The Problem of Tolerance

Preston King

The Problem of Tolerance

TOLERANCE TO ITSELF ALONE

I N THE FOLLOWING DISCUSSION WE ARE CONCERNED WITH

tolerance, not as a physical problem, but as a problem of human relations. In this context, ‘to tolerate’ generally means to endure, suffer or put up with a person, activity, idea or organization of which or whom one does not really approve. One can ‘put up with’ an item both when one can and cannot do anything about it. For example, one can ‘put up with’ the excesses of a ruler whose behaviour one has no power to amend. Equally, one can ‘put up with’ the excesses of a child even where one has no need to do so. In the second case, one has control; in the first, one does not. Both cases could be advanced as instances of ‘tolerance’. But cases of the first sort (powerlessness) I shall label as instances of ‘acquiescence’ or ‘sufferance’ or ‘endur- ance’, since it is obvious that acquiescence typically flows from powerlessness. I shall label cases of the second sort (powerfulness) as instances of tolerance. It is clear in any event that these two types of case are distinct, and, for the purposes of this discussion, at least, differential labelling is essential. In this context, an agent will be said to ‘tolerate’ an item where the item is disliked or disapproved and is yet volmtarih endured. On this definition it is plain that tolerance requires some form of self-restraint by the tolerator.

Let us look at several instances of tolerance. It is perfectly possible, for example, to say (and mean) that a child should not destroy a particular book, without taking effective steps to prevent it being destroyed (although one could); that the child should not behave badly towards Mrs Jones, without seriously attempting to correct its behaviour (even though this could effectively be done); that all people should believe in Christ, without seriously attempting to prevent others (assuming that one had the power) from worshipping in the Islamic manner; that citizens should not criticize the prime minister or the president, without attempting (but being able) to shut off their criticisms ; that Lilliputians and troglodytes are deplor-

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THE PROBLEM OF TOLERANCE

able species of men, without attempting (but having the power) to crowd them into ghettoes or deprive them of education or brutalize or lynch them. All of these examples of tolerance reflect a tension between the general dislike or disapproval of an item combined with its voluntary acceptance in some shape or form.

Let us look more closely at this process. We have already noted several instances of tolerance. Now we must try to see the manner in which the disapproval is reconciled to the acceptance. One may for example tolerate bad behaviour because one is too weary to insist upon good behaviour. One may tolerate a disliked religion in one’s own country in order to set an example for the tolerance of one’s own elsewhere. One may tolerate conservatives or liberals or socia- lists or communists because too many fundamental, and potentially dangerous, constitutional adjustments might be required to eliminate them. One may tolerate a different ‘race’ or ‘tribe’ or ‘class’, in the sense of not attempting to destroy or suppress them, because one considers that they too are a part of God’s creation and, for that reason, must be endured, even if they are not loved.

There are many more examples of this sort that we could give. In each case some disliked item is accepted because of some other consideration. The dislike or disapproval of the object of tolerance is inferior to the agent’s dislike or disapproval of some other item. At the point of his tolerance, he dislikes a child’s bad behaviour less than he dislikes the exertion required to stop it. He dislikes an alien religion less than he dislikes encouraging intolerant behaviour towards his own elsewhere. He dislikes the adherents of a rival party less than he dislikes upsetting the constitutional structure of his state. When comparing the horrors of a nuclear confrontation with what he takes to be the horrors of life under a communist regime, he may well intone, as many have: ‘better red than dead’. Similarly, he may dislike a different group less than he dislikes what he may take to be an equal part of God’s creation. And finally, in cases where tolerance flows from a principle, he may merely disapprove less of the object he disapproves of than of his presumption in disapproving of it at all. In all these cases, as we have noted, one item is disliked or disapproved less than another. The corollary is, that the other is liked, valued or approved more than the first.

The last example provided, however, bearing upon the notion of tolerance as a principle, is marginally different from the others. In the other examples, we are dealing with a clear-cut and firmly held dislike for the item tolerated; the dislike is not operationalized only because

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GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

to do so would conflict with some other good which we would prefer to secure. But in the last example, there appears to be some equivocation in regard to the initial dislike or disapproval felt: one may for example entertain civil or religious or racial prejudices, but not with firmness, not in the certain belief that these attitudes are appropriate; and because of such equivocation, rather than because of some conflicting good, the negative action that would normally flow from these prejudices is blocked. There is, however, a basic connection between these cases: an item is disapproved of and yet not acted against. The difference between the cases relates to the degree of certainty of dislike or disapproval initially directed towards the item tolerated. If one were not so tired one would redeem a book from childish destruction; but even were one a mountain of energy one might doubt the justice of physically destroying rival religionists. The continuity between the two cases is obvious, but it is also obvious that the latter is more complicated. In the one case, we need only eliminate one condition - fatigue - to block the destruction of an item. In the other case, we must eliminate many more conditions - not all of them specifiable, given a chronic uncertainty about the justice of our initial negative disposition - before we shall be induced to promote the destruction of an item. This second form of tolerance, as indicated, is more complicated than the other. But the basic difference between them is that in the first case a preponderant disapproval is directed towards the item tolerated, whereas in the second case the disapproval is less certain. The first type of tolerance might be called pragmatic and the second priticipZed, but I shall not adhere to these labels because I find them misleading.

Considering all tolerances as one, involving disapprobation plus acceptance of an item, we must raise the question whether it is simultaneously possible to accept something which one dislikes. It is obvious from the examples that we do this all the time. We may not wish to go to work, to school, the theatre, the wedding, the funeral, etc., but - for some reason - we do. So the question cannot really be whether we can do (or accept or initiate) things (or acts or situations) which we do not like. The question, rather, is whether there is any intensity or degree of dislike or disapproval which shuts off our ability to accept the items indicated. On an intuitive level, it seems that there should be, or must be. For if we do not stop the child from destroying the book, or saying horrible things to the people next door, or painting swastikas on their tombstones, or burning down their schools and cathedrals, then it would be reasonable to assume


that we were not overly concerned about any of these matters. And within certain limits this must surely be the case.

On the other hand, however, it is plain that one may object with the greatest intensity (for example) to the expression of a political point of view, and yet accept that the proponents of this view should not be prohibited from expressing it. The principle, attributed to Voltaire, that one may wholly reject an idea, yet ‘defend to the death’ an individual’s right to express it, is ipropas of our concern. And in this sort of instance, equally intuitively, it would appear that even extremely intense disapproval of an item - almost always an idea - need not at any point necessarily lead towards its rejection (in this case, the prohibition of its expression).

Thus we are led to contradictory conclusions. On the one hand, accepting an item where we do not have to, is seen as implying a lack of intense dislike. On the other hand, accepting an item where we do not have to, is seen as an act of extraordinary self-restraint (in view of our intense dislike of the item accepted).

In order to resolve this paradox, we must look at the problem of disapproval on two quite different levels. On the one hand, there is the notion of the item being disliked in and of itself. On the other, there is the notion of the article being disliked as compared to, or in greater or lesser degree than, other items. Let us take the first notion.

If we take the child‘s destruction of the book by itself, we might well say that we completely disapproved of the destruction of the book. This would suggest that one was not indifferent to and could offer no defence whatever for its destruction. The same could be said for any number of acts - such as executing a person for his or her beliefs. Taking such an act in itself, we could say that we completely disapproved of it. It does not matter that the destruction of a book is trivial as compared to the destruction of a life: we could equally completely disapprove of either or both - taken as acts in themselves.

Let us now move from the level of disliking an item in itself to that of disliking one item in greater or lesser degree as compared to another or others. In these circumstances, it is impossible to continue with the idea of complete disapproval: as we have said, the disapproval we are here concerned with comes in greater or lesser degree, not completely. In the comparative situation, we could only have complete disapproval where the item involved was disliked more than all others. Certainly this is the only case which would qttaZ$j as one involving complete disapproval. But even here, to dislike one item more than all others is still comparative. The methodological

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question that arises is how we could determine, once we had got there, that we had reached a degree of disapproval greater than any other possible. It would appear that we cannot make such a determin- ation, for it is one thing to say that we dislike item A more intensely than any other; it is another matter to certify that the intensity of dislike or disapproval reached could not possibly be greater; and another matter again to suggest that, in future, it could not be re- directed to a quite different object. One must conclude, therefore, that in this comparative sphere, though one may well speak of a greatest like or dislike, etc., it is impossible to equate such a formula with complete like or dislike or disapproval, etc.

Where speaking of an item or action taken entirely to itself, we might speak of it as being completely liked or disliked. But we simultaneously recognize that where speaking of one item as compared to another or others, this is no longer possible: comparisons allow of superlatives, but not absolutes. Of course, if one started with an absolute - the complete dislike of an item in itself - and translated this into comparative terms, the result would presumably always be at least a superlative. That is to say, if one posited complete abhor- rence of execution - in itself - as a punishment for proponents of ideas of one kind or another, this would imply that the item abhorred would always be accorded a dislike somewhat in excess of any that might be accorded to a series of emergent competitors. The only difficulty about this is that if one could not identify in advance, as one could not, all foreseeable and potentially competitive dislikes, it would be impossible to foretell that a present dislike, however intense, would for ever exceed one’s dislike for others, of which - regarding them as future dislikes - one could not possibly have any idea.

