From: alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia)
Subject: Re: unbounded tolerance - the new ideal ? 
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 15:52:51 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.025319.17862@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, c150-bt@po.berkeley.edu (Manish Vij) writes:
> In article <1992Oct12.234456.27460@cbnewsi.cb.att.com> alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia) writes:
> >In article <1992Oct12.204101.21240@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, c150-bt@po.berkeley.edu (Manish Vij) writes:
> >
> >> whole point I'm trying to get across: your conservatism is not just
> >> dislike for a specific hairstyle, but intolerance for a variety of
> >> personal appearances and, by extension, the ideas of those people.
> >
> >Aren't you being intolerant to his ideas too ?
> 
> Yes, but it is intolerance of intolerance.  If I kill a cancer cell, do you
> tell me I'm also being malignant?  If Guru Nanak failed to listen to orthodox
> Hinduism, would you have told him he was intolerant of those ideas?
> 
The very thing that you view him as a cancer cell shows that you are being
intolerant about his ideas.
I find your views ultra-liberal just like Amirthi's, and I have not told 
you to change your views or that your views stink. Just as you have 
a right to be an ultra-liberal or hold ultra-liberal views , others have
a right to be conservative or even ultra-conservative or hold such views.
I consider myself a moderate more towards liberalism in some areas and towards
conservatism in some other areas. 
You would display tolerance by respecting that people are different and they 
have right to hold views as they want to. Unless they are imposing their
views on you, you have no right to be critical of them.

I don't think Guru Nanak failed to listen to orthodox Hinduism. He listened
and rejected those views. When he was given a hard time, or in a way the 
orthodox views were imposed on him, he protested. Because of his protests,
he was exiled. Nowhere did he 'attack' the orthodox hinduism. He recognized 
the right of 'orthodox' people to be 'orthodox'.  He was a tolerant man.
NOt only tolerant, he was a courageous man and he had a vision for 
reformimg Hinduism. Reform does not mean that you shoot down the 'orthodox'.
Reform means you show it by your own example the way to go and let people
follow you if they so desire.

And people will follow you if they like your way to go.

If you said you don't like Mr. Sumitro's views but recognized his right
to hold such views, you would have displayed tolerance.

> >> My parents actually don't object too much at all, neither about the hair
> >> nor about the motorcycle, and I'm much relieved.
> >
> >Why did you then write a few weeks back that your parents dragged you
> >and your brother to get a hair cut ?
> >
> >Were you dishonest then ?
> 
> That was my brother alone, not me, and he was horribly upset.
> 
> Fix your broken newsreader.  It seems to be distorting everything you
> read.
Okay may be I made a mistake. May be it was just your brother.
> Manish
>                                           /-\o /-()  -- -  --   -
>    Manish Vij    ::    '89 EX500          \_/ \\/ )  -- -    --
>    mvij@ocf.berkeley.edu                       |/_\  -- -  --   - 
>                                                 \_/.  .  . . ........