The above image is by artist Bindi Cole Chocka who successfully sued Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt for breaches to the Racial Discrimination Act.
“Democracy may stand as something unique in history, a political premise designed wholly to pander to the dichotomous mind”,
Boyd Rice
I am a bigot. Before you judge me, I would like to say so too are you a bigot. At some point in our lives we have all declared someone a bigot.
Bigotry refers to the intolerance towards those who hold different opinions from oneself. While bigotry is something proceed to avoid or handle with caution, the promotion of free speech is a dear concept to many.
Free speech refers to the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint. However, free speech is not completely “free” as tolerance determines the acceptable and unacceptable. It seems every day we are being reminded of what ideas are good and what ideas are bad. The problem is, this information comes from many sources, each representing a difference in view and experience. What we have here is an interesting paradox between two concepts – one being “ideal” and the other considered more “dated” – that in actuality can’t exist without the other. In fact, it is the essence of conversation and debate. Free speech enables bigotry and bigotry is at the core of diversity – the difference that fascinates and, at times frightens us. Tolerance is a word we see across political campaigns, banners of advocate groups and placards at demonstrations – a word held higher than the highest power spoken across ancient texts. While tolerance has noble intentions, it influences a degree of tension that is both stabilizing and destabilizing but can never be eradicated.
As a society, we attempt ways to bind ourselves based on common principle and need through the concept of uniformity, but it is without any sort of contingency plan and history is the greatest indication where ideologies of uniformity are strictly utopian. The fallacy of uniformity is assuming that society is a monolithic entity however the dynamics constantly shift. Furthermore, dissonance arises when a collective questions the legitimacy and longevity of an idea. A key influence of such shifts is found in the ways information is exchanged. Even in Darwin’s time, there was only word valued – that of God and those who avowed it. Suddenly, a publication based on one man’s observations of nature that were a contrast to the pervading theological understandings of time was, to some, reason for persecution and marginalization. Even today, while media, in its material and access are diverse, we tend to gravitate towards the ideas that we align with to a point where we accept just one viewpoint as the “acceptable” – everything else is a form of bigotry but we don’t stop to consider why we’re so against it, genuinely. Think for a moment of a belief you hold. A social issue or political leaning that you’re for or against. Why do you hold this particular leaning? It was not a situation where you suddenly decided to hold this belief. If not indoctrination, beliefs are the accumulation of enquiry and reflection and it’s this process that makes opinion valid; that it represents deep and consistent observation and analysis. While a belief is the root of a particular objective or agenda, it is reinforced and reformed through new information so that it remains justified in the realm and maintenance of a free society; fundamentally, it represents the diversity of experience. However, the fertility of discourse and debate is rapidly becoming barren due to the unnecessary scrutiny that masquerades under the well-intentioned banner of tolerance. Tolerance is the ability to acknowledge the existence of different opinions but more importantly it involves the capacity to willingly endure something one finds disagreeable without adverse reaction.
Within contemporary discourse, there appears to be an attempt to reform tolerance to be something rather didactic. Yet, this is trying to civilize something wild as thought is difficult to govern when it is not attended to in a manner of reasoned discourse. As mentioned before, we are all bigots in way form or another, but it is our experience and engagement that formulates not just our views but expression – which is difficult to dictate and can have a negative effect on social enquiry. What happens is we reduce certain experiences as “redundant” and unworthy to consider and the presence of opinion at odds with the “norm” become cause of tension even if they have value in public discourse. Recent events demonstrate that by promoting one viewpoint as being “acceptable”, ignores and hinders debate and brings about a new form of “heresy”.
In June last year, British radio presenter and activist Maajid Nawaz was issued an apology by the Southern Poverty Law Centre who had labelled him, a former member of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahir and now proponent of secular Islam, an “anti-Muslim extremist”. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern received praise when she donned hijab in a gesture of solidarity and respect to the Muslim community in the aftermath of the New Zealand mosque terror attack yet around the same time in Iran, Nasrin Stouter, a prominent human rights lawyer who had defended women for removing and refusing to wear hijab, was sentenced to 38 years prison. In Sri Lanka, victims of the massacre in April were dubbed “Easter worshippers” not “Christians” – when did the latter become a buzzword? As a society, we are in a state of liminal purgatory because we are at a moment where revision of the past has left us terrified to a point of fearing repetition. Now politicians fear reprisal for every word they put forth to the people they represent. Educational institutions are particular in not what they teach but how it’s being taught to a point of it being coercive and not critiquing and we leave with a series of fixed narratives. This makes tolerance a form of bigotry because of its propensity to have a double-edged effect on a conceptual idea of respect and uniformity within harmonious connotations. What happens as a result of this is that we come to fear our own thoughts and manner of engagement and where does that leave conventional wisdom?
Unless you’re a fortune teller, you cannot automatically assume how one will respond to your enquiry and nor should you because you’d be reinforcing stereotypes that you’re painstakingly trying to break down. Even when we’re trying to be respectful, it can have the opposite effect to what was intended because of the ingrained expectation of thought associated with different communities and cultures – which can end up coddling and disempowering them. We can speak of an issue but can’t go as far as to speak on behalf of an issue without having experience of it. If you don’t want to be a bigot, then what you have to do is first accept that everyone has different views – that our existence is not predicated on an aspiration of uniformity but one of constant enquiry. Secondly, it is important to consider that views are never singular or fixed but fluid to change when interacting with a counter argument. Society is not a safe space, but a public space that we all have to share and acknowledge and value the diversity of thought. If in doubt remember to THINK – is it true? Is it helpful? is it inspiring? is it necessary? is it kind?
