Justin Tosi, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer, University of MichiganBrandon Warmke, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780212017-05-22T02:05:33Z2017-05-22T02:05:33ZWhat Trump missed in his address on tolerance - American Muslims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170232/original/file-20170521-12242-hes5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump delivers a speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit on Sunday, May 21, 2017, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump, like his predecessors before him, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/21/politics/trump-saudi-speech-transcript/index.html">has discovered</a> the potent language of religious tolerance and interfaith unity when discussing Islam, as he demonstrated in his speech in Saudi Arabia to leaders of some 50 Muslim nations. But unlike previous presidents, he has not linked that rhetoric with recognition of the large, vibrant Muslim community in the U.S. </p>
<p>As a historian who has <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100411860">studied efforts in the past</a> to build acceptance of religious pluralism in the United States, I am concerned by Trump’s departure from historical precedent. </p>
<p>Can a message of tolerance to Islam abroad be persuasive without a corresponding affirmation of American Muslims at home?</p>
<h2>Toned-down Trump</h2>
<p>In his widely anticipated remarks on Islam and terrorism, President Trump avoided many of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15654560/trump-foreign-trip-middle-east-europe-islam">missteps his critics feared</a>. He notably abandoned the harsh rhetoric that characterized descriptions of Islam during his 2016 campaign. Trump has set aside his insistence on the use of the phrase <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-muslim-ban-224272">“radical Islamic terrorism.”</a> He has also rejected the broad generalizations of Islam that marked his demand for a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2015/12/07/e56266f6-9d2b-11e5-8728-1af6af208198_story.html?utm_term=.9e33bdb48d93">total and complete shutdown”</a> of Muslim immigration because their hatred was “beyond comprehension.”</p>
<p>With the exception of one apparent reference to “Islamic terror” – present in his spoken words but not in the written text of the speech – Trump otherwise struck a tolerant, inclusive tone. In his declaration that he was “not here to lecture” was the promise that the U.S. would not tell others “how to worship.” </p>
<p>More notable than the language of tolerance was Trump’s new emphasis on interfaith commonality. He declared the campaign against terrorism not “a battle between different faiths” but rather a fight that encompassed them all. He noted that a terrorist who “falsely invokes the name of God” should be considered “an insult to every person of faith.” </p>
<p>He used the language of a shared humanity and common God in his powerful – albeit macabre – description of victims of terrorism, noting,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“when we look upon the streams of innocent blood soaked into the ancient ground, we cannot see the faith or sect or tribe of the victims – we see only that they were Children of God whose deaths are an insult to all that is holy.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Echoes of past presidents</h2>
<p>In proclaiming tolerance and highlighting commonality with Muslims, Trump walked a well-worn path. </p>
<p>In 1980, during the Iran hostage crisis, <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=32899">Jimmy Carter noted</a> the many “human and moral values” which all Americans shared with Islam. These included a “deep faith in the one supreme being” and a shared respect for “the family and the home.”</p>
<p>Twenty-one years later, George W. Bush, in his <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/">speech to Congress</a> in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, emphasized a spirit of tolerance. Addressing “Muslims throughout the world,” Bush proclaimed, “we respect your faith.” Of Islam, he added: “its teachings are good and peaceful.”</p>
<p>Likewise, in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">speech given at Cairo University</a> shortly after taking office, Barack Obama affirmed that Islam “has a proud tradition of tolerance.” He also pointed to interreligious commonality. The principle “that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us” was a value that “transcends nations and peoples” and was not limited to “Christian, or Muslim or Jew.”</p>
<h2>Missing: Muslims in America</h2>
<p>This was one thing that was strikingly absent from Trump’s speech, though. The Saudi speech lacked any acknowledgment of the large Muslim population in the United States or discussion of its contribution to American society. </p>
<p>This absence, I argue, suggests an important limit to the evolution of Trump’s views on Islam.</p>
<p>In the speech, Trump made little mention of the U.S., except for a brief litany of terrorist attacks on American soil, including 9/11, San Bernardino and Orlando. The millions of Muslims <a href="https://theconversation.com/48-hours-as-a-muslim-american-a-professor-reflects-60991">who live in the U.S.</a> and are integral parts of American society went unmentioned. </p>
<p>On this crucial point, the contrast between Trump and his predecessors is striking.</p>
<p>In 1980, <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=32899">President Carter noted</a> that the U.S.’ “kaleidoscopic population includes a vigorous Islamic community.” After 9/11, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/">President Bush reminded</a> the nation that the Muslim faith was “practiced freely by many millions of Americans.” And, in 2009, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">President Obama forcefully emphasized</a> that “Islam is a part of America.” </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">Obama described</a> his personal experience “in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.” Obama reached back into history as well. Islam was not merely a part of the American present but also its past. “Since our founding,” <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">Obama noted</a>, “American Muslims have enriched the United States.” </p>
