Political Tolerance, Culture, and the Individual


Book Description

This work holds that political tolerance and behaviour are the product of social and cultural interactions between individuals and culture rather than of inner psychological traits. It applies the sociological theories of John Dewey, Karl Mannheim and George H. Mead.







The Cultural Logic of Politics in Mainland China and Taiwan


Book Description

This book uses surveys, statistics, and case studies to explain why and how cultural norms affect political attitudes and behavior.




Education and Tolerance


Book Description

Education - Tolerance - Educational effect - Political tolerance - Social tolerance - Multilevel modelling - Personality predispositions - Socio-economic conditions - Democratic longevity - Ethnic heterogeneity - Religious heterogeneity - Economic development - Proportions of higher educated individuals




The Limits of Tolerance


Book Description

The modern notion of tolerance—the welcoming of diversity as a force for the common good—emerged in the Enlightenment in the wake of centuries of religious wars. First elaborated by philosophers such as John Locke and Voltaire, religious tolerance gradually gained ground in Europe and North America. But with the resurgence of fanaticism and terrorism, religious tolerance is increasingly being challenged by frightened publics. In this book, Denis Lacorne traces the emergence of the modern notion of religious tolerance in order to rethink how we should respond to its contemporary tensions. In a wide-ranging argument that spans the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian republic, and recent controversies such as France’s burqa ban and the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, The Limits of Tolerance probes crucial questions: Should we impose limits on freedom of expression in the name of human dignity or decency? Should we accept religious symbols in the public square? Can we tolerate the intolerant? While acknowledging that tolerance can never be entirely without limits, Lacorne defends the Enlightenment concept against recent attempts to circumscribe it, arguing that without it a pluralistic society cannot survive. Awarded the Prix Montyon by the Académie Française, The Limits of Tolerance is a powerful reflection on twenty-first-century democracy’s most fundamental challenges.




The Power of Tolerance


Book Description

We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an exchange that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity.




Tolerance in the Twenty-first Century


Book Description

Tolerance in the 21st Century investigates some of the key philosophical and practical dilemmas surrounding the implementation and realization of tolerance in the 21st century. In particular, this well thought-out volume investigates the political, social, moral, religious, global, and philosophical issues integral to discussions of tolerance in our current era. The work delves into new areas assessing the problems posed for tolerance by such factors as identity, war, community, the Internet, and gender. Each essay is written by expert scholars who seek to share their particular expertise with some of the most important and essential questions concerning tolerance. Editor Gerson Moreno-Riano has collected essays that ask not only where we are now in the study of tolerance but also seek to make a positive contribution to the study of tolerance by suggesting what can and should be done to further policies and practices of tolerance as well as investigating the limits of tolerance. Tolerance in the 21st Century is certain to delight scholars of political and democratic theory, political participation and citizenship, and American politics.




Competences for democratic culture


Book Description

A new Council of Europe reference framework of competences for democratic culture! Contemporary societies within Europe face many challenges, including declining levels of voter turnout in elections, increased distrust of politicians, high levels of hate crime, intolerance and prejudice towards minority ethnic and religious groups, and increasing levels of support for violent extremism. These challenges threaten the legitimacy of democratic institutions and peaceful co-existence within Europe. Formal education is a vital tool that can be used to tackle these challenges. Appropriate educational input and practices can boost democratic engagement, reduce intolerance and prejudice, and decrease support for violent extremism. However, to achieve these goals, educationists need a clear understanding of the democratic competences that should be targeted by the curriculum. This book presents a new conceptual model of the competences which citizens require to participate in democratic culture and live peacefully together with others in culturally diverse societies. The model is the product of intensive work over a two-year period, and has been strongly endorsed in an international consultation with leading educational experts. The book describes the competence model in detail, together with the methods used to develop it. The model provides a robust conceptual foundation for the future development of curricula, pedagogies and assessments in democratic citizenship and human rights education. Its application will enable educational systems to be harnessed effectively for the preparation of students for life as engaged and tolerant democratic citizens. The book forms the first component of a new Council of Europe reference framework of competences for democratic culture. It is vital reading for all educational policy makers and practitioners who work in the fields of education for democratic citizenship, human rights education and intercultural education.




Cultural Encounters and Tolerance Through Analyses of Social and Artistic Evidences: From History to the Present


Book Description

Cultures around the world have recently become more isolated and aggressive in defending their socio-cultural domain. However, throughout history, many civilizations have established extensive and long-term cultural ties with diverse cultural groups. Despite ideological schisms that emerged between civilizations from time to time, our hunger for cultural encounters and coexistence shines through. Cultural Encounters and Tolerance Through Analyses of Social and Artistic Evidences: From History to the Present sheds light on different histories and presents evidence of cultural encounters, coexistence, and acculturation. This publication presents cultural assets as more mobile than ideologies across boundaries as it can be more often seen in the cultural arena. Covering topics such as the effects of colonialism, geometrical forms, and architectural heritage, it serves as an essential resource for architects, art historians, cultural historians, students and professors of higher education, sociologists, anthropologists, researchers, and academicians.




Know-It-All Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture


Book Description

Winner • National Council of Teachers of English - George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language The “philosopher of truth” (Jill Lepore, The New Yorker) returns with a clear-eyed and timely critique of our culture’s narcissistic obsession with thinking that “we” know and “they” don’t. Taking stock of our fragmented political landscape, Michael Patrick Lynch delivers a trenchant philosophical take on digital culture and its tendency to make us into dogmatic know-it-alls. The internet—where most shared news stories are not even read by the person posting them—has contributed to the rampant spread of “intellectual arrogance.” In this culture, we have come to think that we have nothing to learn from one another; we are rewarded for emotional outrage over reflective thought; and we glorify a defensive rejection of those different from us. Interweaving the works of classic philosophers such as Hannah Arendt and Bertrand Russell and imposing them on a cybernetic future they could not have possibly even imagined, Lynch delves deeply into three core ideas that explain how we’ve gotten to the way we are: • our natural tendency to be overconfident in our knowledge; • the tribal politics that feed off our tendency; • and the way the outrage factory of social media spreads those politics of arrogance and blind conviction. In addition to identifying an ascendant “know-it-all-ism” in our culture, Lynch offers practical solutions for how we might start reversing this dangerous trend—from rejecting the banality of emoticons that rarely reveal insight to embracing the tenets of Socrates, who exemplified the humility of admitting how little we often know about the world, to the importance of dialogue if we want to know more. With bracing and deeply original analysis, Lynch holds a mirror up to American culture to reveal that the sources of our fragmentation start with our attitudes toward truth. Ultimately, Know-It-All Society makes a powerful new argument for the indispensable value of truth and humility in democracy.