You are what you tolerate

John Middlekauff recorded his 3-and-Out podcast shortly after Browns defensive end Myles Garrett ripped off Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph’s helmet and hit him in the head with it. Middlekauff thinks Garrett’s behavior was a symptom of an overall lack of discipline on the Browns. The Browns are the most penalized team in the league, which Middlekauff believes is a product of bad habits that aren’t corrected in practices and carry over into games. Middlekauff repeated a quote he heard recently: “We are what we tolerate.”

I don’t know if this particular incident can be attributed to failures in the Browns organization or leadership, but I found the quote remarkable; if I had heard it before, I didn’t take it to heart.

We are what we tolerate.

Toleration is often used in a political sense, as freedom from coercion, prohibition, or censorship. It suggests that something can be allowed even if it isn’t welcomed, condoned or supported. Toleration says, “I might not like it, and the majority of us might not like it, but we aren’t willing to pay the cost to eliminate it.”

Toleration, then, isn’t the promotion of “diversity.” Toleration doesn’t take a stand on whether diversity is good, only that it’s not worth opposing. Toleration may come from a moral commitment to individual freedom, or it may be the result of a pragmatic assessment of the burdens placed on law enforcement agents, courts, and prisons: better to leave the dope-smoker alone, to tolerate him, when there’s a murderer on the…