Let’s hope, DC, that Islamic Judeophobia (with all its attendant other phobias) does not make room yet again for more traditional Catholic antisemitism (with which Spain is historically well acquainted), which seems to be likely, what with the Pope’s trying to reverse Vatican II … The future does not seem to offer reasonably reassuring alternatives. Replacing one type of intolerance for another is hardly the answer to the current malaise.
I am not sure what Sam means by the need for “less tolerance”. The other day I saw on Larry King an interview with some actor (who had been caught delivering a homophobic slur against a fellow actor and fired from his job as a result) who complained that we have become an intolerant society!
Here is what Judea Pearl says about multiculturalism and tolerance:
“This is a political version of a famous paradox formulated by Bertrand Russell in 1901, which shook the logical foundations of mathematics. Any person who claims to be tolerant naturally defines himself in opposition to those who are intolerant. But that makes him intolerant of certain people–which invalidates his claim to be tolerant.
The political lesson of Russell’s paradox is that there is no such thing as unqualified tolerance. Ultimately, one must be able to expound intolerance of certain groups or ideologies without surrendering the moral high ground normally linked to tolerance and inclusivity. One should, in fact, condemn and resist political doctrines that advocate the murder of innocents, that undermine the basic norms of civilization, or that seek to make pluralism impossible. There can be no moral equivalence between those who seek–however clumsily–to build a more liberal, tolerant world and those who advocate the annihilation of other faiths, cultures, or states.”
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/2007/07/judea_pearl_on_a_mighty_heart/
I want to see less toleration of antisemites, racists of any type, homophobes and sexist systems of thinking.
