Tolerance and the Intolerable

Tolerance has its place primarily in the environment of differences that are difficult to resolve, of political and social inequalities, of tension between good and evil. Tolerance demands that discernment show flexibility and that judgment refrain from imposing penalties. Not excluding that which does not include oneself; allowing the other to be different and even, within limits, to err; accommodating the unsystematizable diversity of opinions, convictions, and customs; not replacing conviction with coercion and extortion — these are the demands of tolerance, this is its virtue in the unfortunately impure ambience of everyday public life. In Paradise, tolerance has neither sense nor value.