Tolerance and the Intolerable, The Cris of a Concept by Andrei Plesu Ladies and gentlemen, A few months ago at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, I heard an Indian jurist’s lecture on ‘human rights. The speaker had been a professor at an important European university for years, 0 he could not be suspected of narrow local patriotism or provinciality. But he approached the theme of human rights from the viewpoint of Hindu tradition. Overall, his interest was in 1g the concept of “rights” to that of “obligations”, as well as in defining dharma, a concept alien to the conventions of European culture. Dharma is the universal law of Being, the functional basis of the world. In this context, individual duty is not decided by the demands of others, of itutions, or of immanent laws, but on the basis of dharma, of a cosmic order in which every existence must take part if tis not to invalidate itself While listeni cone organized by the Arab coun 1g to the lecture, I remembered an earlier colloquium on the same theme, this The colloquium ended with the assertion of the principle that one cannot speak of human rights without constantly invoking “the rights of Allah”. It is clear that the problematic of human rights presented itself in the Indian and Islamic viewpoints differently from in the European perspective, which doubtless led to severe problems in communication, Discussions were supposed to follow the lecture at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, as usual. For those who are unfamiliar with this Berlin institution, 1 would like to mention that, “the audience” consists of a team of about thirty scholars from all over the world. But dominating is the European viewpoint, with everything that implies in historical, cultural, methodological, and other preconditions. But there was practically no discussion after the lecture, which is not normally the case in this academic community. Those present in the lecture hall were clearly taken by surprise. They were familiar with what we could call the “vulgate” of human rights, but they knew Tittle or nothing about other civilizations and cultures, What they had just learned from the Indian professor did not fit their usual concept at all. Those present had other and different opinions born out of a philosophy in which ‘metaphysics in the traditional sense and theology no longer have any weight. But their natural impulse to discuss the problem was hindered and embarrassed by several principles that inrecent decades have come to be viewed as inviolable: respect for and the right to difference, and tolerance toward other people's opinions. ‘The thoughts that now follow originate in my desire to understand this blockade of dialogue and to draw attention to the cr of a concept — tolerance. Tolerance has become a ‘commonplace of “civilized” behavior and, like every commonplace, has achieved a blind, shapeless validity. ‘An initial remark on the unusual situation at the Wissenschafiskolleg zu Berlin is that we live in a world of globalization in which spatial and cultural distances are palpably shrinking, but that this does not rule out ignorance about the intellectual and social foundations of the other; oon the contrary, it increases the irrational aspect of this ignorance. One can reach Bangkok relatively quickly, one can maintain political or trade relations with Bangkok, and one can do all of this without epistemologically leaving the picturesque scenery of the tourist's level. A relationship of inverse proportion paradoxically arises between globalization and “general education”. The easier it is to encounter each other, the less we know each other. ‘A second remark is that ignorance does not preclude cordiality. One can have good relations someone about whose cultural background one knows nothing. At first glance, this seems a gain for civilization: communication is possible even in the absence of knowledge. But can one speak of genuine communication under such conditions? Or is this simply a question of etiquette, with a pleasant surface choreography? Basically, we are experiencing a substantial change in the meaning of the concept of “tolerance”. It no longer characterizes the acceptance of “being different” or of a different opinion, but quite simply the (friendly and well-meaning) ignoring of the other opinion, the elimination of difference as difference. The results of this are (A) I need not understand you to accept you, and (B) ] need not discuss with you in order to tell you are right, In other words, I agree with what I don’t understand, and 1 agree in principle with what I don’t agree with. You have a right to your opinion, T respect your opinion. I have a right to my opinion and expect that it be respected. Dialectic is unnecessary. This mutual tolerance ends in a universal, peaceful, confidently smiling silence. A silence for wl h dialogue is only an undesirable disturbance. Under these conditions, the effects of tolerance are more than questionable, It curtails the pleasure in knowledge and in genuine understanding of being different, and it undermines the desire for a debate. Why bother, when the result consists in mutual affirmation of each other's right anyway? In a world governed by such rules, Socrates would have been unemployed.There is no truth to be found, and no chain of proof is needed. All that is asked of us is that we politely respect our interlocutor’s convictions, This unquestioned call for tolerance puts into question several categories that were still operational until yesterday: error, guilt, the relationship to the exception, the principles of education, the technique of disputation, and, in general, the risky problematic of the unacceptable and the intolerable. Tolerance is transformed from a pure necessity for living together well (“Lapanage de l’humanité”, the prerogative of humaneness, says Voltaire. “To forbear each other's foolishnesses is the first law of nature.”) into a neutral disposition, a kind of logical and axiological anesthesia, a symptom of a cheerful inner paralysis. Being tolerant seems to mean eschewing one's sense of orientation, Please don’t judge and condemn my worry prematurely. I’m not calling for intolerance and the cruelty of the geometrical spirit. T do not want to re-establish black-and-white judgments, nor the normative sclerosis of dichotomies and the unrealistic monotony of “cither/or”, All I want to do is point out thet there is an urgent necessity to add discriminatory faculty to tolerance, to avoid confounding respect for difference with the dissolving ethic of “anything goes”. ‘Agreement is general that the modern debate on tolerance begins with John Locke at the end of the 17th century. But in reality, a concept is probably already in cris becomes a topic of controversy and one feels a need for its theoretical justification and its explicit public assertion (see also the contemporary overuse of the “European” problematic...) Against the backdrop of barbaric conflicts between the various religious denominations and factions, which were incapable of living together, Locke suggested a philosophical justification of tolerance. In this context, tolerance was an antidote to the practice of persecution. Nor should wwe forget that tolerance, in the European sense, originally prevailed in its strictly religious connotations. Lxtrapolating it to other fields is a difficult cadeavor requiring muanves and reformulation. (In this sense, incidentally, John Locke, the theoretician of tolerance and an outstanding proponent of the separation between civil and religious life, is not “modern” enough to accept a tolerance toward atheists; their lack of spiritual engagement made them seem antisocial beings to him.) But there is a self-evident component of tolerance that is part of the behavioral heritage of the human species and therefore did not have to wait until the beginnings of the modern age to find expression. I refer primarily to tolerance toward oneself, which I think has an ancient tradition, Man has probably behaved in a “Christian” manner toward himself since tong before the appearance of Christianity. We know our own sins all too well, we know unutterable and unconfessable things about ourselves, and we often do not approve of what