The Limits of Tolerance: Enlightenment Values and Religious Fanaticism

Religion, Culture, and Public Life

by C. Jon Delogu

The modern notion of tolerance―the welcoming of diversity as a force for the common good―emerged in the Enlightenment in the wake of centuries of religious wars. First elaborated by philosophers such as John Locke and Voltaire, religious tolerance gradually gained ground in Europe and North America. But with the resurgence of fanaticism and terrorism, religious tolerance is increasingly being challenged by frightened publics.

In this book, Denis Lacorne traces the emergence of the modern notion of religious tolerance in order to rethink how we should respond to its contemporary tensions. In a wide-ranging argument that spans the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian republic, and recent controversies such as France’s burqa ban and the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, The Limits of Tolerance probes crucial Should we impose limits on freedom of expression in the name of human dignity or decency? Should we accept religious symbols in the public square? Can we tolerate the intolerant? While acknowledging that tolerance can never be entirely without limits, Lacorne defends the Enlightenment concept against recent attempts to circumscribe it, arguing that without it a pluralistic society cannot survive. Awarded the Prix Montyon by the Académie Française, The Limits of Tolerance is a powerful reflection on twenty-first-century democracy’s most fundamental challenges.

Genres: Politics, History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, World History

296 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2016

Reviews

[Kostas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Οι ΠΕΚ πιστές στο ραντεβού τους με την ποιότητα εκδίδουν ακόμα ένα σπουδαίο βιβλίο που μου άνοιξε τους ορίζοντες πάνω στο θέμα της ανεκτικότητας. Το βιβλίο απαντά σε πολλά σημαντικά ερωτήματα που μας απασχολούν καθημερινά και ο συγγραφέας κάνοντας μια ιστορική αναδρομή απο το πείραμα του Νέου κόσμου και τον μεσαίωνα μέχρι σήμερα μας βοηθάει να τα κατανοήσουμε και να στοχαστουμε μαζί του , σε αυτό βοηθάει πάρα πολύ η μετάφραση . Το συστήνω ανεπιφύλακτα αν και θα προτιμούσα τον συγγραφέα να αναλύσει και την περίπτωση της Ελλάδας στο τελευταίο κεφάλαιο.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an English translation of a French volume of applied political theory (is that a thing?) that stemmed from the author doing some productive scholarly time at Columbia and Stanford. The topic is “Tolerance” and the perspective is historical with a view towards clarifying some current policy disputes around free speech, religious expression, and public order.

The key intuition appears to be that we have come to view tolerance as an open-minded and positive enlightenment value which enlightened societies come to hold and which indeed is a marker of the progress a society has made towards enlightenment.

History suggests a different story. Tolerance is a choice made by governments and rulers to not oppress some parties at a given time. The prerogatives of government are maintained and perhaps enforced. The parameters within which someone is tolerated are variable and can actually be quite limiting. Tolerance comes and goes in societies, often quite rapidly and unpredictably. Progress is not linear but can come and go, often in ebbs and flows.

I have to admit that I had not thought about it this way. What I thought was an evolving condition was actually a choice, one which remains with us and whose examination yields interesting results.

What to do? There are at least two directions to pursue. One is to bemoan the restrictive and limiting sense of tolerance and argue for a post-tolerance world - one in which varied faiths and minorities have no need to rely on the acquiesce of government but instead merit their own autonomous social standing. If you hang around universities these days, this is not an uncommon position and working through this helps make sense of a variety of critical positions. Asking why we should not live in a more tolerant society is also a good way to drive an argument in new directions.

The alternative direction, and the one favored by Professor Lacorne, is to accept the continuing role of government in policies of tolerance and flesh out the details. To do this, Lacorne brings John Locke and his “A Letter Concerning Toleration” into the discussion. Locke separates church and state and the role of the state in tolerance choices moves away from substantive preferences, which belong in the private sphere, and towards issues of public order. How is tolerating or not tolerating some actor or activity going to affect the well being of citizens?

Ok, but so what? The devil is in the details, so they say, and it is the case here. What does toleration mean in a given situation? What do we mean by well being? How do the context and history of a situation affect how toleration policies develop - or should develop? Professor Lacorne provides some case examples from the US and Europe, which you can probably guess from recent political history. The US and Europe are quite different in how they enact ideas of toleration. This is a reflection of lots of factors and very different histories. Neither the US nor Europe (Germany, France, Britain) have resolved tolerance issues and I would not hold my breath waiting for a solution.

This is a sharp and well written book. Political theory is an acquired taste but this book is a good example of its applications with lots of current referents to think about.

[Gabriel Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and thought-provoking

An excellent and thought-provoking book that examines the history, extent and limits of tolerance; and the different attitudes to tolerance and free speech in Europe and the United States. Very topical and relevant.

[Kenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a terrible book by any means, just a rather superficial one. Maybe when it was first written, some of the more outlandish claims being made would have seemed perfectly sensible and ordinary. But nowadays, I think that describing anti-discrimination laws as a revival of anti-blasphemy laws is pathetically wrong.

Most of the book is spent describing famous recent cases of religious intolerance, as well as the existing legal background for responding to these cases. Based on the examples given, the basic claim being made, that religious intolerance is bad, and that the threat of it is not a good reason to offer protections to religious fundamentalists, looks basically right. But the author seems prejudicially insensitive to the idea that members of minority religions (especially Islam) might have a genuinely different experience of religiously-motivated discrimination, not just because they are Muslims, but because they are specifically members of a minority religion that is commonly vilified in the west!

