I’ve always believed in fairness and equality. I’m team little guy, and I always have the victim’s back. Excepting siblings, of course. Those relationships are more complicated. But as far back as I can remember, all the way back to kindergarten, what was fair and right has been important to me.

Isn’t it funny how what we instinctively know as children often turns out to be true?

Calling out what was unfair and not right has also always been important to me. I don’t understand people who deliberately cause harm, who deliberately do the wrong thing.

I’m not always good with the ethical line. I don’t always have grace for those I perceive have crossed it. This rigidity can make me judgemental. I can be hard and harsh when it comes to people I believe are in the wrong. But moderating that is a problem for another day. It’s not always necessary.

The refusal to be silent in the face of wrong behaviour has cost me some over the years. I’ve lost relationships and opportunities. It can also place me in the centre of attention, and I don’t always love that. It tends to put me at odds with people willing to embrace a more laissez-faire attitude towards other people’s behaviours and beliefs.

I’ve long held myself as an ersatz judge, jury, and occasional executioner. There’s an arrogance there. It’s one of my greatest sins. I remember a schoolyard exchange with a fellow grade six student over their regular bullying of the little ones. I’d been made aware of her bullying ways by some of my brother’s friends.

I confronted her and suggested she stop picking on the little guys. She suggested I mind my business, and gave me a shove. I punched her in the face and split her lip. It was really annoying. She got her blood all over my shirt. It was white, with purple flowers on the neck. I really liked that shirt. Thank goodness for moms who know how to remove stains.

We both got detention. She also stopped harassing the six-year-olds.

I believed very firmly in the black-and-white analysis as a child, but as I got older, I learned we had to be more tolerant of differing opinions and ways of living if we were all to get along on this pretty, blue-and-white planet. I was told regularly that I needed to temper my opinions, that the real world demanded more in the way of compromise when it comes to “complicated ethical issues.”

I agree that in life, many things have shades of grey. Pineapple on pizza remains a hot topic of debate, and I have to accept that there are wrong people on this planet who don’t enjoy it. That doesn’t mean everything has wiggle room.

Many of the issues we debate and struggle with in this modern age aren’t ethically complicated, attempts at spin notwithstanding. There’s a right and a wrong a lot of the time. The motivations behind speech and action can be complicated, but that’s a different argument. I didn’t understand that distinction for a long time.

I didn’t understand that there are significant differences in how we think, and in what we believe.

I truly thought that when you scratched the surface, we all believed basically the same things about people and the world.

That was a huge misunderstanding about the nature of us, and the degree of diversity we experience. Many of us are quite different in the things that we believe. And though we have to give space for differences of opinion, we don’t have to extend that grace and space to the vile and the stupid. Not every opinion is a valid one.

We don’t always have to be the bigger person. I was told that often when growing up: be the bigger person. Let the bad behaviour or nasty opinion go. As though they will learn to do better by watching us give way (I suspect an element of sexism in that as well – I’m not sure my brothers were told that).

I also regularly heard, “You’re not going to change their mind.” Okay, but that’s not always the point of speaking up.

We all like to think we’re tolerant people. We agree to disagree about a variety of things from politics to pigskin so that we can peacefully coexist. We may not share a point of view, we might even think your opinion is horrid, but as a society, we’ve decided to “live and let live.”

When we decided tolerance was the benchmark, we should’ve specified an outer limit. We should’ve embraced, “first, do no harm.” There is no value in learning to get along with the indefensible. It’s far better to communicate your disquiet and dismay. Especially if the subject at hand is more significant than hat colour.

We need to have parameters when it comes to what we’re willing to accept regarding other people’s habits, beliefs, and behaviours. Different isn’t always acceptable. It’s okay to draw a line in the sand.

Tolerance can be a slippery slope. Philosopher Karl Popper described the paradox of tolerance as the seemingly counterintuitive idea that “in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.” If a so-called tolerant society permits the existence of intolerant philosophies, it is no longer tolerant. Intolerance takes over.

You can’t let hate philosophies gain a foothold. You can’t agree to disagree when it comes to racism and bigotries. Tolerance is not about turning a blind eye to the indefensible. Not everyone gets to live their life in the way they want. Complete tolerance would ultimately lead to the collapse of society. Not every belief and desire is compatible with social life.

Speak out against the ugly, the bigoted, the misogynistic, the hate-fueled, the lies, and the vile. You will undoubtedly face pushback. Your circles might shrink depending on what you’ve allowed in the past. But no one promised that doing the right thing was easy. Just that it’s right.

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