Happiness is Tolerance?

I've been thinking about tolerance lately. I attended a thought-provoking lecture by Dr. Ken Jackson this weekend, in which he discussed the virtues of New York City. Jackson posited that New York was unique amongst international cities because it has such a multi-cultural, tolerant population.

I disagreed with a number of Dr. Jackson's arguments, but the lecture got me thinking about "Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner. In short: it's an NPR journalist's exploration of the research done by Dr. Ruut Veenhoven, who researches the happiest places in the world.

Weiner travels from country to country, trying to figure out why people are happy. The first chapter is about the Netherlands, which ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world. Here is Weiner's take on why the Dutch are so happy:

"Tolerance! This is the original "don't tread on me" nation... The Dutch will tolerate anything, even intolerance. In the past few decades they have welcomed, with open arms, immigrants from around the world, including those from nations that don't tolerate things like religious freedom and women who work or drive or show their faces. Dutch tolerance comes at a cost, as the murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist highlighted. But Veenhoven's research shoes that tolerant people tend to be happy."