We have noted that comparative dislikes cannot be stated as absolutes, as certifiably complete. This conclusion induces us to look anew at the question whether, or in what sense, the dislike of an item taken in itself can be complete. Let us say that complete dislike of a form of behaviour, when translated into action terms, means that it will always be disapproved of. If we say this, however, we must recognize that, always disapproving of an item is essentially a comparative notion, suggesting that, in whatever circumstances, the business of negating the item disliked will be conceded a higher priority than any competing dislike. I am not here concerned to take up the question whether one can in fact do this, ransom future action so to say. The point is merely that this is a comparative exercise. And

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in this circumstance we are reduced from absolutes to superlatives: from a complete dislike to a greatest dislike.

We might then back away from the notion that complete dislike of a form of behaviour is to be equated with always disapproving of it (the point being that it must involve this but is not equivalent to it). Insisting on the idea that complete disapproval is essentially disapproval of the item in itsey, quite distinct from any comparative concern, we might be led logically to the notion that complete disapproval, relating necessarily only to an item in itself, which is that item abstracted from all others, indeed in vacuo, must entail the unrelated- ness of such disapproval to any form ofaction whatever. The question we must raise in this connection, however, is whether we can reasonably speak of a dislike being complete if the completeness is taken to exist in vamo. If we take a class of acts, like the killing of human beings, and insulate these acts against, abstract them from, all others, how can we demonstrate that our disapproval is complete? If we take a class of attitudes, like the love of human beings, and insulate these attitudes against, abstract them from, all others, how can we demonstrate that our liking or approval is complete? We can .rq that our disapproval of A, or our love of B, is complete, but if these are not comparative statements bearing reference to some form of external action, how can we or others know that what we are saying is true? It would seem plain that the assessment of a commitment, taken in a vacuum, is impossible to achieve.

My conclusion is that the disapproval of an item, said to be complete, but taken in a vacuum, cannot ever actually be proved or demonstrated to be complete. The strongest meaningful sense, therefore, in which one can be said to completely disapprove of an item is in the sense that one would always choose to negate it rather than any other item or disapproval with which it might conflict. This of course reduces to the notion of a superlative, not an absolute.

The above leads towards a further conclusion : namely that approval and disapproval, like and dislike, should never be conceived, to start with, as being complete. We are unable to establish apriori any limits on the potential intensity of like or dislike, and for this reason we should avoid ever speaking of either as complete. The intensity of like and dlslike, if they are to be measured, can only be assessed in a comparative situation: one person is more loyal to the Queen than another if prepared to sacrifice a greater number of advantages to preserve her reign; the person most loyal is the one who sacrifices most to achieve this end; and accordingly we may avoid altogether

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reference to complete loyalty, which other than as indicating a superlative loyalty - not an absolute loyalty - we cannot meaningfully speak about. And thus similarly with disapproval : strictly speaking, it could always be greater or less; so, strictly speaking, we can never speak of it as being complete.

The most usual concept of tolerance involves some preponderant disapproval of the item tolerated. Where this does not obtain we do not usually speak of ‘tolerance’, but, more likely perhaps, of ‘toleration’. Where one speaks of a ‘preponderant disapproval’, however, for preponderance to be meaningfully asserted it must be in some sense measurable. The condition for measuring disapproval is not a vacuum but a comparative situation. One dislikes an item, but also one or more other items, all of which dislikes cannot be acted out simultaneously, so that the first dislike - the item tolerated - is demoted (i.e. rendered less intense) vis-24s the second or third, etc. Since we cannot identify any intensity of disapproval as absolute or complete, we cannot conclude that any degree of intensity of disapproval, taken by itself, must necessarily shut off tolerance. Any individual who genuinely and intensely hates Catholicism or Luther- anism or Anglicanism or Buddhism or Blacks or Whites can put up with, or tolerate them - provided this tolerance is necessary to imple- menting an even more intense disapproval felt towards some other item or items.

In the degree that one dislikes or disapproves of a person, one may be taken to feel a proportionate aversion to acceptance of or association with that person. Dislike and disapprobation do not obtain in cacao, although they may be neutralized by the presence of conflicting inclinations. But where one conceives of a dislike in itself, i.e. considers it in abstraction from parallel or conflicting inclinations, it is plain that the dislike argues against the acceptance or accommodation of the item disliked. Where one dislikes an item taken in itself, which means also considering it without regard to any consequences that might flow from acting against it, it is plain that on the crest of that dislike rides a predisposition to act against it. Where one dislikes or disapproves of an item, and yet freely accepts it (i.e. accepts not to act against it) it is impossible that the dislike or disapproval in itself can be understood as the reason for accepting it. There must be other considerations that stand outside and tend to cut across the disapproval, thereby producing the item’s acceptance.

The fact that the item is accepted must imply an argument (or disposition) in its favour, or at least one that tends to undermine its

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disfavour. This argument may take the form that the item in question is not really as bad as previously thought; or that it is at least not as bad as some other item; or that there is now some uncertainty as to whether it is firmly either good or bad; or uncertainty as to whether a current form of negative response is genuinely appropriate to the item responded to. Now if it were really possible entirely to abstract the item tolerated from its conceptual environ- ment, we would probably be able to say (at least in certain cases) that disapproval of the item was complete. But we cannot achieve this abstraction, except in the worst sense of the term, since to do so necessarily projects the completeness vaunted quite beyond all possibility of measurement. This would suggest, therefore, that even when we attempt to consider an act, such as killing, in its& we are still considering it in comparison to other acts: the severity of our condemnation is comparative, not absolute, this being indeed the only means by which we determine that it is severe. Thus again we are brought back to the notion that however intense our disapproval of an item, the fact that we are able to say that the disapproval is intense involves a comparison with other acts ; the comparison means that the intensity of disapproval may be less or more or most intense as compared to other possible objects of disapproval; and the superlative feature of the situation means that the disapproval felt may be most intense but cannot meaningfully be regarded as completely or totally or absolutely intense. Thus even where we try to consider as item disapproved of 'in itself', we cannot really ever say that it is totally disapproved of, but only that it is disapproved of more or less - and therefore comparatively - in regard to other items. Insofar as no specific intensity of disapproval can be regarded as complete disapproval, there is always a certain slack between the rider of the disapproval and his mount; the gap between him and it exists as a logical discontinuity and a psychological ambiguity. Accordingly, an item intensely disapproved of will not necessarily always, uis-his other items, be disapproved of in the same degree.

Perhaps it will now be easier to see why the disapproval factor in tolerance is always incomplete. To begin, no like or dislike, approval or disapproval can be regarded as complete. No such item can be completely lifted from its comparative milieu. We may, however, adduce a further corroborative argument of a somewhat different kind. This is that, in the tolerating conjuncture, the item disapproved of, being disapproved less than some other item, is obviously not disapproved of us much us it codd be. One might well have approved

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more of correcting the child than remaining at rest; or of extir- pating heresy rather than protecting co-religionists, etc. We must conclude that, insofar as an agent could have been more disapproving of an item, he could not, in the first place, have completeb disapproved of it.

One possible objection to this line of argument is that, in the tolerating conjuncture, the item disapproved of or disliked is disliked or disapproved of in hey, with the effect that the dislike or disapproval felt for it is in no wise diminished whatever the circumstances. There are innumerable things in themselves of which one might disapprove - such as pederasty, adultery, lying, torture, killing and so on. The question, however, is whether disapproving of an item in itself is to be understood as never diminishing one’s disapproval of the item or as complete4 disapproving of the item. One’s disapproval of an item may be constant, may never change, may never diminish, and yet never be complete. It does not follow that the person who tolerates infantile destructiveness, bad behaviour, Islam, constitu- tionalism, Christianity, unconstitutionalism, Lilliputians, troglodytes, conservatives or communists has amended or reduced his dislike for them. It only follows that he or she does not dislike them s,o completely as to be unprepared to put up with them in any degree or on any level. We must not say that a tolerator likes the item tolerated, nor even that he has necessarily diminished his dislike for it, but only that his dislike or disapproval is not complete and thus not acted out or even manifested. If disapproval could be complete, the item disapproved could not be tolerated; but because disapproval, even if intense, unchanging, and undiminished is incomplete, any item disapproved (if further conditions are met) can be tolerated.

One may disapprove of an item in itself in the sense of always finding it objectionable. To be always objectionable is a comparative concept and does not necessarily involve being completely objectionable. For example, one may always disapprove of killing, always find it objectionable, and yet in certain circumstances, tolerate it. To disapprove completely of an item, such as killing, at its strongest, can only mean that one will always disallow it, no matter what the circumstances, and no matter what one sacrifices as a consequence of the disallowal. Thus if one had to choose between (a) killing and (b,) losing one’s life, or (b,) losing many other lives, or (b3) a grave disruption of social order, or (b4) being conquered by a hostile people, etc., one would always have to accept some (b) insofar as one complete4 objected to (a). While most people tend to object to

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any number of things-in-themselves, in the sense of always disapproving of them (one might add: ‘irz prik$le’), they do not, for a11 that, tend to object to such items always, in the sense of being prepared to accept any alternative whatever to the item to which they object (in principle).

