what if tolerance is not the antidote to violence, but its ideological accomplice? what if, under the guise of ‘acceptance,’ tolerance actually reinforces the very divisions it claims to dissolve? in a world obsessed with microaggressions, safe spaces, and the performance of openness, could it be that tolerance itself is the velvet curtain draped over a steel cage?
tolerance, that golden calf of liberal democracy, is not merely an ethical stance; it is an ideological structure that shapes our perception of politics. it does not seek to dismantle oppression but to depoliticize it, to replace genuine struggle with the sterile injunction to ‘coexist.’ today’s liberal consensus does not propose radical emancipation but rather a polite agreement to tolerate inequality—provided, of course, that the oppressed know their place and play their assigned role in the multicultural spectacle. tolerance functions not as a solution, but as a symptom of a political order that has abandoned its capacity for radical transformation.
huntington’s disease: the culturalization of politics
in the post-cold war era, political conflict was not resolved—it was reframed. samuel huntington’s infamous ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis did not invent this reframing but merely named it. in his view, ideology and economics were no longer the key battlegrounds; instead, culture became the fundamental arena of struggle. this was not a neutral observation but an ideological operation: class struggle was erased, economic domination was sidelined, and the world was divided into immutable cultural blocs.
this is the great trick of the modern liberal order: it translates the political into the cultural, turning structural inequalities into ‘cultural differences’ that must be ‘respected’ rather than abolished. instead of confronting poverty, we are asked to ‘respect’ the customs of the impoverished. instead of dismantling patriarchy, we are asked to ‘understand’ the traditions that subjugate women. tolerance thus operates as a tool of deferral, a means of postponing justice indefinitely.
but here’s the real joke: the liberal west sees itself as the guardian of tolerance precisely because it imagines itself as ‘above’ culture. unlike those poor souls ‘trapped’ in their traditions, the western liberal subject is free—free to choose, free to self-invent, free to float above history itself. this is the ultimate form of ideological mystification. western ‘universality’ is not neutral but deeply embedded in a particular history, one that violently uprooted people from their traditions in the name of ‘freedom.’ in reality, liberalism is not above culture; it is a culture—one that masquerades as its own negation.
the paradox of tolerance: when openness becomes exclusion
tolerance, far from being a sign of universal openness, is deeply exclusionary. it draws an invisible line between those who are ‘tolerable’ and those who are beyond the pale. the true test of liberal tolerance is not whether it can accept ‘diversity’ but whether it can tolerate its own limits.
and what happens when this line is crossed? take the example of muslim women wearing veils. liberal tolerance dictates that they must be given the ‘freedom’ to choose whether or not to wear them. but here’s the catch: the moment a woman wears the veil not out of coercion but as an individual choice, its meaning is fundamentally altered. it ceases to be a communal tradition and instead becomes a personal fashion statement, a lifestyle choice within the parameters of liberal individuality.
this is the core of the paradox: liberal tolerance is only truly tolerant when the other has already been assimilated into its framework. it can accept difference, but only in the form of a consumer preference, an aesthetic deviation, a harmless eccentricity. true cultural difference—the kind that resists incorporation into the marketplace of identities—is anathema to tolerance. what the liberal truly fears is not the muslim woman in a veil but the possibility that she might actually believe in it.
freedom as coercion: the invisible violence of choice
liberalism loves choice, but only as long as we choose correctly. when amish children are given the ‘freedom’ to leave their communities and experience modern life, they are being offered a metachoice: the choice of choosing how to choose. but this choice is rigged from the start. in order for them to make an ‘informed’ decision, they must first be extracted from their cultural context, educated in the ways of modernity, and given a new frame of reference. only then can they be said to have ‘freely’ chosen to remain amish.
but this is no real choice at all. the real choice was already made for them: the choice to be subjected to the liberal framework of choice itself. the same logic applies to women’s freedom in the west. sure, they are free to reject patriarchal oppression, but they are also ‘free’—thanks to relentless cultural pressure—to undergo botox injections, plastic surgery, and perpetual self-surveillance in the name of empowerment.
freedom, it turns out, is often just another form of control.
towards a radical intolerance
so what is to be done? if tolerance is an ideological trap, should we abandon it entirely? no—what we need is not less intolerance but more of the right kind.
the liberal fetishization of tolerance obscures the fact that every political system has its limits. no society tolerates everything. the real question is not whether we should be tolerant but what we should refuse to tolerate.
rather than embracing the shallow multiculturalism that celebrates diversity while leaving structures of domination intact, we should engage in a politics of radical intolerance—an intolerance towards exploitation, towards injustice, towards the depoliticization of struggle itself.
to paraphrase badiou, the true task is not to tolerate the other but to fight alongside them. the real political question is not whether we can all ‘get along’ but whether we can recognize that our struggles are ultimately the same.
in the end, the demand for tolerance is nothing but a demand for passivity. to tolerate is to accept, to endure, to ‘live with’ an injustice that should be abolished. perhaps it is time to stop tolerating and start acting.
