By Charles Kanjama
One of the rather disconcerting but surprisingly popular childhood tales is the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red is a naive girl journeying to pay a visit to her grandma. She discloses her destination to a passing wolf. The cunning wolf goes on ahead, swallows the grandmother then disguises itself in her clothes to welcome Little Red.
The perturbed Little Red notices the large hands, hairy arms, deep voice and other strange anatomical features of the presumed grandmother.
The wolf cleverly responds to each exclamation of Little Red, becoming better at its subtle seduction. Little Red finally exclaims, "My, what big teeth you have!" The wolf then reveals itself, "The better to eat you with, my dear!" Little Red is then gobbled up, a lesson to generations of children to exercise caution with strangers.
The philosophy of tolerance is a bit like Little Red’s wolf. It combines subtle seduction with harsh reality, the iron hand hidden in the velvet glove. Tolerance is the philosophy of the secularist, who rejects religion, and of the relativist, who rejects objective truth. Since to them all truth claims are equal and all values legitimate, the most important quality of society is to tolerate any behaviour unless it harms me physically.
The doctrine of tolerance resists the imposition of one version of truth on others. This is perceived to be the necessary condition to live together in society. So secularists tend to be hostile to religion, because religion thrives on dogma and makes truth claims about morality.
"Why can’t we just learn to live together in harmony?" is the seductive logic of tolerance. The false philosophy of tolerance is exposed by the science of logic. The philosophy demands tolerance from all persons and philosophies but is itself intolerant to divergent views. It opposes dogma but is itself an imposition of dogma by the relativist who declares that there is no objective truth.
In logic, the fallacy in the doctrine of tolerance is tackled by the reductio ad absurdum, or the reduction to absurdity. If your universal principle does not apply self-referentially, then it is evidently false. In other words, if you say "Never say ‘Never’" and really mean it, you are a fool.
Supporters of tolerance have generated the wholly fictitious statistics that 15 per cent of Kenyans are homosexual simply as an instrument to push their agenda. They have also trained their guns against religious leaders who have insisted that the Constitution’s qualification for judges, namely ‘high moral character’, should really mean ‘high moral character’. Notice the intolerance against religious leaders and moral values.
In England, tolerance began by decriminalising sodomy. It has ended by disqualifying Christian couples from adopting children simply for upholding biblical views on homosexuality. Tolerance begins by permitting homosexual acts done in private, and ends by enforcing public homosexual unions.
The modern doctrine of tolerance rests on the conviction that there are no convictions. Hence the claim that religion is out of touch with society, simply because in the wide sea of doubt religion insists on certainties. In the modern culture of intolerant tolerance or coerced relativism, religion insists on tolerant intolerance, also called speaking truth with compassion. Tolerance will welcome you disguised as Little Red’s grandma, but it cannot hide its teeth. They are big and sharp, the better to eat you with, my dear.
HHH
The High Court on Friday stopped the swearing-in of Supreme Court judges, who had been appointed by the President. Under article 166 of the Constitution, only the Chief Justice and Deputy were required to face Parliamentary vetting. In contrast, article 132(2) requires that all state officers to be appointed by the President must first face Parliament’s vetting. And of course, judges are defined as state officers in article 260 of the Constitution. It is a typical case where our Constitution contradicting itself, but must be harmonised.
—The author is an advocate of the High Court.
