Box Brown has a really well-done new comic up at Everything Dies about “Coexist” bumper stickers. They still give me a sort of icky feeling, because “let’s all get along” seems in many people’s minds to preclude the option to tell others they might be incorrect, but reading through this reminded me why I used to be more gung-ho about the tolerance approach.
I have to remember that not everyone is engaging in this dialogue on the same plane as I am. For many people, it’s not even about conversation and dissent yet. “Let’s all allow each other to live in peace despite our differences” is still a controversial position to them — but that’s a position I stand firmly behind. Coexistence is a very basic principle. We can coexist and still disagree, and still talk about our disagreement. We can work together toward finding the right answers to our questions, even if we’d each put our money on different outcomes.