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compassionate, open, flexible, well-mannered. In fact, their requirement
is maximalist, and the expected concessions are anything but minor. It is
no trifle that, as postmodernism teaches, we are
to
renounce basic philo–
sophical categories and to throw traditional belief in the essential mean–
ingfulness of the world into the dustbin of history. It is no trifle that, as
pluralist libertarians insist, we are forbidden to discriminate between dif–
ferent ideals and that in case of their conflict we must distribute them
equally.
The deception is that the advocates of positive toleration make
sweeping philosophical statements while at the same time refuse to admit
they are making them. Postmodernism, for example, blurs the distinction,
to use Rorty's phrase, between, democracy and philosophy. One does not
know whether the postmodernists propound a highly controversial
philosophical thesis that objective truth does not exist, or whether they
are arguing that toleration and pluralism require that there
be
no objective
truth. In the first case, the thesis cannot be proven, since the criterion of
truth on which such a proof could be built has been destroyed. In the
second case, the argument becomes irrelevant because toleration is a form
of behavior, not a philosophical hypothesis favoring one model of meta–
physics rather than another. Uneasiness about the antimetaphysical revo–
lution is countered with the assertion of the world's pluralistic nature.
Any defense of some form of hierarchy in social life is met with the idea
of a centerless metaphysics.
The essential trouble with positive toleration (especially in its
"sympathetic openness" version) is that it attempts to combine two atti–
tudes which are extremely difficult
to
reconcile. First, it implies that one
can have one's own point of view; second, that one must accept a world
of diversity where all points of view are equal (except those that are
"fanatical") . Logically, such a combination leads to insoluble conflicts.
The possession of a point of view presupposes a certain hierarchy; certain
ideas and attitudes have been found right and deserving of sympathy; oth–
ers found to be tolerable; still others to be wrong, dangerous and repul–
sive. The supporters of sympathetic openness imply that one is not enti–
tled to such hierarchies. The absence of effective hierarchies implies that
one is forbidden to do two things. First, one is virtually prohibited to
make any negative judgments about other points of view because such
negative evaluations could be considered discriminatory. (In the case of
negative toleration, certain critical evaluations were also discouraged or
prevented but for different reasons: out of hypocrisy, humility, good
manners, intellectual honesty, and so on.) One is forced to respect some–
thing which, contrary to his deepest convictions, he finds distasteful. One
is also prohibited strong self-identification. To be true to the demands of
