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The distorted toleration, or on the wrong use of toleration

Written by Philipe Bénéton

orrectly understood, toleration means respect for people, but not satisfaction with mistake or fault. Nowadays it often takes a different meaning. The dominant discourse on toleration speaks a double language: 1) "people live in the way they want", 2) "this is the way you have to live". About the first aspect (the reduction of truth to opinion) three arguments are developed by the author: a) the dominant meaning of toleration falls into relativism; b) this kind of relativism encloses people into themselves; c) so understood, toleration gives no sense to liberty. With regard to the second aspect (the unequal equality of opinions) the paper focuses on two main ideas: a) radical toleration or freedom destroy at the end themselves; b) in fact, a "double standard" is involved in the spirit of our days, on the one hand it affirms a total freedom, the equality of every opinion; on the other, it sets new rules, it says which opinions are better. The great success of the late modernity has been making toleration a way of conformity. Philipe Bénéton Key words: Toleration, Opinion and truth, Relativism, Late modernity. Buy