Of course some people may always object to certain types of action in the sense that they would not commit those acts under any circumstances whatever. A person who is principled in this sense, however, can never be principled iiz general - only in respect of a single item or type of act. If he is always opposed to killing, then he may have to lie; if he is always opposed to lying, he may continually hurt others; if he is always opposed to hurting others, he may have to temporize; if he is always opposed to temporizing, he may be led into impetuous courses of action. Thus few people alwqs disapprove of any item, whether a person, doctrine or act; a person who does always disapprove of a particular item can never reliably disapprove (always) of more than that one item; and such a person can in any event usually be educated into an appreciation of the disadvan- tageousness or wrongness or inhumanity of his position and, if he cannot, will almost inevitably be labelled a fanatic or a dogmatist. The key consideration is that any person who alwqs disapproves of one item (whether killing, lying, communism, liberalism, Christian- ity, Islam, Whites or Blacks) more than all others cannot tolerate that item. Thus we can say not only that a prior condition for toleration is that no form of disapproval can be regarded as complete or absolute, but also that the disapproval felt cannot always be superlative, or greater than that directed towards all other objects of disapproval. This means that, where an object is tolerated, it is not only not completely disapproved, but also disapproved less than some other item and the latter more than it (disorder, for example, more than religious orthodoxy).

This entire analysis is based on the assumption that disapproval is an antecedent or corollary of action. Where disapproval does not serve as an antecedent or corollary of action, then no acts of any kind may be said to be implied by, and no other acts could be called ‘contrary’ or ‘contradictory’ to, the disapproval indicated. And in such an event, there is no act whatever, however ‘contrary’ its appearance, that could be taken to reduce one’s disapproval or imply its incompleteness. In this circumstance, however, one’s disapproval operates in a complete vacuum, totally devoid of consequences. It remains undiminished by seemingly contrary acts simply because it

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is in principle unaffected by all acts. But this sort of disapproval cannot be called serious or relevant but only fatalistic or flippant. If Scrooge or Garnett truly loathes a man and has no means of getting him into his power, and accordingly does not act against him in some specific manner merely because he cannot, then the acquiescence, a sort of non-act, in no way diminishes the loathing. Let us translate the loathing as disapproval and immediately recognize that it is not acted out because the agent is unable to do so; his acquiescence therefore does not diminish his loathing, but merely serves as the means by which the latter is channelled into a fatalistic vacuum. Of course we have already met with this sort of case, which we labelled ‘sufferance’ rather than tolerance, in order to set apart those cases where an act of ‘acceptance’ does not diminish disapproval due to the fact that the agent has no genuine alternative but to ‘accept’. (Here one might loosely say that Garnett was ‘intolerant’, but only in the sense that he wozild be had he the opportunity. One might say, equally loosely, that he was ‘tolerant’, but only in the sense that he could, more literally than Luther, do no other. But according to the termino- logy fixed in this paper, one would say neither, but merely that the agent was acquiescing in or suffering or enduring an item.) Similarly, if a woman addresses to Don Juan or Cyrano or Bond a form of words that communicates her detestation, while amicably drawing any of these heroes against her bosom, it may well be that the act in no way diminishes the detestation, since the latter may never truly have existed, other than as a form of words suspended in vacuous flippancy. But where, by contrast, disapproval is seriously meant, and where the agent disapproving has the capacity to act out his disapproval, then the true suspension of such an act or acts, as in the tolerating conjuncture, must be grounded generally in the incompleteness of the disapproval and specifically in its inferiority vis-&is some competing disapproval.

Insofar as disapproval of an item in itself meant complete disapproval, then there would be no compatibility between such disapproval and tolerance. If it meant a disapproval always intense, and always greater, than any other, there would still be no compatibility. But if it means an incomplete disapproval, and one not always most intensely felt, then there is a ground for compatibility. When one speaks of disapproving of an item in itself, a common (perhaps the most common) meaning attaching to this expression, is that of objecting to it in principle or as a general rule. A principle, in fact, is nothing other than a rule. And it is generally accepted of rules that


they always admit of exceptions - so much so that we are occasionally inclined to argue that exceptions prove rules (which of course they cannot possibly do). To say that a rule or principle admits of exceptions is really to say that its application is not always appropriate. Thus to say that one disapproves of an item in principle (or as a rule) may do little more than preface an argument for making an exception to that rule at a given juncture. Where to disapprove of an item in itself is to do no more than disapprove of it as a general rule, it is clear that the disapproval factor is not complete or all-embracing and can be suspended at various points or restricted to certain levels. It is clear that one may object to Huguenotism in itself or as a rule and yet reconcile oneself to association with those who prac- tise it - on some restricted level. In such cases the dissociation implied in the disapproval is suspended at some point on some level, essentially because the disapproval is interrupted in some degree, at some point. There may be various reasons (as previously indicated) for the interruption or restriction of disapproval in the form of the application of a contrary rule or type of disapproval. One then has to weigh one type of disapproval against another to discover that one type is inferior to another, and not so great as one thought - and certainly less than absolute or total. This does not mean that, were the item (more greatly disapproved of) suddenly removed, the other item would in itself continue to be less disapproved (as before). On the contrary, this process may work in reverse. For Public Enemy No. z always feels safer if there is a Public Enemy No. I. Remove the latter and the disapproval rating of the former automatically rises. Similarly, if one combines with the Soviets to defeat the Nazis, it does not follow that one’s association with and relatively favour- able inclination towards the former will survive the defeat of the latter. They were always disapproved, but in the absence of a common enemy, their disapproval rating may well go up again. The degree of disapproval may range from very great to very minimal intensity, Where the disapproval is more strongly felt there are fewer competitive dislikes which will thwart its operationalization; where the disapproval is less strongly felt, a far greater variety of competitive dislikes may more easily have this effect. The point is that disapproval comes in degrees and different items are accorded dfferent priorities. Where an item is tolerated, it is disapproved of less than are some other items - however strong the initial disapproval may have been or be or remain. The comparative inferiority of rhe disapproval and the concession of some form of acceptance is of the essence of

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tolerance. Disapproval serves as a toile de fond against which an act of contrary inclination is set.

Disapproval and approval come in degrees. Where disapproval is intense and entirely uncompromising, there can be no room for indifference, uncertainty or approval. Where approval is fervent and unquestioning, there can be no room for indifference, uncertainty or disapproval. Toleration only obtains where disapproval, uncertainty, indifference and acceptance are not mutually exclusive, whether or not the first of these is dominant. Toleration demonstrates certain combinations of approval and disapproval. Where approval is great, and dislike or disapproval minimal, there is a condition for toleration (but for a form of toleration better called favouritism or loyalty or love or sacrifice). Where dislike or disapproval is great, but limited either by an element of ambivalence or approval or indifference or uncertainty, then there is also a condition for toleration, but for toleration of a different, if of a more conventional, kind.

We have seen that the more conventional toleration, with which we shall now be more exclusively concerned, features a predominant disapproval of an item combined with some form of free acceptance of that item. Where one tolerates Jews, Christians, Muslims or anarchists, liberals, communists or Africans, Europeans or Americans, one exhibits some general aversion to the X tolerated plus some type of acceptance of it. We have seen that the disapproval is incomplete and a matter of degree. We must now enquire further into the character of the acceptance.

When we speak of ‘disapproval’ what we are basically concerned with is a disposition or attitude, ajtldgement or an assessment. When we speak of ‘acceptance’ what we are basicaIly concerned with, by contrast, are those consequential acts that are assumed to flow from the judgement or assessment. Judgement of course involves approval as well as disapproval. Similarly, consequential acts embrace rejection as well as acceptance. The consequence of approval tends to be acceptance. The consequence of disapproval tends to be rejection. In the tolerating conjuncture we discover elements both of disapproval and approval, and therefore of acceptance and rejection. The consequence involved in tolerance, on balance, is acceptance. But the tolerant consequence is necessarily equivocal - involving either the surrender of some negative impulse or the indulgence of some limited act of association. When we tolerate an X, we accept it in the sense either that we associate with it or do not interfere with it in some sphere and in some degree. If we tolerate


a doctrine, for example, we may do so in the sense that we do not physically attempt to stop others from advocating it (although we would ourselves preach against it). If we tolerate a person, for example, we may do so in the sense that we do not attempt to deprive him or her of fair trial procedure or of citizenship in our state (although we would not particularly desire to entertain them in our home). The act of acceptance, like attitudes of approval and disapproval, comes in varying degrees and applies on varying levels, in different spheres. If one dislikes or disapproves of an X, that is a warrant for being dissociated from, or acting against, it. If one dislikes or disapproves of a person or doctrine, that is in itself a warrant for having nothing to do with that person or for inhibiting the influence of that doctrine. To tolerate them implies a dislike or disapproval of them; but it also implies some limited form of association or non-interference with them. The act of acceptance, coming in degrees, may range from one to the other. Thus, when we say that we tolerate an X, assuming some form of acceptance of that X (ranging e.g., from full association to mere non-interference) the clarity of the assertion further depends on communicating the degree of our acceptance and the specific sphere or spheres to which it relates. If we are said to tolerate a doctrine, perhaps Huguenotism or Communism, this need only mean that we legally permit exponents of the doctrine to meet (perhaps only once a week, on Sundays) - while making it illegal for the doctrine to be disseminated on the air or in the schools, etc. (thus interfering with, or preventing, its general expression). If we are said to tolerate a person, perhaps a Negro, this need only mean that we permit such a person to be associated with one representative function, such as sport, while generally disallowing such association on other levels, such as the diplomatic, the political, the administrative and so on. Thus when we tolerate we accept, but accept in the sense of some degree of association or non-interference with the object of tolerance.

