Electronic media has been a driving factor in the globalization of news and trends in this generation. With the spread of news and information, tolerance becomes an important topic to think about.

Tolerance is defined as “the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.” Without this tolerance, trust, and peace within the human race will be difficult to maintain. People of different backgrounds, sexualities, and religions are beginning to intermix increasingly as times go on. As this intermixing occurs, we need to be not only more aware of this change, but to also become educated. Becoming less ignorant will help this generation learn that no matter what a person’s religion or socioeconomic status, we are all still human, and that is what will matter in the long run.

Your morals and beliefs when you are a child tend to be similar to your parents, and like your eye color, many people can inherit the religion that their parents had. It proves difficult to change something that has been instilled in a person since they are young. John Wick once said that “A person born in Egypt or Pakistan is very likely to be a Muslim; one born in Burma or Tibet is very likely to be a Buddhist; one born in most parts of India is very likely to be a Hindu; and one born in Britain or the U.S.A. is likely to be a Christian. If God is omnibenevolent and just… he would not put a newborn to a disadvantage. This seems to mean only one thing: All religions give a person the same chance for salvation.” If what he said is true, than this begs two questions; the first one being why would anyone ever be ridiculed due to their religion, and what is the origin of intolerance?

A “real-world example,” of intolerance would be an apartment leasing manager refusing to lease a couple with small children on the second floor in fear that is will disrupt those below. This issue has since been solved by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which clearly states “The Fair Housing Act protects people from discrimination when they are renting, buying, or securing financing for any housing. The prohibitions specifically cover discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, and the presence of children.” However, this law is still actively infringed on today. This would be a pretty basic type of intolerance, but there are multiple examples of more complex times intolerance has played a role in our lives. An example of this would be Kim Davis, the County Clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky. Davis claims that “administering same-sex marriage licenses is a violation of her freedom of religion.” As a county clerk, it is her job to administer these licenses, and if she cannot bear giving someone their basic right, than she should just quit. However, many people see her as a martyr and a victim. Is this foreshadowing a larger problem in our society?

None of these questions that I have written in this essay have been answered, and there is a reason for that. There is no answer- plain and simple. In this world, there is always going to be someone with a different opinion than yours, and that is that. So while we can strive to become better people by becoming tolerant, this can never happen. If the world was completely tolerant, there would be no disagreement or competition, just a “yeah, sure I agree with that.” While this may seem like the perfect world, no progress would ever occur, and we would always be stuck in the current state that we are in. This is not a world that I would like to live in, so while tolerance has a tremendous effect on the quality of life we lead, we must keep in mind that there will always be someone with a different opinion than yours.