Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 22:29:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: HAB: Going beyond tolerance through humanism



Sunday

This is a detailed discussion of Habermas's recent article
"Intolerance and discrimination," from the International
Journal of Constitutional Law (1:1, Jan '03), which has
been uploaded to the "Files" area of the Yahoo! Habermas
site. Thanks in advance for your time; this is a dense
discussion, I confess, but it is closely attuned to the
specifics of Habermas's discussion. 

-----------------------------------------------

'Tolerance' is a distasteful notion. At best it's a plateau
in a learning process out of discrimination toward
appreciation, understanding and genuine belonging together.


So, while I do appreciate Habermas' explication of the
character of tolerance--finally providing a sense of the
difference between genuine and condescending tolerance--I
think that there's a way out of the "demands" of "cognitive
dissonance" (12) that allows for religious multiculturalism
beyond toleration.

"Toleration first becomes necessary when one rejects the
convictions of others" (3). This doesn't seem right: One
rejects the convictions of others in discrimination, so
what makes toleration necessary must be something else. Let
me call this, as neutrally as I can, the *interest*
(whether need or desire) in living together constructively,
or more succinctly: the basic human interest.  

*Given* the basic human interest, *the necessity of
rejecting* the convictions of necessary and unavoidable
others (inhabiting the same economic locale) makes
tolerance necessary. Fundamentally, it is *cognitive
dissonance* AS NECESSARY (or unavoidable) that, GIVEN the
basic human interest, compels tolerance. So, understanding
tolerance is a matter of understanding (a) the
compellingness of the basic human interest and (b) the
contingencies of cognitive dissonance that appear to be
necessary. 

"[W]e can talk of toleration only if the parties involved
base their rejection on a *cognitive conflict between
beliefs and attitudes that persists for good reasons" (3),
which covers (b) above, but "good reasons" are twofold: (a)
the realized basic human interest, arising in the face of
accepted cohabitation and (b) "good reason" assays of
necessity in cognitive dissonance. Good reason for
necessary cognitive dissonance (e.g., inability to
understand the other at all) alone is compatible with
discrimination; but peaceful cohabitation, in the basic
human interest (constructive life on shared ground) is
incompatible with discrimination. But one might argue that
good reason for cognitive dissonance is NOT compatible with
discrimination, but keep in mind that Habermas stipulates
that tolerance requires a dissonance which compels
*rejection* of the convictions of the other, which IS
compatible with discrimination. "We do not need to be
tolerant if we are indifferent toward other beliefs and
attitudes or even if we appreciate otherness" (3). What
turns rejection into tolerance is appreciation of the basic
human interest: We need/desire constructive living with the
other (whose beliefs and attitudes we MUST reject). 

What is the historical basis for appreciation of the basic
human interest? Habermas claims---and will genealogically
argue---that the "shared standard" of "equal inclusion" or
"non-discrimination...first provides the moral and
constitutional reasons for toleration" (3-4), but what is
the basis of the standard which *becomes* shared? I pose
this question as: What is the origin of the basic human
interest? 

"On [the] basis of a normative consensus, [necessary
cognitive dissonance] can be neutralized in the social
dimension of equal treatment," (4) but what is the basis of
this normative consensus and what is the nature of its
content? 

As "moral" reason, one could richly address the issue as a
matter of education and the cultural conditions of
progressive education. But Habermas doesn't take this
direction, rather: moral reason is a pretext for law. Of
course, Habermas would emphatically approve of educational
means to appreciation of equality, but what he advocates is
a matter of law, clearly as a compensation for the
rejectionist necessities of tolerance that might be
dissolved through education. But Habermas's legalist
approach also favors portrayal of the "moral" issue as
primarily one of enforced equality (and justifiable
coercion), rather than appreciation of the basic human
interest (and examination of ways to educationally and
culturally promote this appreciation---an appreciation
which provides, I would argue, a basis for getting beyond
the "necessity" of cognitive dissonance, whereas a
regulatory regime of equality does not. I see regulatory
regimes as *merely* compensatory, thereby losing their
mandate in proportion to assessable educational progress.
Habermas would approve of this, I believe. But his thinking
apparently doesn't provide for this. He apparently would be
ready to retire from discourse once the regulatory regime
is universal). 