The act of acceptance in tolerance, since it is frequently reduced to a non-act, must be seen most minimally as a remission from intolerance. One may negate one’s intolerance by simply declining to act out one’s disapproval, as also by acting in a manner wholly contrary to that ordinarily implied in or associated with one’s disapproval. The act of acceptance, therefore, has minimal and maximal degrees. Also, an item can be accepted on dif-ferent levels. One may associate with a person in different degrees within the home, club, church, firm or state. One may tolerate a person when one is prepared to

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associate with him on some of these levels, but not on others. Suppose we tolerate a Jew, or a Catholic or an Anglican in the sense that we disapprove of him for religious reasons, while accepting association with him for pecuniary reasons. Our tolerance here may imply ready association on some levels, such as the firm and the state, but dissociation on other levels, such as the home, the club and the church. It may be objected that this is not tolerance, but intolerance. The answer, however, is that it is both. One may be tolerant of an item on one level and intolerant on another. That is why it is essential to sort them out. Just as one may tolerate on different levels, so may one tolerate in different degrees on each of these levels. It is always essential to enquire in what area and in what degree a tolerator is tolerant. It makes no sense to speak of a tolerator as being completely tolerant of an item. Where an item is not rejected or dis- criminated against in any degree, or on any level, it cannot be disliked or disapproved in any degree or on any level. Complete remission from intolerance is less a matter of tolerance than of indifference or love.

It makes no sense to speak of being ‘tolerant’ of an item in every degree and on every level. One may be completely tolerant of an item in full degree on every level save at least one; one may be tolerant of an item in some degree on one level and on no others. But assuming that we connect (some) disapproval with (some) rejection (which is to say, the judgement with some form of consequential act) ; and assuming that tolerance combines (some) disapproval with (some) acceptance; then the acceptance must presuppose some approval, and the disapproval must issue in some rejection. Accordingly, complete acceptance (i.e., in every degree and sphere) must completely rule out any disapproval. And where this happens we are not dealing with ‘tolerance’ (as we initially defined it).

Complete tolerance has to be regarded as an impossibility. (In saying this the distinction is assumed between ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance’.) It will follow accordingly that one cannot be completely tolerant of everything : tolerance implies some intolerance. This is a conclusion, however, that can be demonstrated quite independently of our starting point. Any item which we tolerate cannot be both accepted (or at least not-rejected) and at the same time rejected. On the level of the indmidual, a person cannot simultaneously be held to tolerate the noise of a child while beating it into silent sub- mission. On the group level, a state cannot be held to tolerate Catholic worship while simultaneously disrupting or permitting the

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disruption of their services. Tolerance of the noise menns intolerance of prohibitions on it; tolerance of a rite means intolerance of obstructions of it. Thus the tolerance accorded to some item will always prove inconsistent with tolerance accorded to some other.

When an item is tolerated, at least one of two conditions must obtain. Either the disapproval is in some way restricted (as when the tolerator is not altogether certain of his ground), thus lending towards some effective modification or even suspension of a projected act of rejection. Or the disapproval is superlative and remains so, but the act of rejection is in itself modified or suspended. Here the question arises whether there can be any variety of tolerance where the act of rejection is suspended, while the agent is fully able to apply it, although his disapproval is always felt most intensely. The answer is no. In such a case, an agent will only suspend a negative act where he assumes, rightly or wrongly, that the act suspended will not actually negate the item of which he disapproves, that it is powerless in this regard, as also the agent, in respect of his dependence upon it for this purpose, and thus that the ‘negative’ act is really irrelevant to the disapproval felt. In such a case the agent is or believes himself to be powerless. Thus this is not a case of tolerance, but of real or apparent powerlessness, which, so recog- nized, leads into acquiescence. But let us look at this more closely.

Suppose an agent disapproves of non-believers, and forces them to adopt his faith, on the assumption that this is the only means available to him of saving their souls. But suppose, subsequently, he is persuaded that, on the whole, by forcing men to repent he is acting against Christ’s example and God’s intention, is turning more people away from the church than he is attracting to it, is making his religion more hated than loved, and is creating among those forcibly converted a false belief, a seeming faith, rather than a genuine love of God. If the agent is convinced of these points, he may well cease to persecute non-believers; he may give up the idea of forcibly converting them. If he does so, his disapproval of non-believers may be entirely undiminished ; moreover, he may have previously disapproved of them more than of any other item(s) and he may still do so. He may well disapprove of them more than he disapproves of persecuting them. In such a case, non-believers are to be accepted, not in the sense that they are approved nor in the sense that there is any doubt they should be disapproved nor in the sense that they are ever disapproved less than any other item - but merely in the sense that force is or is believed to be an ineffective means of supplying

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them with faith. Thus the agent continues to disapprove, and, presumably, also continues to seek to act against that which he disapproves, but suspends one type of negative act (e.g. torture) as a means, because it is regarded as incapable of securing the desired end (e.g. belief in Christ) implied in the initial disapproval. One might describe this as an act of ‘tolerance’ but in fact, it is no more than an act of surrender or acquiescence. The item accepted is not tolerated, but acquiesced in or endured or suffered, simply because the negative act directed against the item is regarded as futile, like a wall of sand against the sea. The agent, in being persuaded that his force has no destructive effect upon the object of his dislike, may continue to use it for reasons other than conversion, or resort to other forms of persuasion (such as flattery, cajolery, various rewards and a variety of arguments) or entirely abandon the attempt to convert his adversaries. If the agent continues to punish those of whom he disapproves, he may do so on the grounds that they are evil, and that the aim of punishment is not to correct evil, but to pay it back in kind. But if he believes that the aim of punishnent is to correct evil, then he may well suspend negative acts where he believes they will not have this effect. If the agent is correct in thinking that his negative actions will not actually negate the items disapproved, then he will have reason to suspend such acts, being unable to draw from them relevant consequences, in which respect, accordingly, it could truly be said that he was powerless; consequently he does not tolerate, he acquiesces. But if he is mistaken in believing that his punishment achieves no relevant affect, then he thinks he is acquiescing, while, in fact, he has been tricked into tolerance.

We may now draw some general conclusions. We have seen that, where an item (like Protestantism) is tolerated, it is to be assumed that it is disapproved of less than some other item (e.g. security or peace). If we start with the act of acceptance involved in tolerance, we must examine the possibility of this act taking place (thus suspending an intolerant act) without in any way implying that the item tolerated is disapproved of less than any other. We may see, however, that where an agent completely consistently disapproves of one item more than all others, and yet suspends action against it, he can only persist in his superlative disapproval where he assumes that the negative act, believed naturally to flow from the disapproval, does not really do so. He believes or is persuaded to believe that the negative act will have no effect, will not negate the item disapproved, and therefore is not entailed by this disapproval. An agent who

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loathes a ruler may yet desist from firing upon his car simply because it is bulletproof or because the agent believes it is so. He is not ‘tolerant’ because he suspends the act. In respect of the effect of the negative act projected, he either is or believes himself to be powerless. An agent who loathes the human race and yet desists from destroying it may not, in this, be tolerant, but merely powerless. An agent who loathes Catholicism and yet desists from forced con- versions to Anglicanism may, on one level, simply wield no power, but on another level, recognize (or believe) that no amount of force could realize the projected aim (of true conversion) - and in this he desists from some activity because he believes it incapable of achieving his end. An agent who loathes theft most intensely and yet desists from hanging thieves (while actually having the power to hang them) may desist because he believes that hanging is powerless to put an end to thieving. His superlative disapproval of theft, conjoined with his failure to act against it in some particular respect, may not reflect his tolerance, but his powerlessness, not to hang a man, but to end thieving thereby.

It might of course be argued that an agent will often view his projected (but suspended) negative act, not as powerlessness to negate what he disapproves, but as an inappropriate means of negating it. One may desist from hanging thieves as from forcibly converting Catholics, not because one IS powerless and not because one believes that the means projected will fail to end theft or Catholicism, but simply because one regards such methods as cruel and inhuman. This is all true. And here we return to tolerance, whence we began: one disapproves of one item less than another (in a situation where both disapprovals cannot be simultaneously operationalized) ; one disapproves of theft less than one disapproves of hanging thieves, of Catholics less than of hanging Catholics. Thus one’s disapproval of the item tolerated is inferior to one’s disapproval of some other item; one cannot logically express disapproval of both items at the same time.

