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The bigotry of “tolerance”
A lifelong Jewish Republican complains about Socially acceptable bigotry: A primer in discrimination against us GOPers. Meanwhile, an exhibition of anti-Catholic “art” at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton draws comment from NRO on the theme of They call it art: The last acceptable prejudice. The pieces are more interesting for their facts than their analysis. The authors, respectable mainstream types, accept the post-60s liberal demand that all religious and moral commitments get equal respect. However, it is that very demand that leads inevitably to the Leftist double standards of which the authors complain, and that dominate so much of our national life. As a moral ultimate, tolerance of all basic commitments cannot in the nature of things apply to commitments — like Catholicism or the outlook of most Republicans — that don’t take post-60s liberal tolerance as part of their self-definition. The “equal respect” that liberals demand cannot equally respect its own denial. Anti-Catholic and anti-Republican animus is thus coded into moral standards that mainstream critics of such things themselves accept. Of necessity, all social
movements involve prejudgements, discriminations, and oppositions. It
follows that a movement that demands the abolition of prejudice,
discrimination and hatred can only reintroduce those things in new
forms that it refuses to recognize, because to do so would be to destroy its reason for being. What we end up with is the utterly incoherent left/liberal
outlook currently dominant throughout the West. It’s not a sufficient
response to that outlook to ask that it be applied consistently. A
principled alternative that explicitly recognizes the possibility of publicly binding substantive moral truth must be offered.
Comments
Mr. Kalb has identified the mortal weak spot of liberalism. Societies do not generally tolerate the things that are grossly incompatible with their own existence. The same is true for liberal society. Therefore liberal tolerance cannot literally be tolerant of everything, but will be intolerant of anti-liberal things. For example, it will be tolerant of radical Muslims and terror supporters, since they are a minority, and strengthening minorities helps advance the leftist attack on the dominant majority culture; but it will be intolerant of traditional morality, because traditional morality rejects liberal non-judgmentalness and tolerance. Any society must of necessity exclude some things and welcome others, i.e., it must have a double standard. It’s only in liberal society that this double standard becomes hypocritical and tyrannical, because only liberal society makes tolerance as such its ruling principle. Therefore, as Mr. Kalb said, the solution for traditionalists is not to keep endlessly complaining about the liberal double standard, but to invoke an alternative form of society, in which the distinction between what is tolerated and what is not tolerated will be based on a consistent (and accountable) principle rather than on a hypocritical (and unaccountable) double standard. I gave such an example in my article, “Liberalism: The Real Cause of Today’s Anti-Semitism.” In a society guided by traditional American morality, radical Muslims and terror supporters would not be tolerated. Such a traditional society would not claim to be totally tolerant, as liberal society falsely claims to be; but it would draw a line against various evils that liberalism cannot stop. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5423 Posted by: Lawrence Auster on June 2, 2003 12:06 PMIt seems some of Mr. Auster’s and Mr. Kalb’s core ideas are it would be in a society’s best interest if the society (1) stipulated there is good and there is evil and (2) discriminated against evil. It is useful not to confuse the ideas with questions about what is good or what is evil or about what present or past culture contains the greatest amount of good. Perhaps once these core ideas sink in, much of what Mr. Auster and Mr. Kalb have been saying will be more clear. Besides the article and the comments above, the article (especially the last paragraph) by Mr. Auster at FrontPage is helpful. Posted by: P Murgos on June 2, 2003 10:50 PMI have heard before this phrase about “anti-Catholicism,” (a term that is often as meaninful as “racism,”) being the last acceptable bigotry. I would not of course defend bigotry against Catholics that is simple bigotry. But as far as the Roman Catholic Church itself, as an institution, I would neither let mere ignorant hatred cloud the fact that it has much to answer for. I say this as the descendent of a Huguenot martyr. His surviving son Isaac, my ancestor and the first American immigrant of my line, saw his entire family, father, mother, 3 sisters, and 3 brothers, murdered by Roman Catholics in France following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. That Edict had provided for religious freedom, and stands as a milestone in the advance of Western Civilization. It was of course bitterly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, which was not friendly to the concept of religious liberty — largely a Protestant construct as we know it today. After the Revocation, our pastors were ordered to leave the country within 10 days, we were ordered to turn the education of our children over to Roman Catholic schools, and we could no longer hold public office. And, as a side note, we were murdered en masse. My ancestor Isaac escaped with only the clothes on his back and the family Bible — which he had to _smuggle_ out of the country since being caught with it could mean instant death in this predominantly Roman Catholic country. Thank God he did escape to Bavaria, and from there to England by the invitation extended to the suffering Huguenots by Queen Anne, and then to Pennsylvania, keeping always that Bible at his side until his death. This post may seem somewhat off-topic. But I think it’s important to note that there are genuine reasons to hold the Roman Catholic institution in utter contempt for the blood it still has on its hands. Claiming as it does to be infallible, (oh yes, I know, only in matters of doctrine and morality — as if mass murder isn’t a moral issue,) it cannot be anything less than a colossal fraud, and a counterfeit of the church founded by the Jesus Christ. This should give no comfort to Liberals — other than in the fact that so many Conservatives want to ignore the bloody history of this institution. Nor should it give any comfort to Anti-Semitise, particulary since the Roman Catholic church itself led the way in that outrage for centuries. But those who refuse to remember the carnage caused by this so-called church and hold it accountable, are no better than those who would overlook the crimes of Joseph Stalin. This is not about politics; it’s about truth, and whether our sense of morality really means anything at all. Posted by: Joel on June 9, 2003 12:57 AM |