Tolerance - Basis for Democratic Interaction

by Florian Wenzel

”Generally I am quite tolerant.” ”You can’t just tolerate everything.” ”You have to tolerate that!” Expressions we often hear - but what is this thing called ‘tolerance’? Is it a moral stance? Is there a certain level of it which we should achieve? Is it the necessary glue for pluralist societies? Is it a weapon in a fight against racism and exclusion? Or is it maybe just a smoothing over and denial of the difference and otherness we witness in the encounter between different cultures and religions?

The concept of tolerance presented here clarifies the theoretical background of the issue and is useable as a practical tool for courses in civic education. It is based on a paper which has been mainly worked out by Eva Feldmann, Thomas R. Henschel and Susanne Ulrich. Tolerance is there being understood as ”a maxim for the individual and ethically motivated decision to either endure a conflict or settle it by peaceful means based on the conviction that the other parties to the conflict enjoy principally the same rights”. This means that if we want to talk about tolerance, we have to talk about conflicts.

A conflict is being understood as ”a mutual negation, expressing rejection of the values and norms of the other person”. Without an underlying conflict there might be a laisser-faire attitude or charitable behavior, but the question of tolerance does not arise at all.

Motivations for acting tolerantly

Another central point is the question of one’s motivation for acting in any given case of conflict. Different motivations play a crucial role in differentiating the notion of conflict from other ideas. Therefore the notion of ‘seeming tolerance’ was introduced in order to distinguish it from tolerance by its inner risk-benefit analysis that does not really acknowledge the freedom of the other person.

An example for ‘seeming tolerance’ would be, for instance, if someone working inside a hierarchy where addressing a conflict with one’s boss might not be opportune would rather endure it than lose his/her job and endanger the financial security of the family. This means that the difference between tolerance and seeming tolerance is not visible from the outside but has to do with inner motivation. The boss will not know whether there is tolerance or seeming tolerance at work.

A further crucial feature of this concept has to be highlighted: ”Tolerance defined like this is not quantifiable. Individuals either orientate themselves along the maxim, or they do not take it as a yardstick for their actions”. This implies that there is no such thing as a little bit of tolerance, degrees or levels of tolerance one should achieve. But the exposition does not claim any moral high ground either. It rather provides the individual with a clarification of the options s/he has in cases of conflict.

The individual can think about possible consequences which acting in a certain way will have and discover more and less dangerous routes to travel – in the concept these are represented in the form of traffic lights – but there is no moral value linked to them.

Democratic Interaction

The basic assumption guiding the underlying theory is that there is no common reality we could explore and commonly agree upon. We construct reality through interpretation patterns which function like different pairs of lenses leading to different perspectives.

A prerequisite for orientation along the tolerance maxim is the ability to change these perspectives: ”This means, on the one hand, to be able to see the world through the eyes of another person, on the other hand, the capability to see one and the same issue from different angles.” The different interpretations of others are to be accepted in ”a relaxed and productive way” and are equally valid.

Thus the essence of the definition, the ”acknowledgment of the equal right to develop one’s abilities to the full” guarantees each single person a maximum of freedom and recognition of individual needs.

Tolerance therefore becomes a basis for the necessary pluralism of democratic societies and is the key-word for dealing with diversity. Since there is no stable source of truth, dealing with conflicts means democratically interacting in a non-violent way and coming to common agreements that everybody can live with.

Dealing with conflicts

The concept has been utilized in a number of courses on education for democracy and tolerance on the German as well as the international level. It allows participants to see democracy as something that begins prior to the institutional arrangements of the modern state and becomes vital for dealing with conflicts on an everyday basis.

Index: Podium

Tolerance - Basis for Democratic Interaction
by Florian Wenzel

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