TOLERANCE AND ITS CONTRARIES

If we take tolerance to involve some basic combination of disapproval or dislike and acceptance (which is essentially the way in which dictionaries define it), we can combine each of these two with a different, but related, element to see what other combinations are produced. Such an exercise will prove useful, minimally, by way of

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indicating what tolerance is not. combination (a), which we may call tolerance, features disapproval plus acceptance; (b) features disapproval plus rejection; (CJ features indifference plus acceptance; (cz) features indifference plus rejection; (d) features approval plus acceptance; and (e) features approval plus rejection.

Presented in this abstract form there can be no doubt that all of the above cases are clearly distinct from one another. We can see that (a) does not, have an opposite, other than not-(a). Thus the only general opposite for the expression ‘tolerance’ is the expression ‘not tolerance’ - rather than the expression ‘intolerance’, which is not applicable to all cases of not-(a). We cannot apply ready-made terms, which are in common usage, to all cases from (b) to (e). But in the case of (b), fortunately, we do have a term that is ready to hand : intolerance. It is not the opposite of (a), but one of its contraries, providing only one example of several competing not-(a)’s. To say of an agent, therefore, that he is ‘not being tolerant’ will not necessarily imply that he is being ‘intolerant’.

To be intolerant (case b) of animals or children or women or Jews or Christians, etc., here implies the conjunction of a negative disposition and a negative act, wherein the latter may range from smirks to insults, discrimination, physical abuse, or even extermination. The distinction between a disposition (or attitude or judgement or assessment and an act (such as those noted above) is essential to the distinction between (a) and (b) - as well as to further distinctions between these and all the other cases. Where a negative disposition does not congeal as a hostile act, we are not objectively confronted with intolerance, with (b). Where in fact a person bearing a negative disposition does not allow himself to translate that disposition into a hostile act, we are (on the contrary) confronted with a case of tolerance, of (a). But it is plain that were intolerance understood as an attitude or assessment alone, and thus as not involving an act, there would be no means of distinguishing between it and tolerance - between (a) and (b). Tolerance and intolerance do not so much differ in respect of a disposition, as in regard to an act. In minimal cases of (a), the hostile act is merely suspended; in maximal cases it might be replaced by a more positive act of acceptance. If (b) were merely understood as an attitude, it would be indistinguishable from minimal cases of (a) - since both feature disapproving attitudes shorn of directly ascertainable material consequences.

In the case of (cJ, where an agent is indifferent to an item which he accepts, we are confronted with neither tolerance nor intolerance. If,

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in all essentials, one is basically indifferent as to whether persons are thin or stout, short or tall, red-haired or brunette, this very indifference tends towards the omission of either positively or negatively discriminatory acts directed towards them. Thus they may be ‘accepted‘, not even in the minimal sense of case (a), where hostile acts are suspended, but in the even more minimal sense that so little importance is attached to their ‘differentness’ that no hostile act was ever even contemplated. One may be tolerant or intolerant of virtually anything ; but the initial precondition for this is the presence of some form of strong disapproval of the item tolerated. Where one is basically indif€erent to an item, such as hair-colour, eye-colour or height, one does not refer to one’s acceptance of persons so differentiated as ‘tolerance’. People will not be heard to refer to the sort of acceptance accorded to brunette, blonde or brown-haired individuals as ‘tolerance’. There is no convenient, ready-made term for (cJ. But where it features a dispositional indifference, which is not cut across by any contrary inclination, thus leading, on the action level, to an equal indifference (a form of ‘acceptance’ virtually unconscious of itself as such), one might as well label (cl) iizdzference. This label alone, however, will not suffice. For we may not only ‘accept’ an item because we are indifferent to it, but also because other important considerations, set astride our indifference, lead us to it; as with the president who is indifferent to Israel, but supports it because of the Jewish vote; and the maiden who is indifferent to the prospective bridegroom, but accepts him because the marriage furthers her father’s dynastic ambitions, and so on. Here also we are dealing with cases under (cJ, but they are instances of what we might choose to call positive expedieng, rather than indifference.

In the case of (c2), where an agent is indifferent to an item and rejects it, we are not confronted with tolerance, intolerance, indifference or positive expediency. If one is indifferent to an item, and yet acts against it, the reason for acting against it cannot flow from the indifference. This is very different from the case where one is indifferent to an item and for that reason accepts it by doing nothing against it. It is also different from the case where one is indifferent to an item and accepts it for reasotzs other than and additional t o one’s indifference. In the case of (c2), as in (cJ, the act - which in (c2) is negative - must flow from considerations somehow external to the basic attitude or assessment which (c) reflects. If, for example, it could be said that Queen Elizabeth I neither hated nor loved Catho- lics, and was in this sense indifferent to them, then the persecutions

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which she sponsored or permitted, must be viewed as a function of considerations external to and cutting across the non-act implied in such indifference, as for example the desire to strengthen her control over a Protestant kingdom by appearing more zealous than she was. Thus although it might be said that such a policy was intolerant, viewed as a group act, effectively flowing from the nation’s preponderant disapproval of Catholicism, it could not be said that the agent, viewed in apersorzallight, was intolerant. Similarly, if the French government continued to hold Captain Dreyfus on Devil’s Island, neither because he was Jewish, nor because he either was or was assumed to be guilty, then it was probably simply because the French army would not admit to a mistake for fear of damaging its authority or image. In this case it would be more appropriate to describe the hostile act directed against Dreyfus, not as intolerant or indifferent, but as Machiavellian. In (c2) the agent’s hostile act does not flow from disapproval of the item; the agent’s indifference is cut across by external considerations, which have nothing to do with an assessment of the item per se; and for this reason (cz) might be referred to as Machiavellian, or utilitarian, or as a matter of raison d’e‘tat or, perhaps most neutrally, as a matter of expediency. But to distinguish this from (cl), positive expediency, we might label it negative expedieny.

In sum, (c) describes cases either of indifference or expediency; indifference of course readily accommodates expediency, whether negative or positive; and the three sub-categories of (c) are readily distinguishable from (a) and (b).

In (d), the agent approves of an item and, following on this approval, accepts it. Approval, like disapproval, comes in degrees ; but each finds its negative limit in the other. One may approve or disapprove of an item in a manner that is cool to lukewarm to fervent. (A significant feature about degrees is that they cannot all be labelled. When we count from one to ten, we usually exclude the fractions; they are innumerable and, therefore, in a sense, unnameable. In designating the degrees of approval or disapproval it is clear that one can only designate some.) No matter how minimal the degree of approval, it is clear that, if it obtains it negates disapproval; and vice versa. But this suggests that approval or disapproval of an item is essentially a predominance of one attitude over another, a superiority best covered by the expression on baZance, which betrays the sugges- tion that, especially in borderline cases or cases of ambivalence, this balance may shift radically, rapidly, and repeatedly. Where an agent

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approves of an item, it is not necessarily assumed that there is nothing about it which he disapproves, but (at least) only that the approval factor, on balance, is dominant. Where the approval factor is dominant, and no external considerations impinge, the agent may be automatically led into acts of acceptance, even propitiation. A husband in love with a wife may require no other inducement to bring home a rose. But where Ex fervently approves and even venerates Exxe, and is accordingly led into acts which support this disposition, it would be inappropriate to refer to his behaviour as an act of sufferance, forbearance - or ‘tolerance’. His approval - in whatever degree, so long as it is dominant - dispels the negative implications of these terms. An agent who approves of graduates of a certain school or university, or adherents of a certain religion, or members of a certain race, or women of a certain type, etc., is not to be spoken of as being ‘tolerant’ of such individuals, when, out of consideration of his approval, he utilizes such means as he has to hand to effect their advancement. There is no single term adequate to (d); ‘tolerance’ certainly does not fit; but, on the political level, favouritism might be the most appropriate (although like intolerance - its true opposite - it has unfortunate moral overtones).

In the case of (e) an agent approves of an item and yet rejects it. For this to be possible, it is clear that some other item has been conceded superior importance, and that the two items in question are somehow incompatible. This is exactly the same, formally speaking, as for (a), where an item is disapproved and yet accepted. In neither case does the act meaningfully follow from the initial disposition, attitude or assessment indicated. Thus some external consideration, or contrary item, must be conceded superiority, a concession which intrudes upon the expected act. To illustrate (e), we might adduce the story of Abraham and Isaac, where A loves I (his son), and yet, because God commands it, is prepared to slay him. Similarly, I<ing Charles I loved his indispensable minister Strafford, and yet, to placate an unmanageable parliament, brought himseif to sign the instrument which secured his loyal seivant’s death. Here again there is no truly adequate term to cover the case; but sacrijce will serve as well as any other; and of personal and political sacrifices there are many.

