Tolerance and social programs - address to World Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union - Transcript

Humanist, Jan-Feb, 1993 by Aad van Oosten

The widespread acceptance of the principle of self-determination in the Netherlands explains much about that uniquely tolerant country. This article is an edited version of a presentation to the 1992 World Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union by the secretary and managing director of Humanitas, the Dutch humanist organization involved in social assistance and community development. In the Netherlands, these services - although funded by the government - are delivered through the major religious organizations. Over 25 percent of the Dutch population identify themselves as humanists and receive their share of this funding through Humanitas.

To explore the connection between tolerance and the provision of social assistance, I will start with two practical examples. The first concerns a 76-year-old man who has been living on his own since the death of his wife and is becoming slightly senile. His daily life goes fairly well, but it is obvious that he needs some extra support. His children, together with some professionals, manage to give him that extra support. He is a bit forgetful, however, and at times lives in the past and is not always in control of the situation in the "here and now." This particular aspect is painful because we are dealing with a man of some intellectual achievement in the past. He wrote many articles and books that brought him international fame as a historian, and he cherishes these earlier accomplishments.

This man also owns a car which, until recently, he used to drive around Amsterdam. His children, however, viewed this with alarm because he was becoming a menace on the road, both to himself and others. Finally, his sons decided to take away their father's car - a considerable imposition on the man's freedom. (Indeed, in the past he had been a very capable driver.)

I will not argue whether the sons were right in interventing thus; they simply took away their father's car "for his own good." The sons knew their father's situation better than he himself did, and on this ground - their knowing best, as it were - the sons acted.

Another example: a little girl is playing on the sidewalk with a ball. Suddenly, she runs after the ball into the street. Just before she would be hit by an approaching car, a passerby is able to grab the girl, thus preventing her from being run over. The girl, however, does not understand the situation and kicks the passerby in the shins.

The similarity between these two examples is in the fact that people acted on the grounds of a better understanding of a situation than was possessed by the "victim" of that action. Now a different story.

The Inquisition, too, acted from a "superior" insight. The inquisitors were steeped in moral theory based upon divine revelation, and in those days there was no such thing as the right of everyone to search for their own truth - after all, their truth was established for all eternity. Moreover, the inquisitors were confirmed in their ideas by social and socio-psychological forces of which we have since acquired a better insight. With almost everyone around the inquisitor reinforcing his conviction that he had the only truth, what was he to do upon meeting a person with differing opinions? Should he allow such a person to be doomed eternally to burn in hell because of "wrong" thinking? The answer was no, of course he should not allow that. It was this reasoning that justified the Inquisition to condemn sinners to the stake, in order to destroy the sinful body but save the eternal soul. Thus, in those days, there was a reasoning similar to that of the sons and the senile father, or of the passerby who saved the girl from certain death. And here, it seems to me, is a root cause of intolerance - the conviction that one knows the truth.

But what is the truth? To answer this question, we must distinguish between "knowing" and "believing". The difference in thinking between the sons and the passerby on the one hand and the inquisitors on the other lies in our current understanding of the laws of nature, of which we believe we have reasonable knowledge; while in the case of the inquisitors, we leave the realm of the laws of nature. The division between knowing and believing seems indistinct, and yet since the Enlightenment we do distinguish between knowledge and belief. I am inclined to say that it is upon this distinction that the "commandment" of tolerance is based. Medieval people did not make the distinction, because believing and knowing were the same at that time. (Of course, there were exceptions, as there are to any such generalization, but my interest lies with the overall mental attitude.) Wherever a religion and its exponents rule a society, they rule because the distinction is denied. The same is true, by the way, for the political variant of what can be called "truth-totalitarianism," of whichever make.

Here are two further examples from daily practice here in Amsterdam. A while ago I was walking along the Amstel - the river which gave this city its name. On it are several houseboats, of which there are a number in Amsterdam. One of these houseboats was covered with waste and garbage, and, as I walked past it, my eye caught some movement in the pile of rubbish. It came from the keeper of the garbage - the occupant of the houseboat and apparently also collector of all the rubbish on the roof of his dwelling. Like a chameleon, the only thing that distinguished him from his background was the fact that he moved. Should this be tolerated, or should the Municipal Public Health Service be warned and the refuse collectors sent, followed by a cleaning service in order to put the man completely clean back on his houseboat? Or, as long as no one else is inconvenienced, should the volition of this man be respected and the situation left as it is? And what would constitute a legitimate "inconvenience" to this man's neighbors? Bad smells? Vermin? Or simply the unsightliness of the man and his houseboat?