The post above from Donuel about tolerance got me thinking (I'm a latecomer to this thread, but I've spent the last couple of hours reading, digesting and running down references). I'm a Brit, but I know a lot of Americans both in person and virtually. What strikes me most is the self reliance of Americans, which sometimes translates into 'I'm American, I don't need any other currency/language/religion/political system/culture/leader/resources/army' etc etc. This may be true, but it seems to preclude the need to understand anything non-American. This is particularly true of the younger Americans in my experience (and I fully accept that it is wrong and dangerous to generalise from the few to the many; this post is intended to be contemplative rather than definitive). In the case of fundamentalist Christians (or any fundamentalists) this tendency seems to breed an unwillingness to tolerate opposing viewpoints whatever the evidence (eg creationism versus evolution). Lack of tolerance gives no opportunity for real understanding, which debases the quality of debate in many cases; this seems to be the root of the argument between the Christian Right and their perceived opponents; if God is on our side, why do we need to understand your point of view? An American wrote something good here, and I make no apologies for quoting extensively;
'If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.
Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.
Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.
Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.
I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right -- for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.'
From 'Please Understand Me' by David Kiersey
This was meant for individuals, but to me it sounds like good advice for governments and religions too.
Tim