Friday, September 10, 2010

How to cultivate tolerance

Given the unapologetic racism and Islamophobia running rampant in our society right now, the following is well worth pondering, I would submit:

History leaves no doubt that among of the most regrettable crimes committed by human beings have been committed by those human beings who thought of themselves as civilized. What, we must ask, does our civilization possess that is worth defending? One thing worth defending, I suggest, is the imperative to imagine the lives of beings who are not ourselves and are not like ourselves: animals, plants, gods, spirits, people of other countries, other races, people of the other sex, places and enemies.

-- Wendell Berry

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