Toleration
"[1] Random House Dictionary defines tolerance as "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, beliefs, practices, racial or ethnic origins, etc., differ from one's own".
[2] The Merriam-Webster Dictionary associates toleration both with "putting up with" something undesirable, and with neglect or failure to prevent or alleviate it.
[7]: xiii Toleration assumes a conflict over something important that cannot be resolved through normal negotiation without resorting to war or violence.
[citation needed] As political lecturer Catriona McKinnon explains, when it comes to questions like what is "the best way to live, the right things to think, the ideal political society, or the true road to salvation, no amount of negotiation and bargaining will bring them to an agreement without at least one party relinquishing the commitments that created the conflict in the first place.
"[8]: 6 "The urgency and relevance of this issue is only too obvious: without tolerance, communities that value diversity,[9] equality, and peace could not persist.
Toleration has evolved into a guiding principle, finding contemporary relevance in politics, society, religion, and ethnicity.
[12] For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), adopted by the National Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution, states in Article 10: "No-one shall be interfered with for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their practice does not disturb public order as established by the law."
Not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.
", French historian and philosopher Ernest Renan proposed a definition of nationhood based on "a spiritual principle" involving shared memories rather than a common religious, racial, or linguistic heritage.
Michael Walzer notes that the British in India tolerated the Hindu practice of suttee (ritual burning of a widow) until 1829.
It is found, for example, in the writings of American philosophers John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Ronald Dworkin, Brian Barry, and a Canadian, Will Kymlicka, among others.
[25] John Rawls' "theory of 'political liberalism' conceives of toleration as a pragmatic response to the fact of diversity".
[citation needed] Several philosophers, such as Michael Walzer, Karl Popper,[27] and John Rawls,[28] have discussed the paradox of tolerating intolerance.
