Tolerance pt IV

toleration of diversity =threat to tradition, shared values + social integration

change :( unpredictable, potentially -ve, upsetting

Liberal individuals ---> make up society

Conservative society ---> precedes individual identity.

e.g. Church important in maintaining social order,shaping core values.

agrees with Hobbes, religion too important left to individual

conservative has to tolerate at least gradual change, not totally happy tolerating diversity -been pragmatic

judging whats tolerable based on past experience rather than principles -inconsistent. late 20thC toleration seen responsible moral decline+ social decay -diverstiy not gd in itself -some groups seen as 'enemy within'

some radical thinkers -toleration, if pragmatic not sufficient to bond community. Marcuse 'what is proclaimed+ practiced as tolerance today, is in many of its most effective manifestations serving the cause oppression'

Marcuse 'tolerance should be an end, but just practised to tyranny of the majority'. tolerance becomes passive state.

necessary to create society with indiscriminate tolerance. intolerant of indoctrination +manipulation.

'this pure toleration of sense +nonsense is justified by the democratic argument that.. all contesting opinions must be submitted to 'the people'.*

*uncapable of deliberating autonomous decision, affluence -manipulation ='falsely conscious'.

no faith in people resist economic +political power to create 'universal' moral community.

affluent society -authorities hardly challenged, people efficiently manipulated+ oraganised are free.

late 60's Marcuse found hope:

'by nature ''the young are in the fore front of those who live +fight for Eros against Death' + that fight for life, the fight for Eros (great unifying force preserving all life) is the political fight'

**** -repressive desublimation. Marcuse - 'the social steering of sexuality through controlled desublimation' + 'plastic beauty industry' promotes 'legitimate satisfaction' he thinks Western capitalist society represses economically +psychologically.

• monogamous nuclear family suits capitalist needs -sexual exploitation- restricting females to home
• bourgeois + religious morality defined 'legitimate' expressions of sex just through husband +wife (sublimated idea). -love
• use of body as sex object -taboo

**** resexualises body, esp. fem. -becomes representation of exchange value on market. devalues women as mothers wives. -desublimation of bourgeois morality. --process stage for capitalism. body as commodity. plastically idealised in **** mags, video -dehumanising women -passive objects. males -aggressive subjects.

sign of suppressed sexuality. satisfying false needs. not true human sexual relationships -females + males objects& subjects at same time.

*free development of transformed libido requires transforming social institutions.

-fight for Eros is political fight.

Marcuse -private acts of rebellion against bourgeois morality not liberating -doesn't affect whole society

worrying tyranny of majority +argueing for genuine tolerance as precondition for humane society. Marcuse echoes Mill

*Despotism: unfair/cruel government

'the objection which have been urged against the principle of free discussion, ..are at bottom only one assertion: the incapacity of the people to form correct opions. This assumption is indeed the stronghold of all the disguised/undisguised partisans of despotism.' -Mill

Marcuse intolerant of right-wing. e.g. 'fornication, tolerated, but pimping? -

'the act should either be consistently permitted or consistently prohibited.. one person should be as free to persuade as another to dissuade.. they may be compelled to conduct their operations with a certain degree of secrecy, so that nobody knows anything about them but those who seek them.' Mill

Mill's view -****: society can't judge bad. cannot restrict industry that promotes acts considered to be acceptable in private. can't prevent ****ographer from persuading to participate/consume

James Fitzjames Stephen (conservative judge) crits Mill: individuals interest, concern for others, + indecency, vice, moral force of public opinion should apply

Radical feminists too. e.g. Catherin Mackinnon. freedom of speech unequal -some have more power to speak

-protecting free speech of ****ographer keeps dominations over victims.

'****ography affects people's belief in **** myths e.g. if a woman says 'i didn't consent' and people have been viewing ****. they believe **** myths and believe the woman did consent no matter what.'

she envisages society without **** 'sex between people +things, real men +unreal women, will be a turn off'.