True Toleration

J. Budziszewski gave a sharply argued and spryly humorous deconstruction of liberalism’s neutralist view of tolerance, arguing that liberal states are confessional states that pretend not to be and that liberalism leads to a disguised dictatorship (a plenary ETS session). He suggested that a confessional state that follows what he called the “classic” or “patristic” notion of toleration, one which makes its own standards and ideals explicit without compelling assent, would be preferable to the duplicitous condition of contemporary political life.

One of the strongest parts of the presentation was his demonstration that the coercive tendencies of liberalism are inherent rather than a result of liberalism’s failures. Using Rawls as his main whipping boy, he argued that, by prohibiting “comprehensive doctrines” from exercising any public role, Rawls has not in fact established toleration but simply privileged comprehensive doctrines that pretend not to be comprehensive doctrines while prohibiting comprehensive doctrines that are open about their commitments.

Toleration requires judgment about good and bad, about what to tolerate when and why. Because liberalism refuses to acknowledge that it is making judgments, it is incapable of making sound judgments, and treats its declarations as if they were not judgments. “Don’t impose your anti-abortionist morality on me,” scream those who are “pro-choice.” But of course, establishing a “pro-choice” policy means choosing to tolerate based on some vision of good and evil. Libieral neutralist toleration is a way of establishing morality in law without having to justify the reasons for the morality in public debate.

The weakest part of the presentation was a brief discussion of postmodernism. While he acknowledged that postmodernism agrees that neutrality is impossible, postmodernism doesn’t really reject neutralist toleration but is a kind of “hyper-liberalism.” That’s fair enough, and true for some kinds of postmodernism. What I found disappointing was his failure to recognize that his own critique of liberalism was very much a postmodern act of unmasking the “grab for power” that lies behind purportedly free institutions. With Simon Blackburn’s summary of postmodernism in mind (see post earlier this week), Budziszewski was making a postmodern point when he insisted on the “burden of judgment,” the need to debate and reason, the recognition that our judgments are always shaped by some preconceptions, the knowledge that the right and the true are not always simply within our grasp.