The fragility of democracy

Modern Age, Spring, 2006 by Jude P. Dougherty

In fact, the promotion of tolerance as a virtue is often self-serving or indicative of a political agenda. Tolerance is not mentioned as a virtue by Aristotle or by the Stoics. Nor does Aquinas speak of tolerance as a virtue. To the contrary, Roget's venerable English Language Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms gives as synonyms for tolerance: leniency, clemency, indulgence, laxity, sufferance, concession, and permissiveness, terms generally regarded as designating questionable behavior. When tolerance is advocated in contemporary political discourse, it is usually religious tolerance that the speaker has in mind, and the admonition is usually singularly directed; it is the Christian who is asked to be tolerant. Religious tolerance, though not confined to Christianity, seems to have a particular appeal to the Christian conscience, perhaps for reasons intrinsic to Christianity itself.

The classical and Christian sources of Western civilization, although under attack for the past 200 years, still remain the unacknowledged basis of Western culture. Appeals for tolerance may resonate within that culture, if within no other. Unfortunately, respect for intellect, for the rule of law, and for the rational foundation of religious faith is not characteristic of all who would have their views tolerated. If the classical and biblical roots of Western culture are not respected by the immigrant who seeks shelter within the West, and if, furthermore, those sources are ignored in the common schools, can the freedoms grounded in their unacknowledged source long survive? The answer seems obvious. The call for a tolerance that ignores or abuses those foundations is inconsistent and self-destructive of its own warrant. It remains to be seen whether the West is able to defend its intellectual and cultural patrimony while yet accommodating the other.

Throughout history, political entities have recognized the need for unity of outlook among their peoples. (15) At times in classical Greece and Rome, atheism could be punished by death. Modern socialist regimes, wherever they come to power, recognizing the influence of ideas, work to suppress religious education, if not religion itself. Within the Western democracies, practical accommodation is one thing, but a nonjudgmental, nondiscriminating acceptance is another. How tolerant can a society be and yet maintain itself in existence? Of course, where nothing is prized, everything can be tolerated.

Acceptance of the principle of tolerance necessarily leads even its defenders to the question of limits and leaves open the question of what should and should not be tolerated. It would be foolish, in the name of toleration, to ignore differences due to greater or lesser natural abilities, habitual patterns of good and evil, prudence and imprudence, and law-abiding and criminal actions. Toleration often turns out to be what those of a liberal perspective think ought to be and ought not to be tolerated. Since policy built upon a liberal concept of tolerance is often at variance with common sense and the desires of the great majority, it can only be implemented through some form of coercion.