An uphill task.

"A function of a fervour that has waned, of an imbalance that results not from an excess but from a lack of energy, tolerance holds no appeal for the young." So says the Romanian-born philosopher Emil Cioran in "Lettre a un ami lointain" (Letter to a distant friend), the first chapter of his book Histoire et utopie (History and Utopia). Adolescence is by its very nature a time of extremes. Some young people never grow into adults but sink into fanaticism and become desperately narrow-minded, their unshakeable beliefs extinguishing in them the spark of life, the spirit of dissent or quite simply the critical outlook in any shape or form.

It is thus difficult to talk about tolerance to those who live on a diet of wild slogans and inflammatory jibes and who are always in a hurry; but it would be suicidal for society to say nothing at all about the cardinal virtue of listening to others and respecting their views, beliefs and customs. Let us therefore teach tolerance, stripping it of its cloak of self-righteousness and its coats of varnish. Tolerance is a way of living, and it starts in the primary school.

Overcoming resistance

It has also to be admitted that human nature does not tend of its own accord in this direction. Human beings would appear to he fundamentally intolerant. The whole of the culture propagated by the civilized countries, those states where the rule of law prevails, is rooted in the fact that tolerance does not come naturally but has to be inculcated until it becomes second nature to people, spontaneous, a kind of reflex - a difficult task, given all the resistance and all the temptations to be overcome.

Cioran says that if the prospect of, or the opportunity for, a massacre is held out to them, young people will follow a leader blindly; such opportunities are constantly being offered to them by fanaticism in its political, ideological or religious manifestations. Suggestibility may take such harmless forms as fashions in dress or music, fashions that quickly come and go; but the readiness of the young to follow any charlatan and translate any outlandish idea into action makes it supremely important to get to work on and with them.