WHY TOLERANCE CANNOT BE OUR PRINCIPAL VALUE

Abstract

In an essay from 1997 the German philosopher RUdiger Bubner wrote about the 'dialectic of tolerance' .1 In choosing this expression (Dialektik der Toleranz) Bubner wanted to highlight a remarkable change (Umschlag) in the conceptualisation of present day tolerance effected in the 1990s. While at the inception of the modem era with the Edict of Nantes (1598) tolerance referred to respect for the freedom of conscience of heterodox confessions and also, already more difficult, the toleration of deviant (religious) behaviour, today, so Bubner has noted, tolerance has been promoted to a fundamental norm (Grundnorm), and to a keystone in state building (Baustoff von Staaten) one to which a pacifying effect is attributed which even contributes to a world society.2 In other words, tolerance has moved up from the margins to become a central political category. In this contribution I will first give an overview of the birth of modem tolerance, partly in line with Bubner and including the remarkable development pointed out by him concerning its re-evaluation (1). This development has not only occurred in the countries he uses -as examples, the US and Germany, but also in The Netherlands, perhaps more so than elsewhere. (IT) However, I hope to show that we are experiencing a surprising and alarming change in the concept of tolerance, perhaps in part as a reaction against this re-evaluation: tolerance has become a polemical category and the earlier pacifying intention is changed to one that marks boundaries and even one that justifies repression and aggression in its name. Some of our politicians and intellectuals openly promote intolerance as a contribution to civilisation and as a project in order to establish a future culture ... of tolerance. This begs the question as to what