No Tolerance for Hate, or All Tolerance for Hate?
Gregg Zegarelli Esq.
Managing Shareholder at Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC
Living in the City of Pittsburgh, in light of the recent shooting at a synagogue, many schools are reaching out to families offering counseling to children with regard to social hate.
Social hate is bad, of course. But, social hate is not new, and I will suggest that it should not be presented or implied as something new. Prejudice, ignorance and a failure of human discipline are part of humanity and human nature. [1, 2]
Hope is hope, but there is no empirical historical data to suggest that human nature will change any time soon. Moreover, the expression of hate ratchets as it evolves in culture; indeed, hate used to manifest as a lynching, and it may later evolve into a simple nod, but human nature always finds a way to express itself. [3]
It is noble to try to change the World, perhaps by trying to change the human nature of others, but nobility and wisdom are two different things. Bettering the World starts with bettering self, which is the best lesson for any child. [4]
The concept of hate implies two objects: a) the thing that hates; and b) the thing that is hated. Making this distinction is important, particularly for children, because there are two different lessons to teach, or perhaps two views of the same story. [5]
We remember Seneca's wise statement that, "The tender neck chafes at the yoke." [6] Stated another way, someone who is untrained in adversity is fragile and easily injured.
For example, someone who has no tolerance for perfume tends to live in a miserable world of abrasions, because that person will forever be trying to control everything and everybody else, which is futile. To have no tolerance is a tender neck, always sensitive, chafed, sore and angry.
So, when we talk about "tolerance" in teaching children, we should consider being clear that there are two different lessons that are sourced from the each of the two stated objects (how a person acts, and how a person handles being acted upon).
On the one hand, children are often taught to be tolerant of others, but that is getting started off on the wrong foot, and it is failure of a proper education. Education should teach best practices. Tolerance is not a best practice—tolerance is only a good practice.
The best practice is to be perfect. Perfection is not easy to implement, but that does not change the lesson, as we can be guided by the North Star without being able to touch it.
Acting only with tolerance is a concession from perfection. Love doesn't tolerate, love embraces. [7] It may be subtle, but tolerance implies suffering quietly through an abrasion. Saying we love someone, or that we embrace someone, is a far cry from saying that we tolerate someone, miserably biting our tongues.
Teaching tolerance implies a contradiction to its own premise. Saying, "We tolerate them because we love them," is an admission of foolishness, but only wisdom sees it.
What a child is taught to give to the World should be love and to embrace the differences in others. It is not that complicated: everything different is not a threat and it is only insecurity from the ignorance of failed education that thinks so. Children must be taught the flaw of inductive reasoning, which is often the source of generalized prejudices.
But, now having said what a child should give to the World on the one hand, we also need to teach a child what to expect to take from the World, on the other hand.
To teach children to be nice and to expect nice back is simply too easy a lesson, if not merely hopeful to the point of falsity. The hard part of the lesson is to teach a child to give love and to endure hate. [8] This life incongruency will confuse an untrained child, but only at first, until reconciled. But, the important part of this second view of the story is to teach a child that the World does not revolve around self. Haters are going to hate and will express it, one way or another. Children need to have a clear expectation that they are going to take a hit—somehow, and the World is not fair: absorb the hit, get back up, and move forward, without anger and more preferably, happily. Teaching a child to change the World is noble, but teaching a child to change self is wise.
Adversity comes to us all, somehow, in some way, and children need to be ready for it. The reasons that adults are not ready for adversity is because they were not made ready for it, or helped to reconcile the life incongruency, as children. A child who can love, amidst hate—and even to love the hater—is perfect. Easier said than done, of course, for all of us.
One who begins learning embraces the teaching. One who has learned partially has implemented the teaching with disciplined tolerance. But, behold the one who has completed the learning, who no longer requires discipline—that person has become perfect through love, and, with that strength of heart, mind and spirit, the yoke becomes easy and burden light. [9]
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[9] ONE?: The Unified Gospel of Jesus, Divine Version [Second Edition] Published, citing to ONE: 1058 [T11:30]
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*?Gregg Zegarelli, Esq., earned both his Bachelor of Arts Degree and his Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dual major areas of study were History from the College of Liberal Arts and Accounting from the Business School (qualified to sit for the CPA examination), with dual minors in Philosophy and Political Science. He has enjoyed Adjunct Professorships in the Duquesne University Graduate Leadership Master Degree Program (The Leader as Entrepreneur; Developing Leadership Character Through Adversity) and the University of Pittsburgh Law School (The Anatomy of a Deal). He is admitted to various courts throughout the United States of America.
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.,?is Managing Shareholder of?Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC.?Gregg is nationally rated as "superb" and has more than 35 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes, including startups,?INC. 500, and publicly traded companies.?He is author of?One: The Unified Gospel of Jesus,?and?The Business of Aesop? article series, and co-author with his father,?Arnold Zegarelli, of?The Essential Aesop: For Business, Managers, Writers and Professional Speakers.?Gregg is a frequent lecturer, speaker and faculty for a variety of educational and other institutions.?
?? 2018 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.?Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.
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