Tolerance - what is it? Benefit or harm?

The globalization processes of the last hundred years have led to mass migrations and the emergence of diverse societies, where representatives of different cultures, sometimes completely incomprehensible to each other, coexist side by side. All these processes in our time increasingly lead to a discussion of the concept of "tolerance". What is it - good or bad? As a rule, political forces of the racist and Nationalists, calling for the expulsion of alien elements from the country and the establishment of a monocultural and mono-national society.

Tolerance. What is it in biology?

Initially, this term was used by biologists to denote certain properties of living organisms. The Latin word tolerate literally means the processes of patience or addiction. With respect, for example, to immunology, this implied a state of the organism in which, for whatever reason, it can not reproduce antibodies to certain antigens. Usually this inability is negative and literally means the body's inability to resist foreign elements. At the same time, tolerance is and is necessary. For example, when developing a fetus, it does not cause rejection in the mother's body. Ecologists call tolerance the ability of the organism to adapt and survive in a very wide range of conditions. Also very useful property.

Tolerance. What is this for society?

The above problems in the construction of multicultural societies gave rise to an understanding of social tolerance as an exclusively tolerance for non-Russians. However, there are other types of it: for example, gender, political, educational, interclass, tolerance towards disabled people, sexual minorities and some other categories of society. At the same time, the formation of tolerance in these areas is quite successful in many Western countries. What, however, can not be said about Russia, the CIS states and especially the Eastern world.

Racial and national tolerance. What is it - good or bad?

This is the most discussed form of tolerance in modern society. The failure of the policy of multiculturalism is already openly spoken by the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in northern Belgium (Flamandia) frankly nationalist political forces are gaining momentum, and the reader himself is well aware of the situation in Russian reality.

The first thing that I would like to note is that most ultra-right forces strongly and consciously distort the notion Tolerance, presenting it not as a readiness to perceive something new, but as a blind and uncomplaining obedience to the negative trends associated with migration. Turning it into vice and a laughing stock. However, in reality tolerance for a different color of skin or acceptable cultural traditions does not at all imply tolerance for inappropriate acts of national minorities (such as lezginka in public places), manifested their defiant behavior or inappropriate cultural practices (such as the introduction of Shariah norms). Another tool of the ultra-right is the exploitation of the image of Jews as sources of all ills. However, a thoughtful view of the historical process dispels this myth, the purpose of which is to distract young and radical social causes from society. Education is the method of combating these tendencies. For these purposes, in Moscow a year ago opened the Museum of Tolerance.

An important argument against the arguments of racists is the research of modern scientific authorities in the study of the phenomena of the nation and nationalism: Anthony Smith, Eric Hobsbaum, Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner and others. Despite some differences, all of them agree that the nation is a social construct, and the main cause of modern interethnic problems are not racial differences, but worldview and social contradictions.

The national minorities of Muslims in France, Germany, and Russia are at the stage of social development, when identification is extremely important, which pushes them to its universal demonstration and fierce defense. While western Europeans have already had two hundred years to play with the concept of the nation and move on to another stage of development (which is characterized by the transfer of power from national governments to transnational corporations.) We call this society a consumer society. In addition, most migrants face serious social problems, which causes bitterness. Thus, the solution of the problem lies not in closing the societies to the castle (globalization is still inevitable), but in drawing back the qualitative education, economic and social development that lag behind in the processes.