Tolerance

6. Civic Knowledge and Skills

This introductory article was written by ChatGPT at the direction of Heidi Burgess, who reviewed, edited, and approved the final content.
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June 24, 2026

Tolerance is one of the basic attitudes that makes reconciliation possible. It does not require people to agree with one another, approve of every practice, or pretend that deep differences do not matter. It does require people to recognize the essential humanity of those who are different from themselves. The UNESCO Declaration of Principles on Tolerance describes tolerance as "respect for the many ways human beings express themselves and live in the world." It also makes clear that tolerance is not indifference. It is an active commitment to living together without denying others their dignity or rights.

In intractable conflict, intolerance often becomes self-reinforcing. People begin by disagreeing about policies, beliefs, or interests. Over time, they may come to see the other side as ignorant, immoral, dangerous, or less than fully human. Once that happens, ordinary political disagreement can turn into exclusion, humiliation, discrimination, or even violence. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights offers an important corrective by insisting that all people are born with equal dignity and rights. Tolerance applies that principle to daily life: it asks people to defend their own beliefs, while still respecting the right of others to hold different ones.

Tolerance is especially important in reconciliation because many past wrongs cannot be fully repaired. Apologies, reparations, truth-telling, and institutional reforms can all help. But communities also need a way to live together after trust has been badly damaged. As BI's article on reconciliation and conflict transformation explains, reconciliation is not simply the end of overt hostility. It involves changing relationships so that former adversaries can coexist, cooperate when necessary, and handle future conflicts without returning to old patterns of contempt or revenge.

Tolerance also has practical limits. It should not be used as an excuse to tolerate abuse, coercion, or the denial of other people’s rights. A tolerant society still needs rules that protect people from harm and preserve fair participation in public life. The challenge is to draw those lines without turning every disagreement into a moral emergency. Research on intergroup contact suggests that prejudice is often reduced when people meet under conditions of equal status, shared goals, cooperation, and institutional support. This is one reason why dialogue, joint problem solving, and cross-group civic projects can be so valuable. They give people a chance to discover that those who differ from them are still people with fears, hopes, loyalties, and legitimate concerns of their own.

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This page was created by ChatGPT in response to this prompt. It was then reviewed, edited, supplemented and approved by Heidi Burgess. More information about how and why we are using AI in this way, and about the growing number of ways in which Beyond Intractability is using ChatGPT, Claude and other AI systems to generate content and build out the BI system, is available on our BI/AI Overview Page.