<h2>Islam as foreign</h2>
<p>For Trump, I argue, Islam remains something foreign. It is something that belongs in what he describes as “the Muslim world” rather than a religion integrated into American society. It seemingly did not occur to Trump’s speechwriters that a discussion of Islam should make some mention of American Muslims. </p>
<p>Until Trump stops presenting Islam as something distinct from American society, speeches like this one will do little to change perceptions of him. The president appeared admirably tolerant abroad. But he did nothing to acknowledge Muslims in the U.S.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78021/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mislin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump avoided many of the missteps his critics feared, but he failed to acknowledge the presence of America’s large Muslim population and its contribution to American society.David Mislin, Assistant Professor, Intellectual Heritage Program, Temple UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/746682017-03-16T02:43:32Z2017-03-16T02:43:32ZPopulist Wilders may have come up short, but Dutch intolerance is still real<p>The Dutch elections on March 15 have received a lot of attention in the international media. </p>
<p>The reason for the attention is clear: A Trump lookalike populist, Geert Wilders, was rumored to win big as part of a Western populist movement that some call the “Patriotic Spring.” </p>
<p>His rise has the liberal West confused and concerned, because if the land of gay marriage and coffee shops falls, then where is their hope for Western liberalism?</p>
<p>But, as results are coming in, two things are becoming clear: Election turnout was <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-pm-rutte-comes-first-in-election-but-loses-seats-exit-poll/">high</a> and Wilders’ support <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/dutch-pm-ruttes-vvd-emerges-top-in-first-exit-poll/a-37937959">relatively low</a>. Projections show Wilders’ party winning 19 seats compared to 31 seats for the Dutch-right liberal conservatives of Prime Minister Mark Rutte. What does all this tell us about the populist movement? Is our bedrock of tolerance safe again?</p>
<p>To understand what happened in these Dutch elections, we need to look beyond Wilders and his place in Western populism to the myth of Dutch tolerance.</p>
<p>Students in my race and ethnicity courses at the University of Michigan have been engaged in this very task as they examine current and historic diversity in the Netherlands. When they read University of Amsterdam sociologist <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230293984">Jan Willem Duyvendak</a> or Free University of Amsterdam Holocaust historian <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article-abstract/19/3/535/645489/Return-Holocaust-Survivors-and-Dutch-Antisemitism">Dienke Hondius</a>, a more complicated picture of Dutch tolerance emerges. </p>
<p>Wilders doesn’t represent a sudden movement of the Netherlands away from tolerance. Dutch tolerance does not really exist in the way the stereotype dictates. Seventy years ago, the country saw a larger percentage of its Jewish population deported and killed than any other Western European nation. This fact does not lend itself to simple explanations but has at least in part been attributed to the lack of protection of Jews by non-Jews and to Dutch collaboration with the <a href="http://ehq.sagepub.com/content/19/3/333.citation">Nazi occupation</a>. </p>
<p>Looking at modern times, CUNY political scientist <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296822981_Assimilating_immigrants_in_Amsterdam_A_perspective_from_New_York">John Mollenkopf</a> reports poorer immigrant integration outcomes, such as employment rates and job retention, in Amsterdam than in New York City, and Duyvendak finds explanations for these outcomes in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.3362.3767">white majority-culture dominance</a>.</p>
<h2>A pretty story</h2>
<p>A few weeks after the 2016 U.S. elections, elderly Dutch statesman Jan Terlouw made <a href="http://dewerelddraaitdoor.vara.nl/media/367395">a plea to the Dutch nation</a>. Speaking as the Jimmy Carter-like voice of reason of the political establishment, he asked the nation to go back to a time where Dutch people trusted each other, a time where people could enter the homes of other Dutchmen freely and without suspicion. It was a “Make the Netherlands Great Again” message of sorts, but coming from the Dutch center-left. </p>
<p>I grew up in the Netherlands of Jan Terlouw. The country gave me an idyllic childhood, with soccer and hopscotch in the streets, but I never stepped freely into the homes of Indonesians who lived, grouped together, on the next street. My white Dutch friends still know little to nothing about the relationship between <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/white-innocence">race and our colonial history</a>, or about the people of color who came to live in the Netherlands through that history. Some Americans may be surprised to learn that the Netherlands has a more than 20 percent nonmajority ethnic Dutch population, 10 percent of which are Indonesians, Surinamese and Dutch Caribbeans from former or current colonies, as well as Turks and Moroccans who (or whose family) originally came as part of guest worker programs.</p>
