Moral Obligations in a Globalized World - The Virtue of Tolerance

Moral Obligations in a Globalized World - The Virtue of Tolerance
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What moral obligations do we have to be tolerant of the practices of other people when those practices seem to us to be immoral?
Tolerance is a virtue that the human civilization seems to have lost in the midst of adjusting to the impact of globalization. The increased use of social media and the immediate sharing of opinions on the social media sites is one of the proofs of increased intolerance of other cultures and norms among people. Blog posts and twitter updates give us an unnerving view of what people think about a variety of issues, ranging from world politics to their neighbour`s new hair colour, and most of them are complains or sarcastic takes.
This chaotic tumble of intolerant opinions has arisen due to the spread of a single westernized global culture which has also led to globalization being referred to as westernization. The rise of a single-minded global culture that only talks about rights of individuals - the basic bill of rights, that focuses on freedom of expression, life and speech, seems to be the only mantra that people all over the world resort to.
Democracy is taken to be the single panacea that will heal all wounds, and address all vices of the complex world and its plethora of cultures, traditions and nationalities. Everyone looks to democracy as the only solution for all their problems, while none take into account how democracy only works for certain kinds of cultures, for certain kinds of nations, and that a ‘cookie cutter` approach, as given by Joseph Stiglitz eally doesn`t work. This is evident in the case of aid given to African nations, where aid is the cookie-cutter that cuts all problems down to having the same solution - money. But as Dambisa Moyo has indicated, this approach does not work.[J.Stiglitz,Challenging the Washington Consensus, L. Schoenfelder, Interviewer, May 7 2002. ‘Women and The Arab Spring`, in Voice of America , November 12 2011, viewed on 26 September 2012, < /policy/editorials/middle-east/Women-And-The-Arab-Spring-133748958.html>.] [D. Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and how There is Another Way for Africa, Penguin Books, 2011.]
The havoc that this approach creates is there for us to see in terms of the Arab Spring. People were shaking off tyranny and trying to revolutionize the country along the lines of the Western ideal. The women also took part in the revolution, thinking that they were liberating themselves of the oppression that they faced at the hands of dictators who thought little of women`s rights. The women who took to the streets were aware, due to globalization and the awareness in the media of the kind of life women lived in the western world, and wanting the same for themselves helped the men revolt. But these ideals could not be achieved and women are again facing the same dilemma, which in fact has worsened as the new governments threaten to be even more extreme in their views on the rights of women. Therefore, the aftermath of the revolution leaves behind a dull thud in place of a vibrant heartbeat that represented hope for an oppressed people. As it turns out, there will be no fairy-tale ending; instead the people have learnt a very expensive lesson which is: leadership comes from within a nation and will only be one that is suitable to the people in the nation.[R. Morgan, Women of the Arab Spring, Ms.Magazine, 2011.] [Women And The Arab Spring, in Voice of America, November 12 2011 viewed on 26 September 2012, <:/policy/editorials/middle-east/Women-And-The-Arab-Spring-133748958.html>.] [J. Crawford, ‘Despite Arab Spring, women's rights tenuous, Senate panel told`, in CNN National Security Producer, November 02 2011, viewed on 26 September 2012, <:http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-02/us/us_arab-women-rights_1_equal-rights-human-rights-societies?_s=PM:US>] [R. D'Amour, As Arab Spring Turns to Winter, Women Fear Pushback.,IPS, November 4, 2011.]
As far as the theory of cosmopolitanism is concerned, it takes into account the fact that the world is increasingly global and the increased interdependence among nations makes it imperative for the entire world to take a responsible view of the moral obligations that they have to the communities. Moreover, nationalism is taken as view which has little importance now in the current order of the world. The reason for this is simple, unless less important national interests are compromised for the greater good of the rest of the world, civilization will not be able to progress amicably to the next level.[S. v. Hooft, Cosmopolitanism : A Philosophy for Global Ethics, Durham, Acumen.]
This leads us to the importance of tolerance for other people`s values and systems. Cosmopolitanism is a new world view, which calls for changing mind-sets that goes beyond ethnocentricity and enables a toleration and acceptance of moral values and systems that belong to every culture, which is also termed as ethnorelativism. Under this view, people accept, adapt and then integrate, and this is what Hooft is proposing in his view of tolerating and accepting many different viewpoints.[C. Moore, P. Woodrow, Handbook of Global and Multicultural Negotiations, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2010.] [S. v. Hooft, Cosmopolitanism : A Philosophy for Global Ethics, Durham, Acumen.] [Ibid]
According to the global tolerance index, that is part of the overall global creativity rankings, the most tolerant nation is Canada in terms of races and minorities. This is followed by Ireland and Netherlands.[R.Florida, C. Mellander, K. Stolarick, K. Silk, Z. Matheson, & M. Hopgood, Creativity and Prosperity: The Global Creativity Index, Martin Prosperity Institute, 2011.]
Therefore as citizens of the world, and as people wh...