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PARTISAN REVIEW
such a program may be a good thing in itself or may lead to beneficial
results , but why call it toleration? A society which consists of
homines /ib–
erales
may be more tolerant than any of the actually existing societies. This
does not mean, however, that it is better than those societies; or that it in
the end is worth pursuing at all cost; or that the means which lead to such
an end are those of tolerance.
Positive tolerationists ignore the role of strong identities and of strong
thought in the functioning of social order. Like Mill, they think that sta–
ble identities and stable thought are enemies of freedom. Sometimes - it
would be hard to deny - they undoubtedly are. On the other hand , how–
ever, they give us a sense of security and self-assuredness which are neces–
sary ingredients of responsible and predictable social behavior. There is
certainly some correlation between self-confidence, deriving from an
awareness of the opportunity to rely on norms believed to be stable and
valid, and civility, with which one may approach other points of view.
Similarly, rootlessness, instability, and identity crises often jeopardize the
harmony of political coexistence of groups and individuals. The most
dangerous form of nationalism, for example, xenophobic and intolerant
(in the original sense), is the one that feeds itself on self-doubt and confu–
sion. For this reason, well-integrated communities, just as well-integrated
individuals, are better partners of coexistence than those whose sense of
integration has been weakened. Temporary stability founded on such
weakness may very well collapse under the pressure of untamed longings,
first thwarted and then reborn, for distinct collective identities and for
strong philosophies that would give them a relatively durable legitimacy.
Strong identities and strong thought should not be put in radical op–
position to toleration for another reason. The category of toleration was
conceived precisely for handling the problems that arise out of the clash of
strong identities and strong
Weltarlschauungen.
Toleration was not a solu–
tion to these problems but a way of life where no such solution - on a
theoretical as well as on a structural level - seemed at hand . With the
abolition of strong identities and strong thought toleration ceases to be
necessary, because it is asserted that the original problem it was proposed
to cope with no longer exists.
If
we agree with such enthusiasts of the
postmodern weakening such as Zygmut Bauman, who claims that in our
times "the universal existential mode" is "the experience of estrange–
ment" and that rootlessness and strangeness have become universal to the
point of dissolution ("if everyone is a stranger, no one is"), then the ques–
tion of toleration becomes immaterial. What can intolerance consist of, if
we are all not only rootless, homeless, estranged but also satisfied with our
new existential condition, having lost the illusions of traditional meta–
physics? Where in the new world of thin, provisional, easily changeable