<p>Terlouw’s story is a beautiful story, then, but it isn’t true, and neither is the story that the Dutch have suddenly become intolerant as part of global Western populism. In reality, the Dutch good old days were good old days because racial minorities were sidelined and did not complain, for example, about the slaves depicted on the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/race-colonialism-and-the-netherlands-golden-coach">golden coach</a> that carries the Dutch king to the annual “Throne Address,” or the state of union.</p>
<h2>Wilders isn’t unique</h2>
<p>Now Dutch intolerance in the person of Wilders is on display around the world, and it is not limited to his party. </p>
<p>Of the 28 parties on the Dutch ballot this year, five have anti-Islam or anti-immigrant platforms, some more openly so than others. The Party for Entrepreneurs, for example, calls for a “mosque watch.” Another one of these five parties – the Forum for Democracy party, which has a restrictive immigration and EU-cautious platform – appears to have <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-pm-rutte-comes-first-in-election-but-loses-seats-exit-poll/">won two seats</a>.</p>
<p>Dutch nationalism does not just live on the right. All the big parties that are contenders to enter a coalition government after this election – from all the way left to all the way right – reference “Dutchness” in one way or another in their party platforms, as a presumed understanding of what it means to be Dutch, or in the form of shared national values and a “be like us” message to immigrants. Dutch nationalism is ubiquitous.</p>
<p>But one important aspect of today’s elections is overshadowed by the Wilders discussion. The Dutch citizens who voted Wednesday had the choice of voting for a party called “DENK,” with mixed Dutch-Turkish, or Dutch-minority, values that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/world/europe/dutch-denk-party.html">some critics</a> call the Dutch <a href="http://www.elsevier.nl/opinie/opinie/2016/04/298185-298185/">Erdogan satellite party</a>.</p>
<p>Voters could also support “Artikel 1,” a party founded by minority rights activist Sylvana Simons nine weeks ago – and just four months after the country saw its racist holiday character of Zwarte Piet (the blackfaced helper of Saint Nicholas) phased out on national television amid white nationalist screams and quieter criticisms about the end of Dutch culture and tradition. </p>
<p>Artikel 1, named for the equality clause in the Dutch constitution, has the slogan “All Different But Yet The Same” and calls for equal rights for all Dutch people, men, women, gay, straight and, importantly, black, white, native and immigrant. This election was the first time we saw minority parties such as DENK and Artikel 1 with programs advocating for education about Dutch migration history, the teaching of languages beyond the traditional European ones, a registry for racist hate crimes and a national holiday to celebrate the emancipation of Dutch slaves. Remember: The kingdom of the Netherlands is still a colonial power over the nation states of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, and the country of the Netherlands over the three Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba.</p>
<p>As a new Dutch government is formed in the weeks to come, we could brush the minority parties off as a reaction to Wilders’ populism and see his defeat as a return of Dutch tolerance, but we would be wiser to see these elections as the beginning of a sea change in a country that is slowly changing to meet its tolerant mythology.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annemarie Toebosch is a member of the Dutch political party Artikel 1. </span></em></p>The famous anti-immigrant crusader fizzled at the polls, but the Netherlands still has a legacy of intolerance to turn around.Annemarie Toebosch, Director of Dutch and Flemish Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/706202017-01-12T21:26:07Z2017-01-12T21:26:07ZTo honor Dr. King, pediatricians offer four tips to teach kindness to kids<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152462/original/image-20170111-29571-d95xf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/editor/image/516900088?ref=download">From www.shutterstock.com,</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Children are listening. </p>
<p>During the election, messages of hate, fear and intolerance were propagated across different media and into communities. And the messages continue. While parents view and listen to these ever-present messages, alongside them are their children, hearing these same messages through a lens ill-equipped to discern the implications of negative stereotypes and incorrect portrayals. </p>
<p>Throughout the election, children heard such things as Mexican immigrants are “rapists” and are “bringing drugs…<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/?utm_term=.4f4fda783175">bringing crime</a>” and that African-Americans are “thugs” and “living in <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/glanton/ct-trump-blacks-crime-glanton-20161024-column.html">hell</a>.” </p>
<p>These messages, no matter their voice, were designed and intended to target adults. As pediatricians, we’re now seeing, however, that children were listening and they are responding in ways we might not have anticipated. </p>
<p>As parents, caretakers and citizens, we have the power to turn this tide. And as we approach the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, now is the time to explore ways to teach children to communicate with love and respect.</p>
<h2>Stop the hate and offer love</h2>
