"Everyone's values are defined by what they will tolerate when it is done to others"
About this Quote
Greider’s line is a moral trapdoor: it yanks “values” out of the realm of self-description and drops them into the far less flattering world of bystander behavior. It’s not about what you believe when you’re asked on a survey or toasted at a dinner party. It’s about the slack you cut for cruelty, corruption, and quiet indignities so long as they land on someone else.
The intent is diagnostic, almost prosecutorial. “Tolerate” does the heavy lifting: it implies duration, normalization, the way injustice becomes background noise when it’s priced into the system. Greider isn’t describing a single spectacular wrongdoing; he’s pointing at the everyday social contract that forms around harm we’ve decided is acceptable. Your values, in this view, are less a personal creed than a set of permissions you grant.
The subtext is accusation without melodrama. It suggests that neutrality is not neutral; it’s an active choice that shores up the status quo. That makes the line bite in a culture that loves ethical identity - yard signs, hashtags, careful language - while outsourcing the unpleasant costs to the unseen: low-wage workers, marginalized communities, people without institutional protection. If you can watch the extraction and keep scrolling, you’ve revealed something sturdier than your stated principles.
Contextually, Greider’s career as a political and economic writer matters: this isn’t abstract philosophy, it’s a lens on power. The quote reads like a warning that democracy doesn’t erode only through villains, but through respectable spectators who tolerate the manageable suffering of others.
The intent is diagnostic, almost prosecutorial. “Tolerate” does the heavy lifting: it implies duration, normalization, the way injustice becomes background noise when it’s priced into the system. Greider isn’t describing a single spectacular wrongdoing; he’s pointing at the everyday social contract that forms around harm we’ve decided is acceptable. Your values, in this view, are less a personal creed than a set of permissions you grant.
The subtext is accusation without melodrama. It suggests that neutrality is not neutral; it’s an active choice that shores up the status quo. That makes the line bite in a culture that loves ethical identity - yard signs, hashtags, careful language - while outsourcing the unpleasant costs to the unseen: low-wage workers, marginalized communities, people without institutional protection. If you can watch the extraction and keep scrolling, you’ve revealed something sturdier than your stated principles.
Contextually, Greider’s career as a political and economic writer matters: this isn’t abstract philosophy, it’s a lens on power. The quote reads like a warning that democracy doesn’t erode only through villains, but through respectable spectators who tolerate the manageable suffering of others.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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