We have set out such cases of contraries to tolerance that appear reasonably relevant. To have done so may prove useful on both a conceptual and an operational level. On the conceptual level, there is no difficulty in distinguishing between the extreme cases. The

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contrast between (a) and (e), between tolerance and sacrifice, is too clear to require further elaboration. The same is true of the contrast between (b) and (d), between intolerance and favouritism. But the difference between (a), tolerance, and (q), indifference or positive expediency, is not so great; similarly with the distinction between (b), intolerance, and (c2), negative expedency. Some of these cases are closer to, others more distant from, one another. There may be a tendency to confound any of them with the others. For example, if tolerance were exclusively regarded as a matter of acceptance, then tolerance, indifference, positive expediency, and favouritism (a, c1 and d) could all be reduced to ‘tolerance’. Similarly, if intolerance were exclusively regarded as a matter of rejection, then intolerance, negative expediency and sacrifice (b, c2 and e) could all be reduced to ‘intolerance’. Or again, if tolerance were exclusively regarded as a matter of approval, then favouritism and sacrifice (d and e) could be converted into ‘tolerance’. Similarly, if intolerance were exclusively regarded as a matter of disapproval, then tolerance and intolerance (a and b) would be immediately confounded.

On the operational level, where investigating social phenomena in the area covered by (a) to (e), it would be essential to determine whether the circumstances conformed more to one or some of these cases rather than to others, and also to determine whether and what sort of balance was being struck between these various negatives of intolerance. From the point of view of policy-making, it might be necessary to determine what sort of balance shozlld be struck between them. In a case of civil or religious intolerance, insofar as this applied for example to the Catholic Church or to the Communist Party, it might be thought sufficient to negative the intolerance by falling back upon tolerance, a minimal position which retains disapproval of the item but suspends any form of punitive action against it. In a case of racial intolerance, as applied for example to a former slave population, it might be thought that mere tolerance was insuf- ficient, and that some positive form of discrimination - or favouritism - was essential if the effects of the original intolerance were ever genuinely to be negated or overcome. These distinctions are absolutely essential to any formal understanding of the variety of negations or substitutions that might be made for a social practice like intolerance.

Finally, there is that opposite of tolerance of which we have already taken note: acqzljescence. Assuming that tolerance and intolerance presuppose some free capacity to accept or reject the item

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tolerated, both may be attacked on the power level itself, by attempting to destroy or diminish the range of discretionary power or authority wielded by the tolerator or intolerator. Where an agent’s power over an item is negated, so too is his power to be tolerant or intolerant of that item. A government which removes from its citizenry a power to discriminate (perhaps racially or on religious grounds) forces the individual discriminator to acquiesce, not ‘tolerate’. Equally, a person or group who are the object of tolerance or intolerance and who successfully demonstrate or revolt, by reducing or destroying the power held over them, alter or negate the tolerance or intolerance to which they are subjected. If the object of tolerance or intolerance is a minority group, then its capacity to break the power which the majority holds over it might be deemed small. But this need not be so except where the manifest purpose of the minority group is to break the majority’s power in the sense of completely reversing their respective roles. If, by contrast, the objective and understood purpose of a group subjected to intolerance is to end the intolerance shown it, then that group (however small) may be well placed to reduce the discretionary power of the intolerant agent, by raising the cost of his intolerance. If an intolerant agent cherishes various items, such as his intolerance, but other items, too, such as his peace; and if the object of his intolerance challenges this intolerance, where shown, by disrupting that peace; then the intolerator may well become disposed to surrender the one in order to secure the other. By raising the cost of intolerance, the object of intolerance reduces the power of the intolerator to enjoy both his intolerance and some other social item, which may be more highly prized. The object of intolerance might reduce that power by sacrificing his own peace and security, but by reducing it he may reduce the intolerance of which he is a victim.

TOLERATORS AND THE TOLERATED

A. Tolerance implies a) disapproval and b) acceptance, but only where the acceptor is free to reject the item accepted. An agent who voluntarily puts up with a disliked item is in the position, as we have seen, of exercising some form of self-restraint, essentially in the form of a prohibition placed on such negative acts as might flow from the agent’s disapproval or dislike. If the agent is an individual and freeb restrains himself from acting against some disliked or disapproved item, then he may be genuinely said to tolerate or to be tolerant of

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that item. If the agent is an individual and is made to desist from acting against an item, then the individual merely conforms to a mode of behaviour enforced by another agent and cannot genuinely be said to tolerate or be tolerant. In the first case, we may say that the individual, taken alone, is tolerant. In the second case, we may only say that the individual, plus a superior agent (thus constituting an association or group), is tolerant. Thus it can be said that tolerance, whether by an individual or group, involves the imposition of a self-restraint; but it must be said, at the same time, that the mechanics of group restraint always operate differently from individual self- restraint. A group might be called ‘tolerant’ in the sense that all members are self-restrained. But, in this case, it is not really the group that is tolerant, but an aggregate of individuals, such that it is only these individuals who tolerate, and are free to do so, not the group, which, insofar as its members’ power to tolerate is unrestrained, exercises no superior power to proscribe either their tolerance or intolerance. It would be unnecessary, and might be misleading, to label such an aggregate of tolerances as ‘group tolerance’, simply because the aggregate is completely reducible to a series of individual tolerances. A group, by contrast to an individual, may be said to be tolerant in the sense that the disapproval of an item by one or more of the group’s members, due to the intervention of a superior or more powerful member or members, is not allowed to be transformed into some form of rejection of the item indicated. Thus both individual and group tolerance require self-imposed restraint, except that with a group this will always mean that some members do or are empowered to restrain others (this, of course, ultimately and most formally, reducing to a police function).

A tolerator, therefore, can be an individual or a group of individuals. Any group of individuals can vary enormously in numbers and power, ranging from the family or club or school or firm, etc. to the government. The individual obviously does not vary in number; he may vary in size or strength or power; but despite such variations, the size, strength and power of an individual (taken alone) are generally inferior to those of any collectivity. Thus we must generally regard the significance of individuals as tolerating agents to be inferior to that of groups as tolerating agents. The greater significance of group tolerance is essentially a function of greater power, which is not always increased in proportion to an increase in numbers. It is due to jts power, therefore, that the government of a state may be generally regarded as the most important tolerating agent in a society.

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THE PROBLEM OF TOLERAXCE

Inferior groups and individuals, viewed as tolerators, also have their significance, of course, but this too, we shall assess as a function of their power.

As we have seen, a tolerator can equally well be an individual or a group. But the wider the range of tolerance becomes, the less likely is it that the effective tolerator can be a simple individual. It is a com- monplace that a parent, for example, is exceptionally well placed to tolerate (or not) the excesses of a child. But, it is less possible for a private individual to be so placed that he can effectively tolerate religious, civil or racial differences. A single indvidual may well exercise control over a child; he is less likely to exercise similar control over a religion, society or race. Where he does exercise such control, it is almost inevitably through an organization; and that sort of control may be called group control, although it need not be democratic or consultative. Where there is such control, whether exercised by an individual or by a group, there exists a power to tolerate or not to tolerate. Whereas an individual might not penalize another because of his religion, party or race (as by withholding promotion, insulting him, etc.), many of his fellows might (assuming they were in a position to do so). If the society or government were intolerant of an item, they could penalize or effectively subvert the individual's tolerance of that item. (For example, in South Africa, Europeans can be penalized by the government in various ways for not discriminating against Africans.) Were the society or government tolerant of an item, and the individual disposed to be intolerant of it, they could also penalize and undermine his intolerance. (In parts of the United States, for example, whites can be penalized in various ways for certain types of discrimination against blacks.) Thus it is that the group, by virtue of being more powerful than the individual, has a capacity to check both his tolerance and his intolerance. It is in this sense that group tolerance, and especially governmental tolerance, is more significant than that which is purely individual. For individual tolerance cannot with certainty preserve itself either against group opposition or a personal and internal lassitude, quite apart from its inability to move outside itself to check the intolerance of the group.

A person will be said to be tolerant only where he has the power not to be tolerant. Where the group is tolerant, the implication is that the individual is not, simply because the discretionary power either to be tolerant or intolerant has been taken from him. We are therefore required to accept that not to be tolerant does not necessarily

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mean being intolerant (as shown in the previous section). It may merely mean that one has not the power (implied in tolerance) of either accepting or rejecting an item (hence acquiescence). A private individual in a tolerant group, society or state (always toIerant in respect of some specified item), may approve or disapprove or be indifferent to any item tolerated. But in none of these cases will it be appropriate to speak of such an individual as being effectively tolerant or intolerant, strictly speaking (except perhaps as regards his disposition), insofar as he no longer exercises a power to reject or accept the item tolerated (by the group). A person who is individually tolerant of an item, and wishes his tolerance to be generalized throughout a group, can only succeed by either converting every member to his tolerance (which in a large group always fails) or by persuading a preponderant power in the group to enforce it. In the latter case, not only does he relieve others, but also himself, of the power to tolerate, so that it ceases to be relevant to speak of the individual as being tolerant, but only of the group as being so - if only because, in these circumstances, it is only the group (at the high- est level, the government or state) that now has the power not to be.