<p>One response to the messages children hear is to incite more hate. In April 2016, a now well-cited survey of 2,000 teachers conducted by the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/splc_the_trump_effect.pdf">Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance Program</a> found that more than half of respondents reported seeing an increase in uncivil discourse in their schools. This, along with other findings from the survey, was used to coin “The Trump Effect,” a term denoting the hateful acts performed by children and adults alike.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Aug. 28, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aug. 28, 1963/ AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The change we’ve seen in children’s behavior may be happening for the same reason they react to the violence they see in media. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197103000927">Prior research</a> has shown that children exposed to media violence have higher levels of violent behaviors, hostility and that they are more desensitized to violence, including a lower likelihood of intervening in an ongoing fight and less sympathy for the victims of violence. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X00001294">Media violence</a> itself can instill fear in the young viewers that may be persistent for years. </p>
<p>Hate and intolerance touted in the media is no different. As is their nature <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Dc77AQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=concrete+operational+stage+Piaget%27s+theory+of+cognitive+development&ots=_r30MTfhPT&sig=-_WAzq28nVYiQmegyya35LryY2o#v=onepage&q=concrete%20operational%20stage%20Piaget's%20theory%20of%20cognitive%20development&f=false">developmentally</a>, children adopt what they hear as truth, adapting it to their lives, and in many cases across the nation, acting upon it.</p>
<p>Another response can be love. Recently, a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/18/politics/kids-letters-donald-trump-kindness-trnd/">Facebook group</a> was started by a Seattle-based mom, encouraging children to write letters to the president-elect explaining the importance of being kind. To date, 10,000 children have joined, from across the country, writing how kindness should guide the future administration. To quote one sixth grade child, “Please show kindness to people, no matter their race, religion, beliefs, or most importantly, who they are as a person.”</p>
<p>This dichotomy of responses begs the questions: Why are children uniquely positioned to respond to messages of hate strongly, and how do parents guide their children to respond with love over hate?</p>
<h2>Developmental stages: A lens for media messages</h2>
<p>Children’s actions may depend heavily on their developmental <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Dc77AQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=concrete+operational+stage+Piaget%27s+theory+of+cognitive+development&ots=_r30MTfhPT&sig=-_WAzq28nVYiQmegyya35LryY2o#v=onepage&q=concrete%20operational%20stage%20Piaget's%20theory%20of%20cognitive%20development&f=false">stage</a>. Older teenagers are generally better able to discern the meaning and implications of the strong emotions conveyed in the media, but younger children often are unable to decode them.</p>
<p>Emotions like hate, fear and intolerance are complex. Younger children are not equipped to understand the context and ramifications associated with these complex emotions, especially when seen in an abstract form, such as media. In addition, we know that young children are not developmentally able to discern <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00701.x/abstract;jsessionid=D1AF4FACE6EA79758D6580B64BBAC64F.f01t04">paralanguage</a>, the complex, emotional undertones of speech. Without these underpinnings, it’s nearly impossible to understand when messages are rooted in sarcasm or are based on fallacious assumptions. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children look to their parents and other adults for guidance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-551884930/stock-photo-close-up-of-a-little-boy-who-is-smiling-at-his-father-while-he-buttons-up-his-shirt-for-him.html?src=Ky9JbdIMuzRnslech9z9Qw-1-36">From www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Older children may be able to think more critically about what they hear, but may have a hard time deciding what they should believe. Children who identify as a part of a minority group based on their race or ethnicity, nativity status, sexual orientation or ability status may also <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=toHSl37qbfMC&pg=PA249&lpg=PA249&dq=Children+and+Racism:+Beyond+the+value+of+Dolls%E2%80%A6&source=bl&ots=o4cCAWUzJL&sig=isHqFjBEQxgLdHgJ6OE0PZJFE2U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwis6p_T_ILRAhUH0YMKHRH_DN0Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Children%20and%20Racism%3A%20Beyond%20the%20value%20of%20Dolls%E2%80%A6&f=false">internalize</a> the messages, which can lead to increased distress. This distress may be associated with concerning behaviors such as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2794434/">withdrawal, anger, anxiety and conduct problems</a>.</p>
<h2>Parents fear loss of control</h2>
<p>In 2015, over 65 percent of Americans had a <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015/">smartphone</a> and over 95 percent of homes had a <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/nielsen-estimates-116-4-million-tv-homes-in-the-us-for-the-2015-16-tv-season.html">television</a>. In 2016 The American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization of over 66,000 pediatricians, revised its <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/5/e20162591">policy statement</a> to encourage the use of these types of media for children as young as 18 months in a structured way to facilitate learning. </p>
<p>However, many families feel conflicted on how to select for beneficial content, while filtering out the harmful content, such as stories that highlight hate and intolerance. A <a href="http://www.annfammed.org/content/14/6/503">study</a> published in the November issue of Annals of Family Medicine found caregivers felt they had less and less control over the content their children viewed in today’s age of rapidly evolving technologies. </p>
