Tolerance,
Intolerance, the Paradox and indifference
Intolerance is a 1916 epic silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Subtitles include Love's Struggle Throughout the
Ages and A Sun-Play of the Ages.[2][3]
Widely
regarded as one of the great masterpieces of the silent era, as well as one of the first art films,[3] the three-and-a-half-hour epic intercuts four
parallel storylines, each separated by several centuries:
1) a
contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption,
Each story
had its own distinctive color tint in the original print.[3] The scenes are linked
by shots of a figure representing Eternal Motherhood, rocking a cradle.[3]
Intolerance was made partly in
response to criticism of Griffith's previous film, The Birth of a Nation (1915),[4] which was criticized by the NAACP and other groups as perpetuating racial stereotypes and glorifying the Ku Klux Klan.[5] It was not, as is commonly implied, an apology for
the racism of his earlier film.[6] In numerous interviews, Griffith made clear that the
film's title and overriding themes were meant as a response to those who he
felt had been intolerant of him in condemning The Birth of a Nation.[7] In the years
following its release, Intolerance would strongly influence European
film movements despite its lack of commercial success domestically.
The movie
mentioned above was made in 1916 but it could have been made in our 21the first
century. The common problem of intolerance still exist and show that we are
morally not evolving like some philosophers would like us to believe. The
growth of ‘tolerance for intolerance’ is good example of this. I only have to mention Europe’s reaction to
the refugee crises and the increase of right and extreme right political
leaders.
The heart of the notion tolerance is self-control. What
to me makes it a ethical issue. When we tolerate an activity, we resist our
urge to forcefully prohibit the expression of activities that we find
unpleasant. More abstractly, toleration can be understood as a
political practice aiming at neutrality, objectivity, or fairness on the part
of political agents. These ideas are related in that the goal of political
neutrality is deliberate restraint of the power that political authorities have
to negate the life activities of its citizens and subjects. Related to toleration
is the virtue of tolerance, which can be defined as a tendency toward
toleration. Toleration is usually grounded upon an assumption about the
importance of the autonomy
of individuals. This assumption and the idea of toleration are central ideas in
modern liberal theory and practice. The virtue of toleration is implicit in
Socrates' method of allowing many diverse perspectives to be expressed. In
17the century Europe, the concept of tolerance was developed as liberal
thinkers sought to limit the coercive actions of government and the Church.
They argued that human beings are fallible and should have epistemic modesty.
Further, an individual know his or her interests best and requires tolerance by
others in order to find the best way to live. The following article provides a insight
in moral toleration.
Moral Toleration
We have seen that epistemological concerns can lead us
to toleration. Moral concerns can also bring us to toleration. Tolerance as a
moral virtue might be linked to other moral virtues such as modesty and
self-control. However, the most common moral value that is thought to ground
toleration is a concern for autonomy. We ought to refrain from negating the
other when concern for the other's autonomy provides us with a good reason not
to act. Toleration that follows from a commitment to autonomy should not be
confused with moral relativism. Moral relativism holds that values are relative
to culture or context. A commitment to autonomy, in opposition to this, holds
that autonomy is good in a non-relative sense. A commitment to autonomy might
require that I allow another person to do something that I find abhorrent, not
because I believe that values are relative, but because I believe that autonomy
is so important that it requires me to refrain from negating the autonomous
action of another free agent. Of course, there are limits here. Autonomous
action that violates the autonomy of another cannot be tolerated.
Mill's account of the principle of liberty is helpful
for understanding this idea of toleration. Mill tells us that we should be
given as much liberty as possible, as long as our liberty does not harm others.
This is in fact a recipe for toleration. Mill's argument follows from certain
basic assumptions about individuals.
1. Each individual has a will of his own.
2. Each individual is better off when not compelled to
do better.
3. Each individual knows best what is good for him.
4. Each individual is motivated to attain his own good
and to avoid actions that are contrary to his self-interest.
5. Self-regarding thought and activity can be
distinguished from its effects upon others.
Some of these claims (for example, #3) are linked to
epistemological toleration. However, the point here is not only that
individuals know what is in their own self-interest but also that it is good
for individuals to be able to pursue their own good in their own way. Such an
approach makes several important metaphysical assumptions about the nature of
human being: that autonomy is possible and important, that individuals do know
their own good, that there is a distinction between self-regarding action and
actions that effects others. Moral toleration follows from these sorts of
claims about human being.
The Paradox of Toleration
Of course, toleration and respect for autonomy are not
simple ideas. Much has been made about the so-called "paradox of
toleration": the fact that toleration seems to ask us to tolerate those
things we find intolerable. Toleration does require that we refrain from
enacting the negative consequences of our negative judgments. This becomes
paradoxical when we find ourselves confronting persons, attitudes, or
behaviors, which we vigorously reject: we then must, paradoxically, tolerate that
which we find intolerable. This becomes especially difficult when the other who
is to be tolerated expresses views or activities that are themselves
intolerant. One way of resolving this paradox is to recognize that there is a
distinction between first-order judgments and second-order moral commitments.
