While tolerance is an important ethic in our modern political discourse, no one really believes it has universal application (“everything should be tolerated”). Most people acknowledge some sensible limits need to be in place. If that’s true, what should those limits be?
Two writers from the political left, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, have pointed out that some theorists have been very clear that those “with power” (however defined) in society are less entitled to tolerance than those “without power.” They discuss Marxist philosopher and sociologist Herbert Marcuse’s 1965 essay “Repressive Tolerance” (surely an Orwellian title if there ever was one).
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