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Philosophy Bites

Wendy Brown on Tolerance

Philosophy Bites

Nigel Warburton

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.62K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2008

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tolerance is usually thought of as the great virtue of democratic societies. Wendy Brown of UC Berkeley asks some sceptical questions about the concept of tolerance and how it can be used to express power relationships in this interview for Philosophy Bites.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton.

0:07.0

Philosophy bites is available at www

0:09.6

philosophy bites.com

0:11.6

who could possibly be against tolerance? Isn't tolerance the mark of a civilized society,

0:17.0

the quality that allows individuals with widely different lifestyles and values to rub along together in peace? Isn't tolerance unquestionably a good thing?

0:25.7

Wendy Brown, professor of political science at UC Berkeley, wants us to be a little more skeptical

0:30.7

about the concept, though she tolerated the cross questioning from philosophy

0:34.3

bites.

0:35.3

Wendy Brown, welcome to philosophy bites.

0:38.2

Thank you.

0:39.2

It's good to be here.

0:40.2

The topic we are going to discuss is tolerance.

0:43.0

Now you've chosen the word tolerance rather than toleration.

0:46.0

Could you just explain why you prefer tolerance to toleration?

0:50.0

When toleration is used, it almost always refers unconsciously, if not consciously, to the

0:56.7

reformation and the regime of toleration that's inaugurated in response to the problem of Protestant sex and the need to figure out

1:05.6

how to settle the bloody religious wars and dissidents and

1:15.0

in persecution of sectarian's and today the word tolerance is used in a much broader, much wider way and in fact

1:19.0

tolerance is the most common way that we speak when we're talking about what roughly travels into the sign of

1:25.1

toleration or tolerance.

1:26.5

So I've just set toleration aside because it almost always calls up that particular historical formation and problematic and because tolerance is the word that almost everyone uses today when they're talking about the problem we're about to talk about.

1:41.0

What got you thinking about tolerance? What really sparked my interest in the problem of

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