Rainer Forst: The Power of Tolerance - ICI Berlin 2008
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The ideal of tolerance is only invoked once there is a conflict. But what does it mean to answer a conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a form of conflict resolution or rather a means of sustaining? Does tolerance help to turn conflicts into productive tensions or does it perpetuate the power relations underlying conflicts? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and thereby constitute a form of de-politicization? At the same time, the discourse of tolerance also produces its own conflicts and tensions: from the controversies on what should be tolerated and up to what point, to the use of violence against intolerant cultures and practices.
Tolerance is at once a celebrated and a highly contested term of political discourse and social practice. How can it be seen on the one hand as an attitude of superiority as well as a practice of domination, and on the other hand as an instrument in the fight for justice, a stepping stone towards recognition and the realization of 'the good society'? What is the difference between the attitude of tolerance and the practice of toleration? What kind of social identities does tolerance produce?
In the third ICI-Spannungsübung, Wendy Brown (UC Berkeley) and Rainer Forst (University of Frankfurt/Main) discussed different discourses of tolerance, their normative premises, limits, and political implications. The main focus was on social and political conflicts over the recognition of differences in civil societies, national politics, and transnational relations.
© ICI Berlin 2008.