RYSZARD LEGUTKO
621
sympathetic openness or postmodern anti-foundationalism, one should
not identifY oneself without simultaneously adding a list of qualifications
to dispel any suspicion of harboring an exclusive or closed character. For
instance, a truly tolerant Christian would be bound to affirm: "Yes, I am
Christian, but I am nevertheless sympathetically open to an artist who
puts the Crucifix in urine."
Can we - one must ask - live with those two prohibitions? I think
the answer is, "No." One cannot be, for example, a Catholic and not feel
outrage at a view of the Crucifix in urine. I see, however, one possible
way for both prohibitions to be accepted. One would have to develop a
certain frame of mind, or even a certain worldview, detached from any
traditional hierarchical points of view such as Judaism, Islam,
Protestantism, Catholicism, nationalism, conservatism, socialism, and so
on. To put it briefly, one would have
to
become a
homo liberalis,
whose
first and foremost loyalty in public as well as in private is to the order of
diversity, not to anyone particular creed; someone who strongly believes
in the equality of cultures, moralities, ideals, usually because he feels they
are authentic expressions of human existence; someone who compensates
for the lack of hierarchy (that is, egalitarianism) by resolutely and vehe–
mently opposing all forms of hierarchical outlooks, defined as
"fanaticism"; someone who compensates for the indefiniteness of his
creed by espousing different causes at different times (those that are cur–
rently fashionable, as his adversaries would not hesitate to remark). One
day he will defend AIDS victims; another day he will speak against the
oppression of women in Muslim countries; another day he will sign a
petition against the anti-abortion law in Ireland.
Homo liberalis
constitutes a distinct conception of humanness, and as
with every such conception, good and bad things can be said about it.
Whether it is preferable to other conceptions of the human person is here
beside the point. What is important is that
homo liberalis
is the only em–
bodiment of humanity that can satisfY the requirements of and conditions
for toleration (understood as sympathetic openness), as the particular con–
ception of man advocated by the postmodern version. This is the major
and, I would say, irredeemable weakness of sympathetic openness and
postmodernism. The principle merit of toleration in the original sense was
that a Protestant was not compelled to renounce his Protestantism, and a
Jew was not compelled to renounce his Jewishness. It appears now that to
earn the honor of being counted among the tolerant we must all become
homines liberales
and substantially transform our worldviews. Moreover, we
must do so not because those worldviews have been proven false but be–
cause they are believed to be socially and politically offensive. In short,
toleration entails a program of profound social re-education. Of course,
