Tolerance is an essential value in modern pluralistic societies. In view of the exactions of the fascist, dictatorial or authoritarian communist regimes of the XXand century against their minorities, in the face of militant quests for recognition of ethnocultural communitarianisms, we can only recognize the strategic importance of this value as the cement of harmonious living together.
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Parallel to a very real cultural globalization, diversities are no less in full expansion. Religion comes in a multitude of churches, sects and small groups inspired by the great religions of the planet. Ethnocultural communities are multiplying and consolidating locally through international migration. Sexual identities are constituted in gender micro-communities in search of recognition. A fundamental marker of a true humanism that respects diversity, tolerance imposes itself in such a context as one of the main ethical principles that must guide pluralist societies that respect human rights.
Intolerance is no longer just a matter of the attitudes, practices and policies of a majority population towards its minorities. It is expressed just as much as the militant intolerance of minority groups towards the values and norms democratically proposed by society. Moral benchmarks are becoming blurred, while historically tolerable practices are no longer so and a process of moralizing action continues to broaden the scope of the duties we have towards Others, the planet and humanity.
Openness to the Other, majority as much as minority, constitutes the first condition of a consensual agreement around the beacons defining the limits and the conditions of harmonious living together.
To meet these new challenges, passive tolerance is insufficient. It must also be a commitment to the promotion of universal human rights and real access for all to individual and societal skills allowing everyone to make the best use of their freedom, according to their conception of it.
Unfortunately, it must be recognized, the multiple oriented interpretations and diversions of meaning of which this value is the object put it in danger by reducing it to a simple tolerance pretext for all forms of instrumentalization. Its primary mission of bringing all humans together beyond the diversity of beliefs and practices is threatened. Its deep meaning and its relevance are distorted by the self-interested uses made of it by those who invoke it, by reflex, in the face of what they perceive to be injustices and discriminations. The examples analyzed here confirm that only a tolerance critical of its limits and committed to promoting the conditions that make it possible will be able to soften the existing tensions between the multiple communities, ethnic, religious or sexual in search of recognition. We can deplore the fact that the debates around tolerance towards ethnocultural minorities are reduced solely to relations between cultures. Upstream, the causes of ethnocultural diversification in our pluralistic societies lie primarily in economic considerations, in particular the need for labor and immigrant investors, in order to secure growth. To be ethical, the discussion should also be refocused on humanitarian considerations justifying the reception of political or climatic refugees, thus giving a moral and political meaning to the reception of the Other. Reducing tolerance in the face of diversity solely to “cultural” issues associated with ethnocultural or religious beliefs and practices deprives tolerance of rational and ethical arguments while exacerbating tensions.
It is in such a context that we must return to the conditions to be respected in order to promote the emergence of critical tolerance. Tolerance cannot be satisfied with being abdication, neutrality, indifference, paralyzing relativism or worse, simple deference towards the culture of the Other.
Not everything deserves to be tolerated, especially when tolerance involves accepting encroachments on fundamental rights.
Of course, we must recognize the importance of understanding before judging, of placing other beliefs and practices in the broader context (social, cultural, historical, political) in which they take root. These are the lessons of what I have defined as methodological relativism. We cannot therefore fall back on a naive relativism which refuses to make any judgment on beliefs and social practices. Tolerance is a commitment to fight against excesses in terms of injustice, discrimination and violence. It cannot therefore be promoted solely in its passive form, contemplative of diversity, submission or lazy respect for otherness. Openness to the Other is unfortunately too often combined with servility in the face of any promoter of a quest for identity recognition. The refusal to criticize the Other, as we have seen, has nothing to do with respect, but rather with a condescending paternalism which denies the capacity of the Other to justify its beliefs and practices. Such tolerance is then only an abdication in the face of the duties of critical analysis of the positive and negative consequences of traditions and their impact on those who bear them. Reducing tolerance to a simple duty not to offend can only make it a tolerance that destroys the barriers that prevent the reproduction of practices that lead to injustice.
Perverted Tolerance
Raymond Masse
Editions Les Belles Lettres, May 2022
240 pages
Who is Raymond Massé?
Raymond Massé made a career as a professor of anthropology at Laval University. Author of several books dealing with the relationship between culture, ethics and public health, he has conducted ethnological research over several decades in the postcolonial Creole societies of the French and English West Indies. He has more recently been interested in the contributions of the social sciences to ethics and morality. His research today focuses on the challenges of tolerance in the face of the quests for recognition in which ethnocultural and religious minorities in multicultural societies have engaged.