Along with its sibling “diversity,” “tolerance” has achieved the status of being our culture’s reigning virtue. Given its omnipresence, it is incumbent upon us to be morally serious about its definition and character when applied in the public sphere. The current cultural climate, however, militates against this—a climate in which at times grotesquely distorted forms of “diversity” are being mandated by government, education, as well as business, as in, the key sectors of American society.
Tolerance originally denoted a policy of forbearance in the presence of something not acceptable to all. It was foremost a political virtue and, at bottom, demonstrated a government’s readiness to permit a variety of religious beliefs. John Locke argues that government should not enforce a specific religion in his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and Two Treatises of Government (1689).
Removed from its religio-political context and understanding, however, tolerance ceases to be a virtue. Indeed, it becomes a vice if and where it ceases to care for truth, ignores what is good, and disdains the values that uphold a community. The culture in which we Americans presently find ourselves is one in which almost everything is tolerated. It is a culture in which people believe nothing, possess no clear concept of right and wrong and, ultimately, are indifferent to this precarious state of affairs. The challenge before us, then, is learning how to purify tolerance so that it remains a virtue, without succumbing to the centripetal forces of relativism in a vacuum of moral chaos.
Tolerance, properly conceived, has private as well as public dimensions. While we may disagree with another’s opinion or lifestyle, we extend, in principle, that person’s “right” to live according to his conscience. Religious and non-religious people of all varieties tolerate one another’s differences because of what they share in common—the laws of nature, an acknowledgement of what is acceptable and unacceptable, and a desire for humans in community to flourish. When, however, someone in the name of “tolerance” is making claims on the public square that lie outside these bounds, we do not tolerate those views. Why? Because those views undermine the common good.
This distinction is by no means owing to Christian or religious insight. Locke himself makes the basic observation—especially important for contemporary Americans—that a great deal of difference can be tolerated provided that it does not endanger social cohesion. Hence, moral honesty requires that we not divorce charity from the moral-social bedrock of truth.
Truth and charity are not mutually exclusive. Charity, rightly perceived, will not sacrifice what is true and real in order to underpin compassion and empathy, while truth will always attempt to clothe itself in ways that dignify fellow human beings.
Tolerance, wielded properly, will insist on the unity of charity and truth. To operate out of a false or perverted sense of “tolerance” is to make the world safe for moral dereliction and criminality. Where “tolerance” and “compassion” are not rooted in moral principle, they end up corrupting both the practitioner and the object. Disengaging tolerance and compassion from truth, in the end, has insidious effects.
Where, then, should responsible citizens draw the moral line as it affects public policy, social norms, and the wider common good? How should “tolerance” be measured? Our answer must be this: We draw the line where private preferences that undermine the communal good demand fealty in the public sphere. Whatever the cost and inconvenience, not only are we as engaged citizens—including religiously-informed citizens—free to contend in the public arena, we are required to do so for the express purposes of preserving social cohesion, the moral order, and the common good.
To recapitulate: Tolerance as a political virtue is anchored in a commitment to what is true and good for society, based on natural law assumptions. As a vice, it is indifferent at best and hostile at worst to these realities. Therefore, tolerance properly understood must not—indeed, cannot—be “neutral” toward that which affects society. In its character, true tolerance will avoid the extremes of passivity and narrow-mindedness; the former encourages cowardice in the face of vice, while the latter breaks societal bonds before they even have a chance to form. What we are prepared to tolerate pivots on what is ultimate—in our personal lives and in our society.
And let us be clear: There is something “ultimate” before which every person and every society will bow. There is no escaping the fact that everyone—and every society—has a hierarchy of values. What we tolerate is predicated on this hierarchy. Social consensus is possible when everyone shares a common moral-social capital. Where there is no agreement on morals, consensus is impossible, and anarchy is invited.
It is impossible for a society or its government to avoid “legislating morality.” Someone’s morality will be imposed and, in time, become law. Thus, the public nature of the marketplace (of ideas, goods, and social norms) as well as social institutions compels us to work for the common good.
The hard truth is that a society cannot function well, cannot protect the innocent, and indeed cannot survive without a measure of “intolerance.” A society that cannot discern evil from good—and name it—is a society that stands before collapse.
Everyone has claims on the public square, especially Christians, who share their convictions with the founders and framers of the “American experiment.” These men believed that the public square is in fact “public,” and therefore needs the influence of religion to reinforce moral principles. It is not, however, a “given” today that all views will be tolerated in the public sphere. Can claims to normative truth and ultimate reality —claims that offend ancient, modern, and ultra-modern sensibilities alike—still be made? To deny that there is an objective moral reality to which our social and political life must align is to prepare the way for totalitarianism.
J. Daryl Charles serves as a 2024/2025 visiting Elshtain Fellow at the Institute on Religion and Democracy and is a contributing editor at Touchstone and Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy.
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