B. In the same way that there may be a variety of tolerating agents (of tolerators), so may there be a variety of objects tolerated. Broadly speaking, any object over which control is exercised can be tolerated or not tolerated. (We have seen that to be intolerant and not tolerant are not the same.) Here, however, our concern lies with the control exercised by humans over one another, rather than with the control they may exercise over nature. So that although it might be legitimate to speak of tolerating drought or erosion or a flood (assuming that the tolerator could control these items), that is not the sort of control, and thus not the sort of tolerance, with which we shall -be concerned. In this context, items tolerated are always assumed to be human rather than natural.

There are various categories of items which we might claim to tolerate, such as acts, ideas, organizations and identities. For our purposes, these are all human acts, ideas, organizations and identities. Let us look at them more closely:

(a) There is toIerance of various types of act, whether public petting, divorce, gambling, drinking, late hours, strikes, currency speculation, fast driving, buying on credit, noisy parties and so on. Any discrete act of any description is capable of being tolerated and not tolerated. The tolerance of any such act may be called an activig

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tolerance. Since there is no end of activities, there is equally no end of potential activity tolerances. In this sense, the study of tolerance could be made as broad as the whole of human activity itself.

(b) There is tolerance of the expression of various kinds of ideas, whether religious, scientific, ethical or political. This we might call ideational tolerance. The expression of any of these ideas we might disapprove and yet allow. Whether people may freely discuss the merits and character of communism and capitalism raises the issue of political tolerance. Whether they may freely discuss the merits and demerits of Galileo’s or Darwin’s or Lysenko’s theories raises the issue of scientific tolerance. Whether they may freely worship and proselytise as Huguenots or Anabaptists or Catholics raises a question of religious tolerance. To the extent that ideas are illimitable, so are potential ideational tolerances.

(c) There is tolerance of a proliferation of various kinds of organized groups, whether ethical, educational, religious, profes- sional or political (such as parties, pressure groups and demonstra- tions). This we might call organiTational tolerance. This is potentially as broad as there are organizations to tolerate. One might disapprove of any organization and yet recognize it. Also, to tolerate an idea is not the same as to tolerate a group. The Catholic Church, for example, might permit a priest, as a right of conscience, to disagree with the Holy Father’s ruling on birth control, while refusing to permit him formally to communicate his ideas to the faithful. In a minimal degree, therefore, ideas may be divorced from organization. To tolerate an idea is not necessarily to tolerate it as disseminated through an organization. Thus there may or may not be various types of organizational tolerance - as of political clubs and parties, religious groups, trade unions, cooperative societies for life insurance purposes and so on. Although one may have ideational, without organizational, tolerance, it would be more difficult to have the latter without the former.

(d) There is, finally, tolerance of certain involuntary and natural or semi-natural differences, such as nationality, class, sex, race, tribe, religion and culture. This, however awkwardly, might be labelled identi0 tolerance. It is not a tolerance which allows the identity to persist (usually the tolerator has no power over this), but which does not penalize (in various ways) the bearer of an identity as a consequence of his identity. One may dislike or disapprove of a cultural, religious, racial or other identity, and yet accept a person who bears that identity, in the sense of not penalizing the bearer by the refusal

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of a job or promotion or equal priestly or medical attention on his death-bed because of it. Activity, ideational, organizational and identity tolerance are clearly distinct, although they may coalesce in a single object (as in a Catholic or Jew or communist or conservative).

One may tolerate or not an act, an idea, an organization or an identity. Acts abound: theft, insults, conspiracy and so on. Ideas and idea-systems abound : deism, atheism, existentialism, and so on. Organizations abound : clubs, pressure groups, parties, legislatures, churches and so on. These acts, ideas and organizations can provide a basis of identity. A person, acting in a certain way, we may call a hypocrite or a thief, and tolerate him or not. A person entertaining atheistic ideas we can call an atheist, and, so identified, tolerate him or not. A person belonging to a particular organization may be identified as a Catholic or a communist, and, so identified, he may be tolerated or not. Also, all of these factors may overlap : a person may be disposed to act in some recognizable way, may entertain certain ideas, and belong to some particular organization, and so acquire an identity that subsumes the other factors mentioned. Equally, however, an identity may be acquired independently of one's acts or ideas, or one's membership of organizations. One may be identified by one's place of origin, by tribal markings, by skin colour and so on. And, being identified as a Frenchman or Masai or an Indian, one may be tolerated or not in respect of this identity. The point of this is that one may be tolerated or not in virtue not only of one's acts, ideas, and membership of organizations, but also because of one's identity, viewed as a fundamentally involuntary differentiating characteristic. An identity, in this sense, may or may not comprise or derive from one's acts, ideas and membership. (Having been 'born into' the Catholic Church, for example, one might be regarded as a member even though one had never actually joined it and did not attend its services.) Usually, however, an involuntary identity will derive not so much from acts, ideas, or most organizational memberships, but instead from factors like nationality, status, condition, sex, race and similar items. In sum, the basic areas to which tolerance and intolerance will apply are : performing acts, having, entertaining or expressing ideas, belonging to ol"ganixatiom, and possessing or being given identities (such as nationality, race, status, class, sex, and other factors over which one generally and essentially possesses little or no control).

Now despite this classification of the various objects of tolerance, it is essential to remember that our objects of tolerance and objects of

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intolerance, like our tolerators (tolerating agents) and intolerators (intolerant agents) are, in the end, human beings. And the activities, ideas, organizations, and identities of which one is tolerant or intolerant are human activities, ideas, organizations or identities. In this context, therefore, our proper concern is not essentially with non-human activities nor with ideas that no human entertains nor the organization of beings other than humans nor with identities that are not human. Thus to be tolerant or intolerant of an activity or idea or organization or identity must here imply being tolerant or intolerant of a person or persons acting in a certain way or thinking certain things or organized after a particular fashion or otherwise identified in respect of some feature or characteristic. To be tolerant or intolerant, therefore, is always ultimately a matter, in this context, of being tolerant or intolerant of human beings, not only when identified in respect of such relatively immutable factors as sex, race, national and social origins, but also in respect of more random factors, such as their activities and beliefs. The relationship between the tolerator and the tolerated is, then, always to be understood as a relationship between one individual or group and another wherein the one dislikes or disapproves of the other, yet accepts him, although having the power, in some sphere and degree, to reject him. Out of all the people whom we meet or see there are rather few of whom it could in this sense be said that we were individually either tolerant or intolerant - simply because one rarely exercises control over them, and thus has no effective opportunity either to accept or reject them.

The control of one individual over others, especially in the degree that group organization is more centralized than diffuse, is usually likely to mean a control permitted by, or channelled through, the group. If the control could not otherwise be exercised, then its exercise is obviously dependent upon the group. If a person’s control of an individual could not otherwise be exercised than by the permission or even encouragement of the group, then that person’s tolerance or intolerance of the individual, grounded in the control of one by another, must also depend on the group’s permission or encouragement. Thus a group’s rules or laws may permit a parent (to the exclusion of other adults) control over a child, which also creates the ground of parental tolerance (an irrelevant concept in respect of other adults who are permitted no control over the child). Now there may be whole categories of people in a society (such as children or infidels or foreigners or homosexuals or women or slaves or a different caste or class or race or tribe) over whom the rules of

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that society may permit other categories of people (such as adults, god-fearing men, citizens, etc.) to exercise some form of discretionary control. Where this happens, the controlling agent is automatically constituted as a potentially tolerant or intolerant agent.

Following this analysis, tolerance of an individual involves having a power over him. I endure my jailer, although the warden may simply decide to tolerate him. As with individuals, so with groups; one, having power over another, is in a position to be tolerant or intolerant. In a society, one sub-group may differentiate itself, in respect of some feature, from another; if, in addition to that dif- ferentiation, one sub-group assembles a power superior to that of the other, then it is ablepro tanto to tolerate or not to tolerate it. Accord- ing to this analysis, then, where individuals or groups exercise a roughly equal power within some larger social context, the grounds exist for anarchy or accommodation, but not for tolerance or intolerance. Any individual or group, given inferior power ois-2-Pis another, can become an object of tolerance or intolerance. It is of course clear that any individual or group, in respect of any characteristic or feature, is in principle capable of being put in the position of being tolerated or not being tolerated. Thus there are vast numbers of items that are being tolerated and not tolerated and that may come to be tolerated or not tolerated.

INTOLERANCE AND TOLERATION

We have attempted to provide a fairly extended definition of tolerance. We have attempted to show in what way the concept is consistent, what the related but contrary concepts are that negate it, how one may conceive of the relationship between the agents and objects of tolerance (tolerators and tolerated), what the different classes of tolerated objects are (acts, ideas, organizations, identities), and that tolerance of the latter always in some fashion involves tolerance of persons.

We have also suggested, however, that tolerance and its chief opposite, intolerance, are, strictly speaking, value-neutral, in themselves neither good nor bad. For although there are items which we disapprove and should accept, there are others, nonetheless, which we disapprove and should reject; thus one may argue that there are different circumstances in which one should be both tolerant and intolerant. One will even be forced to conclude that to tolerate one item, which is to accept it, will involve the exclusion of some other

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item, which is to reject it, and thus that tolerance, in fact, requires intolerance.

