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Toleration and Tolerance are terms used within debates in areas of social, cultural and religious context, to describe attitudes and practices that prohibit discrimination against those whose practices or group memberships may be disapproved of by those in the majority. Though developed to refer to the religious toleration of minority religious sects following the Protestant Reformation, these terms are increasingly used to refer to a wider range of tolerated practices and groups, such as the toleration of sexual practices and orientations, or of political parties or ideas widely considered objectionable.

The term "tolerance" itself, like "toleration," is controversial and disliked by some due to its implication that the "tolerated" custom or behavior is in fact an aberration. Tolerance implies both the ability to punish and the conscious decision not to, but makes no statement to higher principle. Supporters of the term tolerance claim it to be more applicable than acceptance and respect. Detractors of the term suggest that the term is promoted as if it were a principle — one which falters when compared to more elevated concepts such as respect and civility. And in the end just because you have to tolerate something doesn't necessarily mean you have to approve of it.

Development of Toleration[edit]

As a practical matter, political authority has always faced the question of whether or to what extent to tolerate those who's beliefs , practices, or social identities differs from those of the dominant group. Early political states chose between balancing a desire for social cohesion against the costs of forcing those with less power to conform.

Some have argued, with Sigmud Freud^[1], that the rise of religious monotheism discouraged toleration of other religious faiths; however the Roman Empire's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians#Persecution_of_early_Christians_by_Romans, as well as the existence of relatively tolerant monotheistic societies would seem to call this thesis into question.

The Roman Empire's persecution of Christians did not stop the spread of Christianity, which became the state religion of Rome under Constantine, and maintained its status as the state religion of European nations, even following the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476. The Catholic Europe of the middle ages in its turn persecuted Jews and heretical Christian groups, but was able to sustain a tenuous control over Europe, until the fractionalizing events of the Protestant Reformation, beginning in 1517.

It is in the middle of the seventeenth century, following a century of Religious conflict, including the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648 in Europe and the English Civil Wars (1638-42), that a printed discussion of the concept of toleration is carried out, which relates closely to the questions of civil and religious authority raised by the Reformation.

Samuel Rutherford, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Montaigne.

In the wider sociological sense, "tolerance" carries with it the understanding that "intolerance" and conformity breeds violence and social instability. "Tolerance" has thus become the social term of choice to define the practical rationale of permitting uncommon social practice and diversity. One only tolerates people who are disliked for their differences. While people deemed undesirable may be disapproved of, "tolerance" would require that the party or group in question be left undisturbed, physically or otherwise, and that criticism directed toward them be free of inflammatory or insightful efforts.

Authoritarian systems practice intolerance, the opposite of tolerance.

Historically, political and religious tolerance have been the most important aspects of tolerance, since differences of political and religious ideology have led to innumerable wars, purges and other atrocities. The philosophers and writers of the enlightenment, especially Voltaire and Lessing, promoted religious tolerance, and their influence is strongly felt in Western society (see pluralism). Unfortunately, they failed to treat with sufficient rigor the equally important issue of political tolerance. While a lack of religious tolerance causes problems in many regions of the world today, differences of political ideology caused hundreds of millions of deaths in the twentieth century alone. A desideratum of contemporary scholarship, therefore, is to develop a more expansive critical theory of political toleration. Some feel this is particularly urgent in the West, where the influence of religion in public policy making continues to decline, especially in Europe but also in North America.

It is a common charge among critics that tolerance is only a "modern virtue" or a "secular virtue." A related issue is the defense of historical figures accused of intolerant acts (i.e. anti-Semitism or witch-burning). Such criticisms are at least partially answered by the many examples of prominently "tolerant" individuals and societies throughout world history, such as the multi-religious society of Al Andalus (Spain) under the rule of the Umayyads and Almoravids, the early Ottoman Empire, Abraham Lincoln (insofar as he consciously changed the purpose of the American Civil War from mere reunification of the nation to one of granting equal citizenship to all Americans) and, at least early in her reign, Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Tolerating the intolerant[edit]

Philosopher Karl Popper's assertion in The Open Society and Its Enemies that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance illustrates that there are limits to tolerance.

In particular, should a tolerant society tolerate intolerance? What if by tolerating action "A", society destroys itself? Tolerance of "A" could be used to introduce a new thought system leading to intolerance of vital institution "B". It is difficult to strike a balance and different societies do not always agree on the details, indeed different groups within a single society also often fail to agree. The current suppression of Nazism in Germany is considered intolerant by some countries, for instance, while in Germany itself it is Nazism which is considered intolerably intolerant.

Philosopher John Rawls devotes a section of his influential and controversial book A Theory of Justice to the problem of whether a just society should or should not tolerate the intolerant, and to the related problem of whether or not, in any society, the intolerant have any right to complain when they are not tolerated.

Rawls concludes that a just society must be tolerant, therefore the intolerant must be tolerated for otherwise the society would then be intolerant and so unjust. However Rawls qualifies this by insisting that society and its social institutions have a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance. Hence, the intolerant must be tolerated but only insofar as they do not endanger the tolerant society and its institutions.

Similarly, continues Rawls, while the intolerant might forfeit the right to complain when they are not tolerated, other members of society have a right, perhaps even a duty, to complain on their behalf, again as long as society itself is not endangered by these intolerant members. The ACLU is a good example of a social institution that protects the intolerant, as it frequently defends the right to free speech of such intolerant organizations as the Ku Klux Klan.

Notes[edit]

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External links[edit]

Historically important documents[edit]

(Listed chronologically)

Magna Carta
John Milton, Areopagitica
John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration and the famous Two Treatises of Government (esp. the Second Treatise)
Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Dignitatis Humanae

Bibliography[edit]

Beneke, Chris (2006) Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism (New York: Oxford University Press).
Budziszewski, J. (1992) True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgement (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers).
Cohen, A.J. (2004) "What Toleration Is" Ethics 115: 68-95
Jordan, W. K. (1932-40) The Development of Religious Toleration in England (New York: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.)
Kamen, Henry (1967), The Rise of Toleration (New York: McGraw-Hill).
Laursen, John Christian and Nederman, Cary, eds. (1997) Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Toleration Before the Enlightenment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).
Mendus, Susan and Edwards, David, eds. (1987) On Toleration (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Mendus, Susan, ed. (1988) Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives (New York: Cambridge University Press).
Mendus, Susan (1989) Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press).
Murphy, Andrew R. (2001) Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America (College Park: Penn State University Press).
Nicholson, Peter P. (1985) "Toleration as a Moral Ideal" in Aspects of Toleration: Philosophical Studies ed. John Horton and Susan Mendus (New York: Methuan).
Walzer, Michael (1999) On Toleration (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Zagorin, Perez (2003) How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press).