A tolerant society is not one that is only tolerant of the right kind of diversity but tolerant of a wide variety of beliefs and practices. To an important degree, the more a society is tolerant, the more it is liberal. But this statement is true only up to a point. Beyond this point, into the realm of harming and threatening others, and undermining justice and security, we could in fact say the more tolerant a society is, the less liberal the society is. Or to put this another way, toleration matters a great deal, but it is not the only thing that matters. And while the practice of toleration … Continue reading Peter Balint