"Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting"
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Intolerance flatters the ego while pretending to serve a higher principle. Sydney J. Harris nails the trick: you can feel taller without ever saying, "Look how great I am". The genius of the line is how it frames bigotry and moral rigidity not as ideological commitments, but as social moves. Intolerance becomes a cheap status signal, a way to buy superiority at the group rate.
Harris, a mid-century American journalist with a talent for moral clarity, is writing into a culture where conformity often wore the costume of virtue. In the Cold War decades, "un-American" could function as a moral eraser; in suburban respectability, the wrong kind of neighbor or the wrong kind of love could be treated as a civic offense. The point isn't that people were uniquely cruel, but that the culture offered them a respectable language for cruelty. If you can label your disdain as "standards", "values", or "protecting society", you get the emotional payoff of dominance with the clean hands of principle.
The subtext is a warning about how communities reward certainty. "Socially acceptable" is doing heavy lifting: intolerance isn't just personal failing, it's a behavior with an audience and a script. Harris implicates the polite versions of supremacy too - the cocktail-party sneer, the editorial-page certainty, the sanctimonious "common sense" that never has to admit it's afraid, insecure, or jealous. Egotism usually embarrasses; intolerance gets applause.
Harris, a mid-century American journalist with a talent for moral clarity, is writing into a culture where conformity often wore the costume of virtue. In the Cold War decades, "un-American" could function as a moral eraser; in suburban respectability, the wrong kind of neighbor or the wrong kind of love could be treated as a civic offense. The point isn't that people were uniquely cruel, but that the culture offered them a respectable language for cruelty. If you can label your disdain as "standards", "values", or "protecting society", you get the emotional payoff of dominance with the clean hands of principle.
The subtext is a warning about how communities reward certainty. "Socially acceptable" is doing heavy lifting: intolerance isn't just personal failing, it's a behavior with an audience and a script. Harris implicates the polite versions of supremacy too - the cocktail-party sneer, the editorial-page certainty, the sanctimonious "common sense" that never has to admit it's afraid, insecure, or jealous. Egotism usually embarrasses; intolerance gets applause.
Quote Details
| Topic | Humility |
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