The importance of the basic human interest for, first,
compelling tolerance and, then, getting beyond tolerance,
implies a different sense of genealogy than Habermas
provides. Rather than "the struggle for religious tolerance
becom[ing] the model for multiculturalism," I think that
the struggle for cultural freedom--exemplified also by the
struggle for religious freedom (thus, need for
toleration)--becomes the model for *pluralism* (which
requires no cosmopolitan concept of multiculturalism,
rather a more realistic---evolutionarily
speaking--multipolitanism of cultural hybridity, whose
ever-evolving emergent characteristics turn the real
pluralism of *concepts* of cosmopoly into just another
feature of evolving hybridization). 

The keynote to seeing the importance of the basic human
interest in the evolution of EuroAmerican culture--ergo
it's derivative value of toleration--is to recognize the
classical *humanistic* inspiration at the origin of
Protestantism (arguments between Erasmus and Luther, before
the tract on the door) which are aspects of Renaissance
humanism. It is the humanistic ethos of evolving
Christianity which compelled toleration, from which the
interest in democratic equality arose. 

In his genealogy, Habermas' moral sleight of hand, which
conflates the difference between internalist ethical
inspiration (humanism) and externalist moral duty (rule
universalism), returns. "We find Spinoza defending the
freedom of religious expression with a view to the
principle of freedom of conscience, thought and expression,
and thus on moral grounds" (4), but Spinoza's "moral"
grounds were distinctly virtue-ethical or internalist, in
the spirit of a deepened individualistic interest in
humanity, which argues for the importance of realized human
potential, rather than catholic regulation. 

Supposedly "Locke opts for justification stemming from
human rights," but his notion was not of human rights in
the 20th century sense; Locke's natural rights of man
entailed universalization of *education*, which became SO
INTEGRAL to the spread of education in colonial America,
long before talk of independent government (see _The
Consent of the Governed: the Lockean legacy in early
American culture_, Gillian Brown, Harvard UP, 2001)--which
spoke to religious pluralism on Christian humanist grounds,
from which the lower sense of  mere toleration may be seen
to derive in 17th century America. 

"Yet it was not until Pierre Bayle that we encounter
stringently universalist reasons" (4). Who is Pierre Bayle?
Sure: Looking for universalist reasons, one may encounter
Pierre Bayle. But this further steers attention away from
the humanistic basis of tolerance and a cultural,
educational perspective toward outgrowing tolerance. Bayle
was an impartialist-essentialist Calvinist skeptic who was
probably a forerunner of modern skepticism than "the
forerunner of Kant" (5), while "practices [of] mutual
perspective-taking" obviously come from Christian notions
of mutuality, which themselves arise from from Hellenistic
ethics imported by the original Judeo-Christian sects. A
keynote of Protestantism was a return to the pre-theocratic
bases of the Christian experience, which depends on the
ethical example of Christ, prior to doctrination as body of
the church. Protestants expressed an the interest in direct
empowerment by God through intimacy with Christ's example.
Its comprehension of universalism  is *ecumenical*, and the
appeal of rationalistic universalism derives from that (and
Stoic sources). 

So, Habermas has not yet, in his discussion, provided any
basis for claiming that the basis of tolerance is
rule-universalist, rather than deeply humanistic
(therefore, no basis for steering attention away from
educational opportunities for deeper humanism, as if
justifiable coercion of equality is a preferrable way of
thinking, rather than merely compensatory for educational
underdevelopment). 

There is more than one way to "find a solution to the
original paradox that prompted Goethe to reject toleration"
(5). Political legalism without educational humanism has no
choice but to regulatively enforce a sense of tolerance
that is reasonable, since there's no basis in
rule-universalism for seeing tolerance as a plateau in
cultural evolution. But deepened humanism, born of "higher"
education provides a basis for seeing beyond the necessity
of cognitive dissonance. 

In particular, one person's (or one group's) problem with
tolerance does NOT require universalistic enforcement of
reciprocity (though I grant--beyond question--that
universalism toward reciprocity is good and universality of
reciprocity is ideal); rather, dissolving the problem only
requires---relative to that person's / group's
intolerance--that they become genuinely tolerant! This
isn't a matter of mere compliance with the law, but rather
of *really* being tolerant. 