In the end, the conclusion arrived at is the expected, milquetoast opinion peddled by liberals as a 'deep consideration.' Yet this conclusion, that we should be maximally tolerant up to the point that physical violence can be reasonably expected, only works if we make a vast number of background assumptions. Why think that all violence is bad? Why think that intolerance might not be situationally justified on systemic grounds? Why think that there is no principled moral distinction to be made between majorities and minorities?

[LeBossu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Triomphe de la raison sur le fanatisme, garante de la liberté de conscience, la tolérance s’est historiquement construite sur la séparation des pouvoirs, mais aussi, grâce aux avantages administratifs ou économiques qu’elle a pu apporter.
Confrontée aujourd’hui à un morcellement multiculturel, elle rappelle que le respect des droits d’autrui, l’acceptation de la diversité, l’ouverture aux contraires, et la réciprocité, sont des piliers de nos idéaux et libertés fondamentales

[Arlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first two chapters, on John Locke and Voltaire, were most interesting, as well as the chapter on blasphemy. I thought the examinations of tolerance in various countries in the last 1000 years may belong in a different book—they didn't address the book's thesis directly.

Makes me curious: to what extent are anti-hate speech laws in Western countries a reframing of anti-blasphemy laws? Protecting political/ideological ideals in place of religious ideals...

highlights:
"For every Church is Orthodox to itself; to others, Erroneous or Heretical" -Locke
"Killing a man is not defending a doctrine, it is killing a man" -Castellio
"The law of intolerance is...absurd and barbaric...wild animals kill others only to eat, while we human beings are exterminating each other for the sake of a few paragraphs" -Voltaire

[Einar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book, but Im slightly dissapointed. First of all I was hoping for a clear definition of the term tolerance or at least a clear opinion from the author on the what the concept entails, and a meta discussion on whether there is room for tolerance as a value a society can be based on. Especially in light of the tolerance paradox. When tolerance meets intolerance, intolerance seems to prevail. I was hoping for a lengthy discussion on that particular question, because it seems that the concept can only function within clearly defined boundaries. These fundamental questions is only touched upon in the book, and that was a disappointment, since the questions are so fundamental. I still give it 4 stars, because it was great try at a complicated topic.

[Ishita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinerend

[Mu-tien Chiou]

Denis Lacorne describes the young United States, the Ottoman Empire and 16th-17th-century Venice wherein “tolerance” as the civic virtue of forbearance and the legal policy of “toleration”both take fixity of aim and a feel for the changing context to uphold.

1)
The idea of toleration gradually spread, so argues Lacorne, first through the humbling recognition of "ignorance" and "perversity".
As goes the early-15th-century catchphrase, “one faith, many rites”, faced by decades of confessional warfare and religious disunity, church authorities could not for sure tell heresy from orthodoxy. Unaware of God’s deeper aims (ignorance), secular authorities that came after late medieval time had to protect both.

From within,the widespread persecution was counter-productive (perversity). Making people suffer without changing their minds. only hurt the Christian principles morally. Locke argued that you could coerce only public assent, not private conviction, and that religious persecution was bad for the booming international trade (commerce-minded Venice ignored the injunctions of Catholic preachers and accommodated Jewish traders, as well as Muslims, when not fighting the Ottomans; And Ottomans' tolerant millet” system served a vast trading bloc in which Muslims were a minority until the mid-19th century).

Bayle stressed the pacifying political effect of having many sects, none dominating enough. Voltaire contended that a "national religion" was bound to degenerate into cruelty and fanaticism. On the independence of the American colonies, religious variety underpinned the separation of church and state. As faith withdrew from public orthodoxy into private choice, less chance is there for it to serve as a mobilizing cause for war.

2)
Through his work, Lacorne shows that the degree of toleration adds up bits by bits: from non-persecution (curtailing the burning or imprisoning of heretics) to decriminalisation (lifting fines for practising an unorthodox faith) to civic equality (removing civic sanctions).
For example, the English Toleration Act (1689) put Anglicans and Nonconformists on a footing in specified areas of public life; but it excluded Catholics and Unitarians, accepted Quakers only conditionally, and barred all but Anglicans from many posts. Catholics and Nonconformists in England did not gain equal rights as citizens until 1829, Jews not until 1858.

However, the toleration can also suddenly vanish during geopolitical change. Ottoman toleration faded in the 19th century by the need for centralising reform of the weakened empire. Balkan independence flooded Ottoman Turkey with 5 million Muslims fleeing Christian persecution.

3)
Now for those of us that live in a democracy, we should understand and practice toleration in the liberal sense:
First, the law should prohibit only conduct everyone thinks is abhorrent; toleration enjoins the law to stand back where opinion is split. Never try to police morality with law; it only invites lawbreaking.

Second, equality under the law does not mean equal social prestige. Toleration by the law withholds approval or disapproval of legally tolerable conducts.The it's not the law's job to give approval or disapproval; only people do. Laws cannot eradicate prejudices; for that, they must rely not on coercion but the civil virtue of forbearance.

Review adopted from
https://www.economist.com/books-and-a...