<p>This effect was seen increasingly in families with lower socioeconomic status and lower income. These caregivers wanted their children to be exposed to the advantageous aspects of technology, but worried about how to set limits and make the right choices for their children. </p>
<p>As parents, we know it is hard to totally shield our children from the media, so how do we silence the noise of hate and usher our children toward actions of love and respect?</p>
<h2>Our path forward</h2>
<p>The strongest change you can make is in your own home.</p>
<p>Here are four ways you can scaffold the messages our children hear, providing them with context and skills beyond their developmental stages to filter and respond to the hate and intolerance seen in the media.</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Use your resources</strong>: There are many web-based tools that parents can turn to, including KidsHealth.org’s “<a href="http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/tolerance.html">Teaching Your Child Tolerance</a>” and Southern Poverty Law Center’s <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/teaching-tolerance">“Teaching Tolerance” toolkit</a>. Both of these sites include developmentally appropriate stories and games to discuss racial and cultural differences with your child.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Talk to your child about responding with kindness:</strong> Even offhand statements can be felt as hateful to others. Creating a culture of kindness in your home can have ripple effects. Remember, tolerance does not mean tolerating hateful behavior. It means everyone deserves to be respected and should respect others. For example, if your child hears someone saying something intolerant, encourage them to speak up against it. However, instead of saying, “I think people who use racist and sexist language are stupid,” encourage them to demonstrate kindness: “I think it’s cool when we treat everyone with respect.”</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Set a strong example and explain it to your child:</strong> While children pick up on everything we do, it’s even better to tell them what you’re doing. Become active in your community, volunteer locally, nationally or globally. Take your child along and get them involved. Even easier, show them how you respond to intolerant acts and explain to them why.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Teach your children to feel good about themselves and love their own culture:</strong> We know that children who struggle with self-esteem can respond by bullying others. Conversely, kids with higher self-esteem may bolster others around them. Emphasize your child’s own strengths and encourage them to explore their interests. Teach them about their own cultural background and instill a sense of cultural pride in your family. Being aware of the language we use and being intentional about our attitudes are skills child carry with them outside their home.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>And remember, children are listening. While we may not be able to change the messages in the media, we can change how our children respond to them, and that change starts with you.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Children learn hatred and violence, two pediatricians write, and they also learn love and respect. As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, the two doctors offer things you can do to teach tolerance.Nia Heard-Garris, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, Clinical Lecturer, Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, University of Michigan Medical School, University of MichiganDanielle Erkoboni, National Clinician Scholar and General Pediatrician, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/696862016-12-19T09:34:56Z2016-12-19T09:34:56ZWhy higher levels of education don’t necessarily mean higher levels of tolerance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150143/original/image-20161214-2478-1qymo7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s often said that a person’s tolerance rises with their education level. So on this basis, the higher a person’s educational attainment is, the more likely they are to <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/4522414">accept racial or ethnic minorities</a>. </p>
<p>Studies often show that young people are also <a href="http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/03/10/sf.sov050.abstract">more welcoming in their attitudes to outsiders</a>. This is thought to be largely because they have higher levels of education than older age groups. </p>
<p>So, you would expect that society as a whole becomes ever more tolerant and enlightened as new, better educated generations steadily replace older, less educated ones. </p>
<p>But recent political events suggest that this line of reasoning is too simple. Because how is it possible that anti-immigrant sentiments – as expressed in the Brexit vote and the election of Trump – are so virulent when the education levels of Britons and Americans are at their highest ever?</p>
<p>In our own research, which is currently under review, we find that while younger people may have become increasingly tolerant of sexual fluidity and racial and cultural diversity, they are growing less positive about immigrants. </p>
<h2>Declining tolerance</h2>
<p>Education is said to make people more tolerant <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Tolerance_for_Nonconformity.html?id=OucWAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">by enhancing their knowledge and reasoning skills</a>. This helps people to see through prejudiced claims and dismiss irrational fears about those who are culturally different.</p>