EACH person's / group's problem with tolerance--their
intolerance--requires individualized learning processes. No
regime of "*universally convincing* delineation...[of]
*reciprocally* take[n]...perspectives" can exist without
relativity to the manifold idiosyncrasy of particular
problems with tolerance. Universality of mutuality won't be
accomplished by compliance with the law; justified coercion
is just a holding pattern pending educational processes.
So, we should conceptualize the problem of tolerance
educationally in the first place. 

Rather than focusing on "rules of tolerant behavior" (5), I
urge a focus on the *character* of tolerance. "Accordingly,
the paradox is first resolved by the advent" of
Renaissance, then Christian, humanism, rather than being
*first* resolved "by the advent of modern democracy."
"[T]he new secular source of legitimation" was humanist
senses of freedom and self-determination, motivating
interests in religious freedom, rather than "the
universalistic meaning of reciprocal expectations" (5). 

Though I agree that universalist reciprocality is a
virtuous perspective and a public good deserving of
universal appreciation, it is not the case that religious
toleration requires this. The parochialism that evokes
calls (if not demands) for tolerance *has no access to the
virtue of universality* prior to accomplishing specific
tolerance relative to specific others. Such tolerance is
*not* accomplished by internalizing universalism prior to
appreciating the basic human interest that compels
tolerance. Yet, it is the *humanism* latent to the basic
human interest that provides the way to tolerance and for
educationally overcoming the need for tolerance--a
deepened, enriched humanism whose genealogy is Hellenistic
and Christian humanist. 

The key to tolerance, as well as the way beyond tolerance,
is *actual genuineness* toward the other, not normative
conformance; in other words, it's a matter of internal
reasons, rather than external reasons--a disclosable
internal realism of the basic human interest (and its
deeply humanistic background), rather than external realism
of regulative prudence (which is useful, too, but not
basically humanistic). 

Though obviously any "consensual delimitation can arise
only through the mode of deliberation in which those
involved are obliged to engage in mutual
perspective-taking" (6), the problem of tolerance implies
need for a mode of *reflection* in which those involved are
*called upon* to engage in genuine understanding, which is
based in progressive identification with the reflecting
(mirroring and self-reflective) other, in which one's own
humanity is enriched or deepened in the mutually formed
"telos" of communicative understanding of *our* basic human
interest. 

Robbed of that, we may be compelled to appeal to law; but
what is preferrable deserves to be recognized, from a
humanistic perspective that may also look universalistic
(since it basically is: Hellenistic humanism is
cosmopolitan, Christian humanism is ecumenical, and
educational humanism is universalistic). So, though, "the
[political] legitimating power of such deliberation is
generalized and institutionalized only in the process of
democratic will formation" (6), the *culturally*
legitimating power of genuine communicative engagement is
generalized and instututionalized only in processes of
cultural education, which don't flourish best via
justifiable coercion. "[A] deliberative process of
legislation" may ensure tolerance, but it won't *cause*
real education, and it won't provide a way beyond
tolerance. 

I disagree that "religious toleration is basic to a
democratic constitutional state" (6); rather *humanistic
appreciation* of religious *freedom* is basic (in the U.S.,
at least--and humanism is superior to toleration). The
meaning and existence of religious freedom is *entitled*
constitutionally, but the basis of that freedom arises from
the culture itself, as a discovery by constitutionality,
not as a child of constitutionality. 

It is not *as* "religious community" that a group "must
adopt the constitutional principle of the equal inclusion
of everyone" (6); rather it is as *citizen* that one must
*recognize* the freedom of the other. The imperative of
inclusion belongs to the polis, not the religious
community. One religious community may understand so little
of another (whom it has to constructively live with) that
it is necessarily compelled to reject the other's
convictions, finding no basis at all for inclusion,
relative to the religious community. But as citizens, the
rejectors must substantively grant the other liberty and
thus grant the other all due citizen entitlements. 

So, yes, "the liberal state expects...a cognitive
adaptation to the ... secular community" (6), but a liberal
*culture* hopes for more, and it is liberal culture that
steers the liberal ship of state. Thus, tolerance should be
understood as a minimalist derivative of educational
humanism, not a necessary dissonance constrained by
regulations. (In my view, law serves education, not the
converse; philosophy of law *fosters* social evolution,
beyond rule-universalism. I'm sure Habermas would approve
this view, but is he furthering such a view or is he
confounding it via apparent legalism?). 

