TOLERANCE : WHAT’S THE POINT?

David Gray at TEDxEducationCity

A
bout two and a half years ago a group of Muslims Americans proposed
to build an Islamic Center in New York City. Within a few months the
protests began one signed read “No 9/11 victory mosque” another sign
said “All I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11”. However, was two
other signs that caught my attention the first was directed at the head of the
project in my mouth “Do not lecture us about religious tolerance our judeo-
christian values give you freedom” the second seemed directed at Muslims in
general “This is not your country”.

Seeing this I asked myself, Aren't these protesters missing the point of
tolerance? Indeed as a philosopher, I asked what is the point of tolerance?

What’s the point of Tolerance?

Well the word tolerance itself comes from the Latin “tolerantia” meaning
the ability to bear pain or it's more contemporary usage tolerance means the
willingness to bear the existence of the unarguable. So perhaps the protesters
did need a reminder, the tolerance begins with pain and suffering, and ends with
bearing the existence of opinions and behaviors with which they do not agree.

Indeed tolerance presumes a tripartite distinction between, first the

acceptable and the agreeable the stuff you like, “I like ice cream”, second the
things you don't accept but will tolerate, “broccoli”, finally the things you don't
accept I will not tolerate “cauliflower”. With the protesters forgot this middle
ground, they suggest you only tolerate what you already like. Nonsense, you
can only tolerate what you don't like again. If you like ice cream like me, you
like ice cream right.

I can tell it makes no sense then that you're gonna tolerate ice cream so
getting back to my initial question “What’s the point of Tolerance?”. We might
instead ask why should I tolerate what I don't like. One currently fashionable
answer comes from the so called realists in political science an exemplar of this
view appears in a recent book by Wendy brown called “Regulating Aversion”,
and some Wendy Brown maintains that tolerance is Governmentality. Now
governmentality was a word coined by the philosopher, Michel Foucault, to
refer to how a government tries to produce citizens that will act on and fulfill
that government's policies.

According to Wendy brown this means that tolerance enforces hierarchy

that is she argues and I quote tolerance iterates the normality of the powerful
and the deviance of the marginal. Discourses of Tolerance inevitably act on
behalf of hegemonic social or political powers. Well perhaps the protesters had
read Wendy Browns book because the protester suggests that the real
Americans will tolerate Muslims living in their communities. But Muslims will
not have the same privilege given to Christians and Jews for instance when it
comes to where they can pray.

So outright prejudice on this view is supposed to be tolerant, this thought

profoundly disturbs me and vividly suggests that governmentality is a dead end
for tolerance. First of all governmentality is cynical and dystopian, because it
presumes that tolerance is reducible to self-interest in power. I also suspect the
Big Brother from “1984” would find great delight and amusement with the idea
that intolerance is tolerance. Furthermore governmentality is not a galaterian it
presumes a hierarchy where the powerful dictate the terms of tolerance and the
weak are forced to accept them.

This means that governmentality is arbitrary because it bases tolerance

solely on the whims of the powerful. If those in power feel weak they very melt
what may well tolerate a lot, even so should they gain more power feel more
comfortable they may well be very less kind.

Finally governmentality is impossible, because it it is unlikely if not

already impossible that a single hegemonic faction has the power to set the
terms of tolerance for our increasingly interconnected and pluralistic planet.
And some an alternative conception of tolerance is necessary

The wars from Intolerance

Fortunately history provides us with three, I think reasonable alternatives

all three of which were forged in the fires of religious / persecution in 17th
century Europe. The first of these comes from the philosopher Thomas Hobbes,
during his lifetime Hobbes witnessed three English Civil Wars a Scottish civil
war as well as the Irish Confederate wars. He saw how war tore apart the
British Isles as powerful religious factions each sought to be the one and only
hegemonic force unifying Britain.

Hobbes thought there was to be peace between these different factions

they must tolerate one another. In particular he thought that tolerance is mutual
compromise. Unlike governmentality mutual compromise is a reciprocal
relationship or each side must give up something. I will give up enforcing my
views on you and tolerate your beliefs and opinions. But then you must likewise
do the same for me. Unlike government allottee this view is not hierarchical
instead “Tolerance is between equals” though powerful equals.

