THAT WHICH TOLERANCE WON'T TOLERATE:

Lifting the veil on Enlightenment values (Patrick West, 2/06/04, Spiked)

There is a part of me that admires the stance taken by the French government. It demonstrates a refreshing, bloody-minded adherence to the values of Enlightenment, a way of saying that sexual discrimination and organised religion have no place in the public sphere. In short, France appears still to believe in itself.

There is nothing appealing about tolerance borne of self-doubt - something we find all too common in the UK, a place that has become a proverbial Radiohead of a country, what with its climate of self-flagellating self-hatred. One should stand up for one's values, whether one believes them to be informed by an indigenous ethnocentric cultural heritage, or the values of 1789.

And here lies the difficulty. Enlightenment and 'French values' are intimately connected. On an objective level, there is nothing culturally neutral about the belief in equal opportunity, the rights of men and women, the rejection of religion and the embrace of Reason.

A healthy acknowledgment that the choice is not between tolerance and intolerance but different forms of intolerance.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 7, 2004 6:30 AM