Cultivating Tolerance: A multicultural solution

Tolerance is one of those words that balances right on the line between positive and negative. We speak of tolerating something bad — that is, of enduring something we would otherwise like to avoid. In other contexts, we refer to tolerance as an aspirational value, as in racial tolerance, for example. This definitional dualism (or even duelism, perhaps), has always made me slightly intolerant of tolerance. However, I can’t think of a better word to describe the conditioning that I think occur...