<p>Schools and universities also enhance tolerance by <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5350812_Education_effects_on_authoritarian-libertarian_values_A_question_of_socialization1">emphasising it as a virtue</a>. The longer individuals stay in the education system, the more they are exposed to tolerance as a “core value” – and the more likely they are to internalise it.</p>
<p>On this basis, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=fcXb_1i4XmwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=walter+mcmahan+wider+benefits+of+education&ots=rvuRrBo9t_&sig=ha7KSe_E1qjx4ByJfLa366lt3pk#v=onepage&q&f=false">some scholars</a> have argued that education brings many extra benefits for society and that we can never have enough of it. This is supported by previous research which has shown that people have become ever more accepting of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23499728_Is_Racial_Prejudice_Declining_in_Britain">racial minorities</a> and LGBT people – with young people generally showing the highest levels of tolerance. </p>
<p>And yet, intolerant notions across all age groups still persist. In the 1990s and 2000s, there was a steady growth in the number of people in Britain who believe that it is right for employers to discriminate against immigrants when recruiting new staff.</p>
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<p>And this trend has continued into more recent times – with <a href="http://natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/british-social-attitudes/">figures</a> showing a huge decline in the number of people who believe legal immigrants in Britain should have the same rights as British citizens.</p>
<p>The figures also show that in 2013 only a small minority of people still believed that legal immigrants should be treated equally.</p>
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<h2>Educational advantage?</h2>
<p>So it seems that the more educated British society has become, the lower the levels of acceptance towards immigrants. Strange as this may seem, the reason for this may also be in part down to an increased level of education across society.</p>
<p>This is because education does not only enhance knowledge and foster tolerance as a virtue but also gives people a competitive edge, and access to higher social positions. This makes people with the highest education levels feel more secure and less exposed to competition from other people “coming to take their jobs”. </p>
<p>But what the highly educated gain, the people with middling and low levels of education lose. The value of their qualifications is diminished when all others in society become more educated and “out-compete” them in the struggle for desirable jobs.</p>
<p>And this loss of status produces feelings of economic insecurity which may translate into more defensive and intolerant attitudes towards “out-groups”. </p>
<h2>Not a cure-all</h2>
<p>So while higher levels of education may be good for some individuals in terms of making them more tolerant, there may not be any benefits for society at large because of the “trade-off” the process of educational expansion creates. </p>
<p>It is this effect – sometimes referred to as <a href="http://www.oecd.org/edu/innovation-education/37425694.pdf">the positional effect of education</a> – that may explain why a positive relationship between education and tolerance does not always occur in society as a whole. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150144/original/image-20161214-2496-vl6kay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150144/original/image-20161214-2496-vl6kay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150144/original/image-20161214-2496-vl6kay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150144/original/image-20161214-2496-vl6kay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150144/original/image-20161214-2496-vl6kay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150144/original/image-20161214-2496-vl6kay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150144/original/image-20161214-2496-vl6kay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Education isn’t necessarily a cure-all.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another possibility is that other social forces have a stronger effect on attitudes towards immigrants than education. Along with the new wave of negativity towards migrants, the remarkable return of nationalism is something, for instance, that cannot be ignored. Mainstream parties have now adopted some of the nationalist rhetoric and proposed policies of populist anti-immigrant parties. </p>
<p>This has led to more <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249731538_Contagious_Parties_Anti-Immigration_Parties_and_Their_Impact_on_Other_Parties'_Immigration_Stances_in_Contemporary_Western_Europe">restrictive immigration regimes</a> in a number of Western countries and a discourse more generally of protecting and privileging the ethnic majority. </p>
<p>In such an environment, the taboo of expressing negative sentiments towards those who are culturally different – especially immigrants – has undoubtedly weakened. And this serves as a stark reminder that educational expansion is not the panacea to all of society’s problems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Germen Janmaat is affiliated to the ESRC funded LLAKES research center at UCL Institute of Education.</span></em></p>If education and tolerance go hand in hand, how is it possible that anti-immigrant sentiments are so virulent in educated populations?Jan Germen Janmaat, Reader in Comparative Social Science, Department of Lifelong and Comparative Education, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/684722016-12-12T03:40:46Z2016-12-12T03:40:46ZHow learning a new language improves tolerance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149303/original/image-20161208-31364-1yz4g47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why learn a new language?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sixteenmilesofstring/2598192209/in/photolist-4XAq2p-83mCTV-bewrH8-9JamX4-mgbWGP-8xNEMQ-bUYTaW-e6k6Qv-e6k6A2-aJhdL4-gcghxh-bewKfg-qUWDX-ej9BUW-ej9Agf-ej9sWQ-ej3RYi-ej9AFu-dUn1sw-5PKagb-nHmFbh-e4k2Pt-4G4hBb-nFX3cL-ej3Pj4-nHd4PN-ej9swh-afSwLV-9CCTtH-dUn227-4xhMS4-Jy7pjg-ej9x2q-bKVqsV-dUn2MJ-dUgpr4-PZidp-DkkCB-4G4hff-dUmYHb-93GdcW-4b9F1g-ktM8z8-ej3M7T-ej3END-4ua1Pa-8TuLSe-ej3E6k-qBxFz-ej3Q6V">Timothy Vollmer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are many <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html">benefits</a> to knowing more than one language. For example, it has been shown that <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bilingualism-language-and-cognition/article/bilingualism-and-cognition/CCC95B8238C4CDDD92B3ABFFCD0CF2AE#">aging adults</a> who speak more than one language have less likelihood of developing dementia. </p>