[I must emphasize that, *as* a genuine Habermasian, I agree
with most everything in an essay by him that I don't
overtly disagree with; I'm in the process of working *with*
his discourse, not against it. I see great potential for
carrying on beyond his formulations, with deep respect for
what he aims to do. That said, I will continue to
disagree.]

I disagree that "a religion that has become just one among
several confessions must abandon this claim to
comprehensively shape life" (6). Rather, such a religion
must abandon a *political* aspiration to dominate, but its
comprehensive claim upon its own community (internally a
"reasonable" comprehensive doctrine) can be quite
compatible with humanistic, even pluralist, appreciation of
the necessary *mystery* of the other. There is an
attainable intimacy of the mystery that can greatly deepen
discernment of the basic human interest *within* religious
experience, revealing a basis for interfaith humanism that
is universalistic. There is abundant evidence for this in
the humanitarian community. One might even argue that
Habermas's generalizing sense of religion is itself
parochial. In particular, he's quite wrong to claim (or
adopt P. S-L's claim) that "missionary doctrines such as
Christianity...are *intrinsically* intolerant of other
beliefs" (7). Modern Catholicism looks very odd outside
Europe *because* it assimilates local culture to take on an
idiosyncratic local character. Such a tendency generally
within Christianity (proven by the weird protestantisms in
the rural U.S.) causes some scholars to argue that the
future of Christianity is in the southern hemisphere. 

Anyway, religious tolerance "calls...for developing, from
within the ethos of the religious community, cognitive
links to" the ethical substance of humanistic society,
which IS what Habermas calls "the moral substance of the
democratic constitution" (7). The so-called "moral
principles that govern co-existence in society as a whole"
(8) are nothing other than the humanistic "ethical values"
that *can be found* "held by a religious community" (8)
that is living constructively in our modern
world--non-fundamentalist Christianity, Judaism, and Islam;
and Buddhism. The *fundamentalist* problem of tolerance is
indeed a cognitive-ethical issue *within* religions
themselves (as inauthentic apprehensions of the religion).
The answer to low religion, within religion, is high
religiosity---and the higher it goes, the more it looks
like universalist humanism. 

But the universalistic potential of educational humanism is
occluded by sociocentric thinking. Michael Aboulafia argues
this quite specifically, in his critique of Habermas'
reading of Mead, in Aboulafia's _The Cosmopolitan Self:
George Herbert Mead and Continental Philosophy_, U. of
Illinois Press, 2001. Habermas's sociocentric reading of
Mead misses the creative, self-formative sense of Meadean
identity, which Habermas reads as reflective autonomy
(disembodying individuation in the body of socialization).
Thus, individuation (we read over and over again) not only
"occurs through socialization" (10), it looks like nothing
else than a product of socialization, where a longing for
integration eclipses the human interest in realizing one's
potential, as if equality is an end in itself, rather than
an ensurance for the sake of pluralistic freedom. O, sure,
Habermas is a great advocate of pluralism, freedom, etc.
But when you get to the textual details of basic
argumentative claims, a different picture appears. 

"[L]inguistic and cultural traditions are...relevant for
the formation and maintenance of the personal identity of
individuals---something always interwoven with collective
identities" (9-10). But what is the character (if not
"nature") of the interweaving? 

"This insight has us opting for an intersubjectivist
expansion of the abstract concept of the 'legal person'"
(10). So, does this mean that interpersonal relations are
the same as intersubjective relations? Is temporally
"vertical" self identity (broadly and deeply "subjective")
equivalent to communicatively "horizontal" personal
identity? Is the depth of subjectivity humanistic in a
potentially important sense that is *protected* by
entitlement to privacy? In my experience, it's very
important to distinguish the intersubjectivity of human
life from the interpersonality of dialogal stances. 