Since virtually anything, in principle, can be tolerated, the question whether one should be tolerant as such does not arise. Every- thing must turn around the sphere to which and the degree in which the tolerance is supposed to be applied. One cannot praise an individual, sub-group or government simply because they are tolerant; they may be tolerant of cruelty and genocide. Nor can one condemn agents simply because they are intolerant; they may be intolerant of cruelty and genocide. In this sense, therefore, everything must turn, not around tolerance and intolerance, but around the objects of tolerance and intolerance, and the consideration whether they are properly objects of the one rather than the other.

It is at this stage that some consideration of history becomes relevant. There is a popular disposition to think of tolerance as a good and of intolerance as an evil. There is some warrant for doing so. But the justification for thinking this is embedded, not in the previous analysis, but in the history of human affairs. Since, speaking abstractly and strictly, we have no more warrant for being tolerant than intolerant, we must bring to mind those objects of intolerance which, historically and in practice, have been broadly regarded as improper objects of intolerance. It is easy to demonstrate that this is the only proper procedure to follow. For intolerance, as such, is no more improper than tolerance, as such ; but given that ‘intolerance’ is popularly regarded as wrong; then intolerance considered as a wrong must be regarded as such in respect of certain assumed spheres of application (not per se); and these spheres of application can only be explored in history, both distant and contemporary.

So far we have not much used the expression toleration. My intention has been to reserve it as a label for those ideas, doctrines, ideologies or movements which have emerged historically not merely with a view to justifying or promoting certain types of tolerance, but with a view - more accurately - t o demolishing certain opes of intolerance. We have already taken note of various types of tolerance, which have been classified as activity, ideational, organizational and identity tolerances. We may employ these same categories for the classification of intolerances, in response to a limited number of which the classical doctrines of toleration initially arose. To classify the various types of toleration we must proceed less abstractly than in classifying tolerances and intolerances. We must look to history; and, having done so, we emerge, in the West, with three major items: religious,

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civil and racial toleration. Concern with the first two arises in an indis- putably significant fashion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while the latter emerges in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These types of toleration reflect opposition to certain types of intolerance, which have been of extraordinary historical importance. Since these intolerances are historical phenomena, no one of them is entirely reducible to any one of the purely conceptual categories of intolerance.

Using historical, not conceptual, categories, we can regard as most important those intolerances, and the matching doctrines of toleration that negate them, generally classified as religious, civil and racial. No one of these historical problems can be completely reduced to a single corresponding conceptual factor - to activity, ideational, organizational or identity intolerance - although one of them, correctly or not, may tend to be regarded as dominant. The religious problem may reveal the dominance of an ideational factor; the civil problem, of an ideational or an organizational factor; the racial problem, of an identity factor. And yet it is clear that in these historical intolerances many different conceptual intolerances may be involved. The religious problem has raised not only ideational, but also organizational difliculties, to do with the locus of civil dominance, as in the religious wars in France during I 5 j 9-98 ; and it has not only raised civil problems, but additionally ethnic problems, as in Ireland during the English civil war and subsequently. Similarly, the civil problem has not only raised organizational difficulties (to do with tolerating or suppressing items like independent newspapers, universities, a variety of parties, trade unions, etc.) but also ideational difficulties (to do with tolerating different idea-systems, religious beliefs and the like). In the USA during 1948-60, for instance, the basic organizational problem of tolerating the Communist Party (conceived as a potentially subversive organization) was scarcely ever divorced from the problem of tolerating the expression and dissemination of Marxist ideas. In Guyana, the problem of tolerating a rival political party (Cheddi Jagan's) became allied to that of tolerating a different idea-system (Marxist and socialist) and ultimately to that of tolerating or accommodating a distinct ethnic group (of East Indians). Finally, the problem of racial tolerance may easily involve ideational and organizational (as well as ethnic) factors. In West Africa, for example, the problem of racial tolerance not only derives from a diversity of ethnic and national identities but also leads directly into the question of tolerance for the different organizations (whether

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political, religious, social or economic) serving those identities as well as for the variety of ideas, particularly relating to religious beliefs and social practices, which re-enforce them. Thus the ethnic identity factor raised in regard to tolerance of Ibos, for example, is not to be isolated from organizational, ideational and other factors also involved in the intolerance shown them.

When people object to intolerance as such, they may generally be understood to object to religious, civil or racial intolerance - or some combination of these. They may, on the other hand, be objecting to some mode of behaviour which is repugnant, and which obtains in all these cases, but which at the same time, transcends them. Thus it becomes necessary to enquire, not only (historically) what the major types of intolerance are, but also, whether there is any repugnance which serves as a common denominator between all of them and, if there is, what it is, and in what other areas it may become increasingly necessary to attack it. This is a proper object of empirical study, although it may seem inappropriate to imply the possibility of scientifically discovering the repugnant.

However that may be, it is clear that one cannot meaningfully study ‘tolerance’ or ‘intolerance’, without further qualification. But one can meaningfully study ‘toleration’ conceived as a negation of specified intolerances. And this requires that these specified intolerances themselves first be investigated. If we hold religious intolerance up to view, we can see that it involves strong disapproval of different modes of worship, conjoined with various types of punishment of those adhering to them. A doctrine of religious toleration would require either a diminution or total rejection of such punishment. If we hold civil intolerance up to view, we can see that it most typically features strong disapproval of competing political ideas and organizations, conjoined with various types of punishment for those expressing or associated with them. A doctrine of civil toleration would require the reduction or elimination of such punishment. If we hold racial intolerance up to view, we can see that it involves strong disapproval of some differentiated racial identity, with several types of punishment, usually in the form of various disabilities, being imposed upon those who are differentially identified. A doctrine of racial toleration would require either a reduction or total rejection of such imposed disabilities.

In the historical intolerances enumerated, we note a generally common feature: excess. There is usually a disproportion between the dislike or &sapproVal felt, and the act of rejection which follows

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it. One disapproves of a man’s mode of worship, so one only permits him to perform his ritual on Saturdays in an open field, and, at worst, one hangs him. One disapproves of a man’s political ideas or affilia- tion, so one sends him into exile or keeps him in preventive detention or shoots him out of hand. One dislikes a man’s looks, so one refuses him a job or promotion or legal equality or police protection and lynches him at will. In all these cases there may be a recognizable element of excess, in the sense that it might be possible meaningfully to disapprove of all the items indicated without penalizing them in the ways suggested. In the history of toleration we shall sometimes find that the disapproval factor is fiercely attacked. But what are minimally and most often attacked are the excessive consequences which are assumed to flow from the disapproval. For example, one of the most common arguments for religious toleration (the termination of religious persecution) is that one should fight spiritual battles with spiritual weapons. One of the commonest arguments for civil toleration (the termination of political persecution) is that this is unnecessary for political stability and often counter-productive. It is only in the case of racial toleration that the disapproval factor itself is consistently subjected to vigorous attack. But even here, there are agents who openly display their disapproval, while denying that certain types of negative practice commonly associated with that disapproval, do in fact flow from it, in the sense of being required by it. (The 1898 Plessey-Ferguson ‘separate but equal’ decision of the United States Supreme Court was regarded as an advance upon slavery. South Africa’s policy of apartheid was officially regarded as an advance in tolerance over the previous policy of simple baashp. Even today, many South African ‘liberals’ who accept the policy of apartheid will argue against what they describe as ‘petty’ apartheid, which they regard as excessive in not being required by the basic policy.)

Thus, in investigating historically significant cases of intolerance, which engender doctrines of toleration, we must always keep in mind two central questions: I) what is the most appropriate means of acting out the disapproval registered? 2) is the disapproval itself really legitimate? If we ask question I ) we may often find that intolerance can be limited not by overthrowing the disapproval it reflects, but by excising certain consequences which are not genuinely required by the disapproval. If we ask question z ) we go further, possibly towards the overthrow of the disapproval, which would take us beyond tolerance and towards indifference or favouritism or

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ove. Thus the central feattire of any stu4 of toleration cannot be mere tolerance, but intolerance. Toleration, considered as a response to intolerance may range from an appeal to mere tolerance to a demand for love.

We have noted that the objects of tolerance and intolerance are acts, ideas, organizations and identities, but that those acting, thinking, organized and identified are always persons. It may well be that in historically significant cases of intolerance there is a tendency towards the reduction of one’s perception of persons to some act, idea, organization or identity which is disapproved, or - which is the same thing - a tendency towards the expansion of an item objected to to the point where it becomes an equivalence for a person or group of persons. If one objects to theft, and catches a person at it, then he may become transmogrified into a thief, not simply in respect of something he has done, but as such; as theft is bad, thieves become evil, and may be treated accordingly, as by subsequently refusing them any form of decent employment, detaining them indefinitely, chopping off their hands or hanging them. This reductionism in regard to the person, expansionism in regard to the item disapproved, may be the ground of the excess, of the disproportion, that charac- terizes the significant intolerances.

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Documents

The Problem of Tolerance