<p>Additionally, the bilingual <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3322418/">brain</a> becomes better at filtering out distractions, and learning multiple languages improves <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292250731_Multilingualism_and_Creativity">creativity</a>. Evidence also shows that <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2013.12034.x/abstract">learning subsequent languages</a> is easier than learning the first foreign language. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, not all American universities consider <a href="https://www.mla.org/About-Us/Governance/Executive-Council/Executive-Council-Actions/2011/Learning-Another-Language-Goals-and-Challenges">learning foreign languages</a> a worthwhile investment. </p>
<p>Why is foreign language study important at the university level?</p>
<p>As an <a href="http://languages.usf.edu/people/athompson/">applied linguist</a>, I study how learning multiple languages can have cognitive and emotional benefits. One of these benefits that’s not obvious is that language learning improves tolerance.</p>
<p>This happens in two important ways. </p>
<p>The first is that it opens people’s eyes to a way of doing things in a way that’s different from their own, which is called “cultural competence.” </p>
<p>The second is related to the comfort level of a person when dealing with unfamiliar situations, or “tolerance of ambiguity.”</p>
<h2>Gaining cross-cultural understanding</h2>
<p>Cultural competence is key to thriving in our increasingly globalized world. How specifically does language learning improve cultural competence? The answer can be illuminated by examining different types of intelligence. </p>
<p>Psychologist <a href="http://www.human.cornell.edu/bio.cfm?netid=rjs487">Robert Sternberg’s</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZmiggcC-RxoC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=The+theory+of+successful+intelligence+and+its+implications+for+language-aptitude+testing&source=bl&ots=slAeTCHgb3&sig=Ho64-KctbU1CM92J9qvbrS_NGVQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQysz6tePQAhWDPiYKHbfUDvMQ6AEIJTAB#v=onepage&q&f=false">research on intelligence</a> describes different types of intelligence and how they are related to adult language learning. What he refers to as “practical intelligence” is similar to social intelligence in that it helps individuals learn nonexplicit information from their environments, including meaningful gestures or other social cues. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149343/original/image-20161208-31402-1x1dulb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149343/original/image-20161208-31402-1x1dulb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149343/original/image-20161208-31402-1x1dulb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149343/original/image-20161208-31402-1x1dulb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149343/original/image-20161208-31402-1x1dulb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149343/original/image-20161208-31402-1x1dulb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149343/original/image-20161208-31402-1x1dulb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Learning a foreign language reduces social anxiety.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/codnewsroom/16375464297/">COD Newsroom</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Language learning inevitably involves learning about different cultures. Students pick up clues about the culture both in language classes and through meaningful immersion experiences. </p>
<p>Researchers <a href="http://de.hpu.edu/hnguyen/">Hanh Thi Nguyen</a> and <a href="https://www.kapiolani.hawaii.edu/directory/gkellogg/">Guy Kellogg</a> have shown that when students learn another language, they develop new ways of understanding culture through <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00983.x/full">analyzing cultural stereotypes</a>. They explain that “learning a second language involves the acquisition not only of linguistic forms but also ways of thinking and behaving.” </p>
<p>With the help of an instructor, students can critically think about stereotypes of different cultures related to food, appearance and conversation styles. </p>
<h2>Dealing with the unknown</h2>
<p>The second way that adult language learning increases tolerance is related to the comfort level of a person when dealing with “tolerance of ambiguity.” </p>
<p>Someone with a high <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1962.tb02303.x/abstract">tolerance of ambiguity</a> finds unfamiliar situations exciting, rather than frightening. My research on <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13670050.2014.985631?journalCode=rbeb20">motivation</a>, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13670050.2012.713322">anxiety</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14790718.2014.973413?journalCode=rmjm20">beliefs</a> indicates that language learning improves people’s tolerance of ambiguity, especially when more than one foreign language is involved.</p>