Do we need an interpersonalist expanision of the abstract
concept of legal person, or do we need a humanistic
expansion: society geared toward the well-being of
constructive freedom, True individuation, which is
invisible to socialization? Individuation is a surprise to
sociality, as more individuation yields more individuality,
not more sociality--or rather, individuation yields
(relative to sociality) an enriched sociality *derivative*
of individuality which *advances* the character of
sociality, even exemplarily (which the uniqueness of
Habermas greatly demonstrates). 

But Habermas says---in passing, to be sure---
"persons...acquire and consolidate their identity" (10),
but individuation is *not* something acquired; it's
*accomplished*, and resultant identity remains *fluid*,
even as "consolidated," since that consolidation is not a
*structure* of self understanding, it's a *way* of going
about one's "career" (in a broadly anthropological sense;
cf. _The Human Career_, Walter Goldschmidt, Blackwell,
1990). 

Though "persons...articulate their understanding of
themselves," the linguistic piecemealness of this is
derivative of the lifespan-oriented holism that one is, an
enactive "articulation" that is none other than that
orientational "consolidation" that is one's way of life.
But Habermas would reduce this to the dialogal stance
(internalized as self-articulation). 

So, it's not *also* that a person will "develop their own
life plan" distinct from understanding themselves or
consolidating their identity. Rather, all three aspects
happen together in self formation, only analytically
distinguishable as identity, articulation and plan. So,
*basically* the formation is neverending! Individuation's
consolidating, enowning planful life goes on and on in its
*singular* way, for any productive life. 

For the problem of religious tolerance, the *appeal* of
enriched identity-articulation-career provides an entrance
into enriched discernment of the basic human interest which
religious experience can deepen (heighten) toward its
destiny of disclosing the humanistic nature of its own
capacity for appreciation. Here dwells "the internal ethos
of the morality of human rights" (10). 

"A pluralistic society" is based on humanistic culture,
which in turn grounds "a democratic constitution," but such
a "constitution guarantees cultural differentiation only
under the condition of political" freedom, rather than the
derivative value of "the condition of political
integration" (10). 

"The citizens of such a society are" *granted the freedom*
to form or maintain their cultural idiosyncrasy, not
"empowered" (10) to do so, since that empowerment arises
from the culture itself, not from political
constitutionality. 

"Such cultural empowerment is constrained by the"
*responsibilities native to humanistic culture* that in
turn warrants constitutional ensurances of cultural rights
(otherwise, how could there be constitutional revision?);
i.e., the constraint is vested in humanistic culture, only
*derivatively* in the revisable "constitution that provides
the justifications for cultural rights" (11). 

So, there may be an important sense in which the pluralism
of worldviews and the pluralism of ways of life are kindred
at heart, in ways of worldmaking and potentially
ever-individuating views of one's progressing life. It may
NOT be so important that one can divide one from the other,
i.e., that "the civic virtue of toleration is challenged by
the pluralism of *world views* in a different way than it
is by the pluralism of *ways of life*" (11). 

Habermas occludes an important difference between
authenticity and genuineness, when he evidently uses the
terms interchangeably. The self interest in authenticity is
not the same as the personal interest in genuineness.
Minorities may *genuinely* "co-exist with equal rights,"
but it's inappropriate to say that they "would
authentically" (11) do so. Minorities might authentically
care to understand each other, and *thereby* genuinely
co-exist. 

But then, "[m]ust we not assume that even then the
cognitive dissonances would by no means disappear without a
trace?" Well, we can't *assume* this, given the contrary
perspective toward Habermas' approach to the issue that
I've outlined above. 

We might even *expect* that the conditions of authentic
care and the appeal of humanistic reflection may dissolve
cognitive dissonance, perhaps in perspectives of religious
humanitarianism that place starkly different cultural
backgrounds in a shared evolution as, say, God's
still-unfolding Creation that needs human diversity for
evolution's fulfillment (though one might want to postpone
showing how taking such a view to heart eventually
dissolves religious experience into a deeply humanistic
sense of the inherent *openness* of our evolutionary
"telos"). 

Anyway, instead of "neutraliz[ing] the practical impact of
a cognitive dissonance *that nevertheless in its own domain
demands that we resolve it*" (12), we might learn how to
give ourselves over to the cognitive dissonance as
religious mystery, finding in its own domain *appeals* of
majestically humanistic experience beyond one.  

Thanks for your time,

Gary






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