Beyond Tolerance: Why Acceptance Has to Be the Goal

I dug around in my older blogs and found this little gem written in 2015. I confused myself with the first few opening sentences, but hung in there with myself until I figured out where I was going with all this ... lol!

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ARCHIVED: January 28, 2015

I’m not tolerant.

Not of race. Not of religion. Not of sexuality. Not of disability.

And before that sentence gets clipped, misquoted, or turned into a hot take—stay with me.

Tolerance isn’t the virtue we pretend it is. At its core, tolerance means putting up with something. Enduring it. Allowing it without fully embracing it. It’s the social equivalent of saying, “I don’t love this, but I won’t make a fuss.” Somewhere along the way, we decided that was enough—and called it progress.

Historically, that checks out. The word tolerance comes from early Latin, entering Middle English as a term tied to enduring hardship or pain. According to Webster’s Dictionary (1999), as a verb, it means to allow or endure something unpleasant or harmful; as an adjective, it describes something—or someone—we are willing to “put up with.”

And that’s exactly why I don’t claim tolerance. I don’t put up with people’s existence.

What often happens next is that tolerance gets swapped out for acceptance, as if the two are interchangeable. They’re not—especially when we’re talking about race, gender, sexuality, religion, or disability.

Acceptance, defined as recognizing something as true, proper, or normal (Webster’s Dictionary, 1999), goes further (Fish, 2014). Think of it this way: tolerance is a handshake; acceptance is a hug. Both are greetings, but one signals a deeper relationship and understanding. While tolerance can mark movement away from outright hostility (Ciurria, 2011), it stops short of creating a genuine connection or belonging (Ciurria, 2011; Tannehill, 2014).

As a society, our response to difference often hinges on semantics. The words we choose matter—not just in how we define them, but in how we live them. Acceptance cannot exist without tolerance (Fish, 2014), but tolerance alone creates a ceiling. It allows differences without fully welcoming it. The real question is how we move beyond allowing difference and toward recognizing it as normal.

The Limits of “Just Tolerating”

Here’s the contradiction we rarely name: we promote tolerance, but resist full acceptance.

Read that again.

Tolerance often shows up as permission granted in small doses. The oppressor loosens the rules just enough to look progressive, without actually changing the underlying beliefs or power structures (Fish, 2014). From the outside, it looks good. People celebrate a “tolerant” society. But progress stalls. The boundaries are still controlled by those in power.

Those on the receiving end are left with two choices: accept the limited tolerance being offered (Memmi, 1965), or disrupt the system and risk being labeled difficult, ungrateful, or “too much” (MacLeod, 1995; Takaki, 2008).

I experienced a version of this while living in Amsterdam. Friends explained that smoking marijuana wasn’t legal — but it was tolerated. In practice, that meant the law bent for tourism and economics, but enforcement depended entirely on discretion. Cross the wrong officer, and suddenly, tolerance evaporated.

That’s the problem. Tolerance is conditional. It’s subjective. And it’s often mistaken for fairness or equality. If marijuana use had been accepted rather than tolerated, people wouldn’t have faced unpredictable consequences for the same behavior.

This distinction matters far beyond legal systems. When acceptance is replaced with tolerance, people’s safety, dignity, and belonging are left up to circumstance. Tolerance is a step forward—but it’s not the destination. If we want future generations to move past its limits, acceptance has to be recognized as the next stage of growth (Moore, 2004).

Teaching Acceptance (Not Just Endurance)

If I say I accept all races, sexual orientations, religions, and people with disabilities, my actions have to back that up. Acceptance isn’t a phase or a stepping-stone—it’s a way of being (Tannehill, 2014). It requires alignment between what we believe internally and how we show up externally.

Moore (2004) describes acceptance as an extension of compassion, and that matters—especially in education. Compassion, defined as a sympathetic awareness of another’s suffering paired with a desire to relieve it (Webster’s Dictionary, 1999), isn’t about endurance. It’s about connection.

After more than seventeen years in education, I’ve never met a teacher who argued against teaching compassion. We agree it’s essential. The challenge is whether we treat it as a core value or an optional add-on.

Ciurria (2011) argues for orthonomy over autonomy when teaching acceptance—shifting the focus from “what I believe” to “what is right, just, and grounded in fact.” This matters because opinions are flexible, but the lessons we teach children shape how they understand justice, difference, and belonging long after they leave our classrooms.

Across grade levels and subject areas, schools have the opportunity to teach acceptance, not just tolerance. In art education, for example, Zakin (2012) shows how social justice can be embedded in curriculum, giving students tangible ways to explore identity, difference, and empathy. These approaches don’t just manage diversity—they normalize it.

Tolerance teaches children how to coexist. Acceptance teaches them how to belong.

And if we want a society that evolves rather than merely endures, belonging has to be the goal.

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References

Ciurria, M. (2011). Tolerance, acceptance, and the virtue of orthonomy: a reply to Lawrence Blum      and Brenda Almond. Journal of Moral Education, 40(2), 255-264.

Fish, J.M. (2014). Tolerance, Acceptance, Understanding. Psychology Today. Retrieved    from          https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/looking-in-the-cultural-                                                 mirror/201402/tolerance-acceptance-understanding

MacLeod, J. (1995). Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income       Neighborhood. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Memmi, A. (1965). The Colonizer and The Colonized. Boston, MA: Beacon Press

Webster's New World College Dictionary (4th ed.).(1999). New York, NY: Houghton        Mifflin.

Moore, T. (2004). Encouraging & Acceptance Compassion Through Play. Early    Childhood Today, 19(3), 38-44.

Takaki, R. (2008). A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. New York,       New York: Back Bay Books.

Tannehill, B. (2014). The difference between Tolerance and Acceptance. Huffington          Post. Retrieved from:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/the-   difference-between-to_1_b_5791076.html

Zakin, A. (2012). Hand to Hand: Teaching Tolerance and Social Justice One Child at a      Time. Childhood Education, 88(1), 3-13.