<p>It’s not difficult to see why this may be so. Conversations in a foreign language will inevitably involve unknown words. It wouldn’t be a successful conversation if one of the speakers constantly stopped to say, “Hang on – I don’t know that word. Let me look it up in the dictionary.” Those with a high tolerance of ambiguity would feel comfortable maintaining the conversation despite the unfamiliar words involved. </p>
<p>Applied linguists <a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/linguistics/our-staff/academic-staff/jean-marc-dewaele">Jean-Marc Dewaele</a> and <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/dcal/team/accordion/associatesadmin/liwei">Li Wei</a> also study tolerance of ambiguity and have indicated that those with experience learning more than one foreign language in an instructed setting have more <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bilingualism-language-and-cognition/article/is-multilingualism-linked-to-a-higher-tolerance-of-ambiguity/2C909C4C33BB214F162367B713B9CD7B">tolerance of ambiguity</a>.</p>
<h2>What changes with this understanding</h2>
<p>A high tolerance of ambiguity brings many advantages. It helps students become less anxious in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10400419.2013.783762">social interactions</a> and in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13670050.2012.713322">subsequent language learning</a> experiences. Not surprisingly, the more experience a person has with <a href="https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=189138">language learning</a>, the more comfortable the person gets with this ambiguity. </p>
<p>And that’s not all.</p>
<p>Individuals with higher levels of tolerance of ambiguity have also been found to be more <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296315000739">entrepreneurial</a> (i.e., are more optimistic, innovative and don’t mind taking risks). </p>
<p>In the current climate, universities are frequently being judged by the <a href="http://www.flbog.edu/about/budget/docs/performance_funding/Overview-Doc-Performance-Funding-10-Metric-Model-Condensed-Version.pdf">salaries of their graduates</a>. Taking it one step further, based on the relationship of tolerance of ambiguity and entrepreneurial intention, increased tolerance of ambiguity could lead to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2013/01/03/does-it-pay-to-become-an-entrepreneur/#511534db585b">higher salaries</a> for graduates, which in turn, I believe, could help increase funding for those universities that require foreign language study. </p>
<p>Those who have devoted their lives to theorizing about and the teaching of languages would say, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMxX-QOV9tI">It’s not about the money</a>.” But perhaps it is. </p>
<h2>Language learning in higher ed</h2>
<p>Most American universities have a minimal language requirement that often varies depending on the student’s major. However, students can typically opt out of the requirement by taking a placement test or providing some other proof of competency. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149432/original/image-20161209-31402-nwdcfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149432/original/image-20161209-31402-nwdcfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149432/original/image-20161209-31402-nwdcfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149432/original/image-20161209-31402-nwdcfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149432/original/image-20161209-31402-nwdcfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149432/original/image-20161209-31402-nwdcfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149432/original/image-20161209-31402-nwdcfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Why more universities should teach a foreign language.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarspri/5280711519/">sarspri</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>In contrast to this trend, Princeton <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/11/02/princeton-proposal-would-require-all-students-even-those-already-proficient-study">recently announced</a> that all students, regardless of their competency when entering the university, would be <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/strategicplan/files/Task-Force-Report-on-General-Education.pdf">required</a> to study an additional language. </p>
<p>I’d argue that more universities should follow Princeton’s lead, as language study at the university level could lead to an increased tolerance of the different cultural norms represented in American society, which is desperately needed in the current political climate with the wave of <a href="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/heres-a-rundown-of-the-latest-campus-climate-incidents-since-trumps-election/115553">hate crimes</a> sweeping university campuses nationwide. </p>
<p>Knowledge of different languages is crucial to becoming global citizens. As former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan <a href="http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/education-and-language-gap-secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-foreign-language-summit">noted</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Our country needs to create a future in which all Americans understand that by speaking more than one language, they are enabling our country to compete successfully and work collaboratively with partners across the globe.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Considering the evidence that studying languages as adults increases tolerance in two important ways, the question shouldn’t be “Why should universities require foreign language study?” but rather “Why in the world wouldn’t they?”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Language learning can make people more open to seeing a new way of doing things and develop a greater level of comfort with unfamiliar situations.Amy Thompson, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.