More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
"plausibility structure." As far as I know, the expression "plausibility structure" was coined by sociologist Peter L. Berger.' He uses it to refer to structures of thought widely and almost unquestioningly accepted throughout a particular culture.
By contrast, in a highly diverse culture like what dominates many nations in the Western world, the plausibility structures are necessarily more restricted, for the very good reason
that there are fewer stances held in common.2 The plausibility structures that do remain, however, tend to be held with extra tenacity, almost as if people recognize that without such structures the culture will be in danger of flying apart.
the sad reality is that this new, contemporary tolerance is intrinsically intolerant. It is blind to its own shortcomings because it erroneously thinks it holds the moral high ground;
How different is that than any other plausibility structure?
"1. ACCEPTANCE OF DIFFERENT VIEWS the accepting of the differing views of other people, e.g., in religious or political matters, and fairness toward the people who hold these different views."
the addition of religion? perhaps a restriction on relgion.
This shift from "accepting the existence of different views" to "acceptance of different views," from recognizing other people's right to have different beliefs or practices to accepting the differingviews of other people, is subtle in form, but massive in substance.3 To
The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another's position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own. We move from allowing the free expression of contrary opinions to the acceptance of all opinions; we leap from permitting the articulation of beliefs and claims with which we do not
agree to asserting that all beliefs an...
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"You Christians are so intolerant," someone asserts: does this mean that Christians wish all positions contrary to their own were extirpated, or that Christians insist thatJesus is the onlyway to God? The former is patently untrue; the latter is certainly true (at least, if Christians are trying to be faithful to the Bible): Christians do think that Jesus is the only way to God. But does that make them intolerant? In the former sense of "intolerant," not at all; the fact remains, however, that any sort of exclusive truth claim is widely viewed as a sign of gross intolerance. But the latter
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In that case, it is affirming that Christians gladly fight for the equal standing before the law of all religious minorities.4 Of course,
from a Christian perspective, this is a temporary arrangement that lasts only until Christ returns.
Christ is the exclusive one! And I follow him!
but social tolerance: that is, in a multicultural society, people of different religions should mix together without slights and condescension, for all people have been made in the image of God and all will give an account to him on the last day.
Lessing's parable resonated with his eighteenth-century Enlightenment readers. The three great monotheistic religions were so similar that each group should happily go on thinking that their religion was the true one, and focus on lives of virtue and goodness, free of nasty dogmatism, the dogmatism that was blamed for the bloody wars of the previous century. What was called for, in other words, was religious tolerance. There is no harm in believing that your monotheistic religion is best, provided you live a good
good way to illustrate the secular eviceration of religion
wisdom had fallen into the darkness of this transitory world; each faith believed that it alone had found the pearl. Yet all he could claim - and all the caliph could say in response - was that some faiths thought they had enough evidence to prove that they were indeed holding the real pearl, but the final truth would not be known in this world.12
One can think that something or other is true, and argue the case, but if one cannot prove that this something is true in a manner that conforms to the verification standards of public science, the wisest stance is benign tolerance.
By contrast, the new tolerance argues that there is no one view that is exclusively true. Strong opinions are nothing more than strong preferences for a particular version of reality, each version equally true.
We must be tolerant, not because we cannot distinguish the right path from the wrong path, but because all paths are equally right.
New Tolerance
Intolerance is no longer a refusal to allow contrary opinions to say their piece in public, but must be understood to be any questioning or contradicting the view that all opinions are equal in value, that all worldviews have equal worth, that all stances are equallyvalid. To question such postmodern axioms is by definition intolerant.13 For such questioning there is no tolerance whatsoever, for it is classed as intolerance and must therefore be condemned. It has become the supreme vice.
"The definition of the new tolerance is that every individual's beliefs, values, lifestyle, and perception of truth claims are equal.... There is no hierarchy of truth. Your beliefs and my beliefs
are equal, and all truth is relative."15 If, however, the new tolerance evaluates all values and beliefs as positions worthy of respect, one may reasonably ask if this includes Nazism, Stalinism, and child sacrifice - or, for that matter, the respective stances of the Ku Klux Klan and other assorted ethnic supremacist groups.
Excellent note on the flaws of new tolerance
In the past, PC [= political correctness] generally centered on issues that were quite substantive. The Victorians were prudish about sex because they were enthusiastic about bourgeois morality. In the fifties, many Americans were intolerant of any notion that seemed remotely "pink" (socialistic) because they assumed communism to be a major threat to their economic and political freedom. Today's PC, however, is intolerant not of substance but of intolerance itself. Thus, although the politically correct world would have a great deal of difficulty agreeing on what constitutes goodness and
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I've not thought enough about the purposes of political correctness in history before.
Advocates of the old tolerance rarely charge their opponents with intolerance (although that is exactly what this book is doing!); rather, their epithets are shaped by their perception of the evil that cannot be tolcrated
(so defenders of euthanasia are committing murder, suicide bombers are terrorists, and so forth).
The fact
Yes, what is the EVIL of intolerance?
A defeater belief is a belief that defeats other beliefs - i.e., if you hold a defeater belief to be true (whether it is true or not is irrelevant), you cannot possibly hold certain other beliefs to be true: the defeater belief rules certain other beliefs out of court and thus defeats them. For instance, if you believe that there is no one way to salvation and that those who think there is only one way to salvation are ignorant and intolerant, then voices that insist Islam is the only way, or that Jesus is the only way, will not be credible to you: you will dismiss their beliefs as ignorant
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Defeater belief --> a good term to remember
Advocates of the new tolerance are inclined to look down on the assorted cultures of the Middle East, holding that if the people in that region were all as "tolerant" as the advocates of the new tolerance themselves, peace would reign triumphant. Meanwhile many citizens of the Middle East view the advocates of the new tolerance as effete people who hold nothing precious but material possessions, who cannot think deeply about right and wrong, about truth and error, let alone about God. Too few on both sides ponder how one might build a culture in which people may strongly disagree with one
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Such a good description of secular, elitist intellectualism
