Pop 89: What to Tolerate
By Madonna Hamel
Recently, I heard a remark about “those small towns and their ancient feuds.” The remark reinforces the notion that rural folk hold grudges, that they refuse to let bygones be bygones and start afresh. “As opposed to city folk?” I want to ask. The truth is, when you live in a village the size of mine, you can’t escape someone who rubs you the wrong way, so you have to tolerate them. Oh, you can cross Centre Street (actually, it’s a road of potholes and loose gravel) and walk on the Val Marie Grocery & Liquor side instead of the hotel side, but you can’t disappear into the metropolis, nor frequent a different cafe, nor take a different route home, never to face the jerk again.
When I first moved to Val Marie, I found it amusing when certain people would clam up about someone I happened to mention, innocently unaware of “a history there.” “Oh, we don’t talk,” or “there’s no love lost with that one”, or “you don’t want to ask me about them,” are some of the responses when I prod for more information. And when the details are forthcoming, I think: “Wow, get on with it, that was twenty years ago.”
But after ten years living here myself, I realize, I too have a certain history I’d rather not discuss. I’m ashamed to admit that I still bare a grudge against one person. And the other, well, let’s just say, the less said the better. I have voiced unasked for opinions about how things should be done, but also insisted on rights concerning how I should be treated, and both have garnered me a history and a reputation as scrappy.
But, truth be told, my experience is not unique to the rural world; it’s just less avoidable. Which means we are forced to find ways of getting along, tolerating each other, being half-ways neighbourly, finding safe topics to smalltalk about while waiting in line at the grocery or for a parcel at the post office because there is only one grocery, and one post office. We give the slightest nods and the half-est of smiles when forced to walk past each other at the rodeo or bonspiel. Hell, we might, out of a feeling of goodwill at a funeral luncheon, even ask after their kids or their dog. And if we’ve had a few beers at the Christmas dance, we might even consider this the best time to make bygones be bygones, seeing as it’s so close to the New Year and fresh starts.
Insofar as we are stuck in a small community with each other and, therefore, forced to tolerate each other, we are a kind of family. And you can’t say that about urban folk. I have never thought of my neighbours as “family” in Toronto, Quebec City, Victoria or Vancouver, mostly because I’ve never had to. Except for differences between workmates, most situations requiring tolerance in the city were short-lived: Just get me past this shop lineup, bus ride, take-out counter, and I’m free of this bozo. But here, chances are we will meet again.
And yet, tolerance, I am told, over and over, is something we rural folk apparently lack. But then, the word itself is nuanced, isn’t it? There’s the “willing to put up with” kind of tolerance, which implies choice, and there’s the “ability to endure” kind of tolerance, which is more about an absorbed suffering. An offshoot of the latter is “having a high tolerance” for something. It seems to me it’s important to differentiate between a high tolerance for pain, as opposed to a high tolerance for abuse. Or harassment. Or bullshit.
More than once, I’ve admired a rancher wrangle a calve or repair a fence hours after they’ve been violently kicked in the leg or cut on the hands. Every year I watch folks in the field long after dark, working around the clock to get in a crop before frost, ploughing through exhaustion and sunburn. But, I’ve also slunk down in my seat at the bar-restaurant cringing through speculation on everything from the size of a woman’s breasts to the disgusting smell of various immigrants and their cooking. I resent having to keep quiet through the commentary the way I kept quiet all my life as cowards on sidewalks and in passing cars share their thoughts on what should be done to my body. The first example is tolerance by choice, the other is tolerance for safety.
Today we hear the word used mostly to tolerate “diversity.” As I try to get a handle on what this actually means I realize my unease is that “diversity” sounds a lot like “progress” did back in the beginning of the industrial age. It can only be a positive thing, as the more diverse, the better. But is that true?
When I moved to Toronto in 2006, I marvelled at the diversity—how I could ride the streetcar all the way across the city and never hear a word of English, and nobody seemed to be threatened by that. “Toronto does diversity well,” I said to all my small-town friends. By diversity, I meant all kinds of languages, races, and orientations. But what does it mean now?
I recently read a teaching manual definition of tolerance I find helpful: “Tolerance is not about valuing diversity but rather about recognizing other people’s right to have different beliefs and practices, as long as these do not violate general moral values.” But when the very words “moral” and “value” raise shackles, where do we start?
One thing I do know, if we were to start at the very beginning, we of European extraction would be the outsider, expecting tolerance and room to manoeuvre. The only true “local” would be the Indigenous cultures living here or passing through - Lakota, Nakota, Dakota, Metis, Cree and some Blackfoot. Maybe we should ask them.