According to Hobbes “intolerance is an act of war” it is done by those

unwilling to compromise and those who would rather break the peace and try to
dominate others through force. Well while mutual compromise is better than
governmentality mutual compromise is not fully egalitarian. Those without
power will have nothing to give up and so can be safely excluded by the other
groups. Indeed while Christian factions say Protestants and Catholics might
eventually tolerate each other, the relatively powerless Jews and Muslims would
not often get the same benefits.

Mutual compromise is also fragile because it requires that all the parties
recognize each other as equals with respect to power. but if one party thinks it
has enough power to dominate it may cast aside tolerance and strive to establish
its own hegemonic order.

The second of the three views I wanted to talk about recognize this this
view comes from John Locke another English philosopher. Who when he saw
firsthand the fragility of mutual compromise. During the Wars of Religion in
Europe Locke became aware of a common pattern that would occur first civil
war and Massacre would be followed by peace and mutual compromise for
instance the Mount ended conflict between Catholics and Protestants in France.
Signed by Henry IV of France, however such a compromise would usually be
abandoned once one party felt it had the upper hand indeed Edict of Nantes was
later revoked by Louis XVI of france and it now we came legal at the time for
catholics to forcibly convert and persecute protestants.

Seeing this loft responded the tolerance is not a compromise tolerance is

mutual respect. Locke argued that true religious faith was something a person
must freely choose and not accept by force or by the sword or the fire. So
tolerance is respect that free thinking human beings show each other.

Notice this is not a compromise no one is giving up anything indeed

everyone is getting exactly what they're owed. Respect, tolerance therefore is
between autonomous equals. I must accept that you are capable of making your
own decisions and I will tolerate that however you must likewise do the same
for me. On the other hand Locke thought that “intolerance was paternalism” that
is intolerance amounts to treating an adult like a child.

Claiming that this adult is not capable of making their own decisions now
that is disrespectful. According to Locke as long as others are not harming you
or your property you must respect the other people's decisions and not interfere
like an overanxious parent.

We are right, even not have same religions

Now I think we're on the right track to the real point of Tolerance. Even
though I do have some remaining concerns. First of all mutual respect is
abstract , because it it's talk of autonomy freedom may to blithely unmoor our
identities from their social contexts and traditions. this suggests that mutual
respect is sterile. because it cannot provide a society with truly thick social
bonds, that will prevent it from disintegrating into competing religious and
cultural factions.

The third and final view I want to address takes this into account. It
finds inspiration in the French for Jean-Jacques Rousseau when he asserts that it
is impossible to live with people whom one believes are damned. As I
understand him here his concern is that the threats of instability and persecution
will always remain. If different religions and cultural groups believe that the
others are fundamentally in error.

This is why I advocated a form of tolerance as mutual recognition, this

begins with recognizing the basic mystery of human existence as far as I know
there is no single agreed upon truth of how to live a human life. Nor is there a
single greed upon true path to salvation. Furthermore tolerance is recognizing
that each of us is equally committed to our own personal individualized way of
life.

I am committed to the life of the philosopher I suspect no one else in this

room is that's ok. I forgive you but that doesn't mean I think that I'm superior to
you all. I am NOT the philosopher King though if you hear any one's hiring I
might know someone.

Now what unifies all of us is our commitment to live our own lives and
find meaning truth and salvation in our own ways. This is why tolerance is
between committed individuals each of us is passionately committed to our own
lives and yet each of us is capable of recognizing the value in other alternative
ways of life. You might not desire to be a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a
Catholic, that you were an atheist. but you can still recognize the value of each
of these ways of life has to be Hindu, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Catholic,
need you and the atheist. Each of these ways of life is valuable in its own way
each of them a person can find meaning and fulfillment and perhaps salvation
in.

Contrary to this intolerance is fundamentalism pure and simple. For as

the fundamentalists who claim privileged access to the truth. the one absolute
one way of life and they believe this gives them power over the rest of us to
dominate us and bend us to their will.

It is this type of certitude about Islam that we see in the protesters in New
York City they refuse to recognize the value that of Muslim finds in his/her own
way of life and that faith ought to be practiced instead. We must cast aside
fundamentalism and accept the inevitable complexity variety tented nough sand
incompleteness in our attempts to live a good human life. Yes, you shall respect
is utopian it demands a lot from each of us. especially when we reflect upon it
but I believe the values for sustaining a richly pluralistic world should strive for
nor less if we are to move beyond homogeny, hierarchy, compromise and
sterilit. Thank you very much.