humanity in its evolution has come a long way from animal herds to the modern society.Stand out from the animal world, people have inherited from his subconscious desire to surround himself with individuals like themselves (the people of his tribe), and hostility toward people with visible differences in appearance, behavior and lifestyle.This vestige of the human condition of the animal breeds intolerance of "white crow" - people who differ from the majority.Primitive tribes did not know, what is tolerance: the instinct of preserving the tribe was dictating to people only care about the children and other members of the tribe, is different from most of its representatives, the people were hostile.
On what stage of human development, the notion of tolerance?Once the tribes began to enter into a peace based on the exchange, fellowship with one another, people began to discover the "other".Xenophobia, ie the fear of an alien, unfamiliar, began to give way drawn to the new, the unknown.Increasingly, the situation began to happen when people from one tribe settled in the habitat of another, continuing to follow their own customs, preserving language and tradition.In ancient texts we meet the first moral demands and calls for tolerance.For example, the Bible (Iskh.22: 21, Lev.19: 33) gives clear guidance to be tolerant, and at the same time reveals the causes of such tolerant behavior: do not oppress the alien, for you too were strangers to strangers in Egypt.
Here we see tolerance of foreigners, that is, speakers of other languages and other cultures.But the modern concept of tolerance is much broader than in the days of antiquity.What does it mean tolerance for the modern man?This term means tolerance of different behavior, lifestyle, opinions and religion.But the word "patience" is already incorporated to overcome something, "suffering" from what we have to endure.It - traybolichesky vestige of when we disliked different from our way of life and thinking.We're willing to accept that "others" exist somewhere far away, but when they become our close neighbors, people begin to feel uneasy.
the course of history there have been many incidents of intolerance towards representatives of different races, nationalities and ethnic groups.Anti-Semitism is not the first nor the last of them.But what if a representative of your nation, people speaking your language, which is, in principle, on the fact of belonging to your people, should be no different from the majority, suddenly elect another faith, another way of life, other values?In the Middle Ages, when other peoples have already been adopted norms tolerant attitude, the attitude toward religious dissidents in the depths of European Christianity was still barbaric.That is tolerance, known in the XIII century, when the inhabitants of the city of Beziers called to give the Crusaders all heretics living in it, but the people - though they were mostly Catholic - refused to do so.Then the Crusaders killed all the inhabitants of Beziers for "the sin of tolerance."
In the era of religious wars has become particularly urgent need to determine what is tolerance.European countries have been divided into "Catholic", where most of the population were Catholics, and "Protestant", where Catholics were a minority.Then there were accepted norms of religious tolerance, according to which representatives of different faiths were free to practice their religion.
Voltaire belongs to one of the most capacious definition of what is tolerance: "I deeply repugnant to your views, sir, - he wrote to his opponent - but I give my life for you to have the opportunity to share them freely."In modern jurisprudence the principle of tolerance has been fixed only in 1995, when UNESCO adopted a Declaration of Principles on Tolerance.