First-order judgments include emotional reactions and other practical judgments
that focus on concrete and particular attitudes and behaviors. Second-order
moral commitments include more complicated judgments that aim beyond emotion
and particularity toward rational universal principles. With regard to the
paradox of toleration there is a conflict between a first-order reaction
against something and a second-order commitment to the principle of respecting autonomy
or to the virtues of modesty or self-control. The paradox is resolved by
recognizing that this second-order commitment trumps the first-order reaction:
principle is supposed to outweigh emotion. Thus we might have good reasons
(based upon our second-order commitments) to refrain from following through on
the normal consequences of negative first-order judgments. However, when there
is a genuine conflict of second-order commitments, that is, when the tolerant
commitment to autonomy runs up against an intolerant rejection of autonomy,
then there is no need to tolerate. In other words the paradox is resolved when
we realize that toleration is not a commitment to relativism but, rather, that
it is a commitment to the value of autonomy and to the distinction between
first-order judgments and second-order moral commitments.
Tolerance vs. Indifference
Of course, the ideal of toleration is a difficult one to
enact. This difficulty is related to the tension between first-order reactions
and second-order commitments that is found within the spiritual economy of an
individual. This is why the idea of tolerance as a virtue is important. Virtues
are tendencies or habits toward good action. In the case of the virtue of
tolerance, the tendency is toward respect for the autonomy of others and toward
the self-discipline necessary for deliberately restraining first-order
reactions. Virtues are usually thought to be integrated into a system of
virtues. Tolerance is no exception. The virtue of tolerance is closely related
to other virtues such as self-control, modesty, generosity, kindness, mercy,
and forgiveness. One must be careful, however, not to conclude that the virtue
of tolerance is a tendency toward indifference or apathy. Tolerance demands
that we moderate and control our passions in light of some larger good, whether
that good be respect for autonomy or an interest in self-control; tolerance
does not demand that we completely refrain from judging another free agent.
Moral toleration asks us to restrain some of our most
powerful first-order reactions: negative reactions to persons, attitudes, and
behaviors which we find repugnant. Without the tension between first-order
reactions and second-order commitment, toleration is merely indifference.
Indifference usually indicates a failure at the level of first-order judgment:
when we are indifferent, we do not have any reaction, negative or positive, to
the other. Such a state of indifference is not virtuous. Indeed, it would be
vicious and wrong not to react strongly against injustice or violations of
autonomy.
We often confuse indifference with toleration. However, indifference
is flawed as a human response for two reasons. First, it rejects the truth of
first-order reactions. First-order reactions should not be ignored. Our
emotional responses are important ways in which we connect with the world
around us. When we react negatively to something, this emotional reaction
provides important information about the world and ourselves. Tolerance does
not ask us to deaden our emotional responses to others; rather it asks us to
restrain the negative consequences of our negative emotional responses out of
deference to a more universal set of commitments. Second, indifference is often
closely related to general scepticism about moral judgment. The moral sceptic
claims that no set of values is true. From this perspective, both first-order
reactions and second-order commitments are mere tastes or preferences without
any final moral significance. From this scepticism, indifference with regard to
any moral evaluation is cultivated because all of our moral values are thought
to be equally groundless. The difficulty here is that moral scepticism cannot
lead to the conclusion that it is good to be tolerant, since the sceptic holds
that no moral value can be justified. If we claim that toleration is good and
that tolerance is a virtue, toleration cannot be the same thing as
indifference.
This distinction between tolerance and indifference is
important for explaining the spiritual disruption that occurs when we strive to
become tolerant. Indeed, the difficulty of toleration can be understood in
terms of the difficulty of the middle path between indifference and dogmatism.
Indifference is easy and satisfying because it sets us free, as it were, from
the difficult human task of judging. Likewise, dogmatism is easy and satisfying
because it follows from a seamless synthesis of first-order reaction and
second-order commitment. Toleration is the middle path in which there is a
conflict between first-order reaction and second-order commitment. Toleration
thus requires self-consciousness and self-control in order to coordinate
conflicting parts of the spiritual economy. The discipline required for
toleration is part of any idea of education: we must learn to distance
ourselves from first-order reactions in order to move toward universal
principles. First-order reactions are often wrong or incomplete, as are
immediate sense perceptions. And yet, education does not ask us to give up on
first-order reactions or sense perceptions. Rather, it asks us to be
disciplined and self-critical, so that we might control first-order reactions
in order to uphold more important principles.
References
3
^ Jump up to:
a b c d
e f Dirks, Tim. "Intolerance (1916)". The Best Films of All Time – A Primer of Cinematic History. Retrieved
4 February 2016.
5
Jump up
^ "NAACP: 100 Years of
History". National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP). Retrieved 13 February 2013
6
Rapold, Nicholas (July
26, 2013). "Birth of Another
Spectacle, and Its Life".
The New York Times. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
7
Jump up
^ McEwan, Paul
(2015). The Birth of a Nation (BFI Film Classics). London: BFI/Palgrave
Macmillan. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-84457-657-9.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten