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Document Details : Title: Why Tolerance Cannot Be Our Principal Value Author(s): DE WIT, Theo W.A. Journal: Bijdragen Volume: 71 Issue: 4 Date: 2010 Pages: 377-390 DOI: 10.2143/BIJ.71.4.2064950 Abstract : Whereas the concept of ‘tolerance’ was a marginal category (respect for freedom of conscience and minimal tolerance for other religions) from the end of the sixteenth century, it has become a political key concept today. Have we not all become strangers and foreigners? As such the concept of ‘strangeness’ has lost its relevance. In recent times we witness a new turn in the dialectics of tolerance. It becomes a political and polemical category allowing for a distinct segregation between ‘them’ and ‘we’. The concept explains ‘why we are civilized and they are barbarian’ (Wendy Brown). Therefore we must ask ourselves how tolerance can be saved. |
