The Tolerance Trap |
Ronald Reagan: Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related;
Sherry Knight Rossiter ——Bio and Archives--February 21, 2026
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Before discussing how our relationship between tolerance and values has become confusing and intertwined in the last 50 years, it is important to provide a definition of both terms.
Tolerance is a human being’s ability or willingness to endure something outside of the usual realm like extreme amounts of noise, cold, heat, or even physical pain. However, tolerance also includes the ability or willingness to allow, accept, or endure the existence of other people’s opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.
Is there a correlation between no longer teaching values clarification (moral and ethical) in our schools and the decreasing number of Americans regularly attending church?
Values refer to the personal standards by which a human being measures his or her own behavior and/or the behavior and opinions expressed by others. These standards may or may not include religious values.
Every human being has limits to the amount of deviation from social norms they can accept or handle (i.e., tolerate). However, just like the proverbially frog placed in a kettle of cool water, one’s tolerance can be slowly increased as the temperature of the water in the pot on the stove increases. The primary way that happens (i.e., temperature increased) in current society is through shaming, name calling, and exclusion from the group (i.e., cancelling). Because Americans have totally dropped the ball on teaching anything about values or virtue in our public school system, we have raised several generations of individuals far more worried about being liked and admired than in doing the right thing for God and Country.
“One of the greatest disasters of our time is our universal acceptance of the word tolerance as a great virtue.” ~ Zig Ziglar
In the first 200 years in America, values education and values clarification were taught to children in public and private schools. This was easily accomplished in those days because........