Campus Voices: Postmodernism and the

Paradox of Tolerance
JOSHUA TSENG-THAM
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

This article was originally published in The Dartmouth Apologia, and has been
republished with permission.

Consider the following scenario: a group of sincere, well-meaning college students

successfully lobby their college administration to create a safe space for peers affected
by a recent tragedy. These students argue that such spaces—which generally correspond
to a physical area (such as an office, classroom, or building)—provide an opportunity for
those marginalized by tragedies or injustices to communicate, dialogue, and share their
experiences comfortably, without fear of retaliation.[i] These spaces exist, in other
words, to validate the marginalized, to resist the cultural forces that perpetrate
oppression, and to provide a safe avenue for authenticity in a world that seems contrived
and uninviting.

Critics of safe spaces claim that these spaces, while grounded in noble intentions,
inadvertently foster an environment that perpetrates another form of marginalization—
against ideas, creeds, and worldviews. Facts ought to matter in the academy, the
argument goes, and safe spaces intrinsically violate the central tenets of the university
by prioritizing identity over the pursuit of knowledge. Thus, the dialogues that safe
spaces promote are one-sided, existing within an echo chamber that unfairly blocks out
unsavory viewpoints on the basis of emotion and ideology.

“How one defines the basic characteristics of truth and how that truth is known
implicitly determines who can be tolerated and how tolerance can be expressed.”

To be clear, both sides have valid concerns, and this article does not take a position on
the politics of safe spaces. Rather, the safe space debate is fascinating because it
underscores a much more fundamental reality: that tolerance exerts a powerful pull on
the moral discourse of our modern society. At first glance, both sides of the safe space
debate seem to represent differing conceptions of tolerance—one that prioritizes the
tolerance of identities and another that prioritizes the tolerance of ideas. It is easy to
attribute these differences to an ideological clash where people with different
worldviews talk past one another, but the truth is more complicated. On one hand, the
safe space debate is not a semantic or ideological debate over the meaning of
tolerance per se, and there is a good case to be made that people of many political
persuasions understand the spirit of tolerance in a remarkably consistent fashion. On
the other hand, the roots of disagreement are undoubtedly influenced by competing
worldviews, which affect how people perceive truth and its relevant domains. How one
defines the basic characteristics of truth and how that truth is known implicitly
determines who can be tolerated and how tolerance can be expressed. The safe space
debate is a symptom of a wider societal progression towards a postmodern conception
of truth, which under closer examination fails to provide any meaningful framework for
tolerance. The Christian worldview, by contrast, subscribes to a view of truth that not
only makes tolerance a theoretical possibility but a moral necessity.

It is important to first establish what exactly this “spirit” of tolerance is supposed to

mean, since, as mentioned earlier, it is tempting to approach the safe space debate as a
debate between different conceptions of tolerance. Indeed, philosopher Rainer Forst
distinguishes between four conceptions of tolerance. The first conception, which he calls
the “permission conception,” is a relation between an authority (or majority) and a
dissenting minority, where the minority is permitted to live according to their beliefs
insofar as the minority does not threaten the dominant status of the ruling class. The
second is called the “coexistence conception,” and shares similar pragmatic goals to the
first conception (that is, of avoiding conflict), but exists in an environment where there
is no asymmetric distribution of power between competing groups. Forst’s third
conception, the “respect conception,” consists of tolerating parties who differ
fundamentally in their worldviews, but who also recognize their opponents as equals
who share in the benefits of a common socio-political framework. Lastly, the fourth
conception of tolerance, the “esteem conception,” expands what it means to “recognize”
an opposing side by demanding an ethical esteem for their beliefs—in other words,
recognizing that such beliefs, while misguided, are ethically valuable and attractive,
derived from rational principles that one could easily embrace.[ii]

Forst’s first and second conception primarily ground themselves in power dynamics
between different interest groups in society, which no doubt is important in
understanding tolerance from a superficial standpoint. However, what makes these
conceptions less relevant to the spirit of tolerance is their emphasis on
the practical necessity of tolerance. Tolerance, according to these conceptions, exists
primarily as an instrument in the utilitarian’s toolkit to avoid conflict and suffering
wherever possible.

This approach to tolerance carries some risks. In particular, there seems to be several
scenarios that are consistent with the underlying principles of the first and second
conception, but which intuitively contradict our moral sensibilities. For instance,
imagine a society that, writ large, subscribes unilaterally to a certain religion. This
religion demands universal submission and regards other worldviews with moral
disdain. In this society, however, there is a very small religious minority. Their values
conflict with the values of the dominant class. Thus, society regards the presence of this
minority (however small) as a deep threat to their religious and cultural hegemony.
Under the first conception of tolerance (where tolerance is available to people who do
not pose a threat), eliminating this group can be practically, even morally, justified.
After all, the presence of the minority is regarded as a risk to public peace and the
society has an ideological reason for minority eradication.

Now consider another similar example whereby that same religious minority instead
comprises a group roughly equal in size to the “dominant” class described previously.
Let us call both groups “Group A” and “Group B,” respectively. This time there is no
asymmetric distribution of power between the two groups. According to the second
conception, tolerance is justifiable because social peace is a preferable compromise to
conflict—neither side is confident that conflict will rule in their favor. But suppose that
one day, a member of Group A discovers a biological weapon that makes every member
of Group B mute and disabled. Given the utilitarian assumptions of the second
conception, conflict is actually preferable to social peace for Group A. After all, making
Group B disabled and mute gives Group A control of society. But this appears to
contradict common moral sense.

It is clear that we need to think of tolerance another way, at least in the context of the
current debate. When tolerance enters Western discourse, it is evoked in moral terms.
For instance, tolerance is typically evoked in the safe space debate to resolve ethical
disputes (e.g. “We ought to affirm the marginalized.” “We ought to cultivate the central
mission of the university”). This moral dimension in modern debates about tolerance
cannot be understood through the lens of the first or second conceptions of tolerance.
Thus, the third and fourth conceptions—which almost sound like moral imperatives—
are more pertinent when determining the spirit of tolerance as presently understood.

“The modern understanding of tolerance presents a moral framework grounded in a

metaphysical truth—that all persons are equal by virtue of sharing a nature as
intrinsically rational individuals, who likewise desire to pursue truth.”

Both conceptions ultimately promote respect as the dominant feature in an

understanding of tolerance, which comes from the desire to confront the reality of
diversity and the profound disagreements that diversity brings about constructively. But
rather than tackling the problem of difference by resorting to tribal power struggles, the
modern understanding of tolerance presents a moral framework grounded in a
metaphysical truth—that all persons are equal by virtue of sharing a nature as
intrinsically rational individuals, who likewise desire to pursue truth. Respect, therefore,
is a practice extending from this conception of tolerance to foster and cultivate this
recognition, so that the acquisition of truth can be a social endeavor. If our modern
understanding of tolerance is imbued with this respect, then the spirit of tolerance exists
when one fundamentally disagrees with another without personally disapproving of or
denigrating the opponent in question.

Christianity is no stranger to this understanding of tolerance—in fact, its theology

demands it. Christian tolerance is inspired by two theological ideas. The first is a
particular expression of theism which emphasizes the innately rationalnature of God.
“In the beginning was the Logos,” proclaims John in the prologue to his Gospel,
indicating—with the use of “Logos”—the idea that God is reason, but at the same time
deeply personal and capable of creating the entire universe.[iii] Establishing God as
fundamentally rational is essential, because if God did create the entire universe, as
Christians claim, then he did so rationally, meaning that the universe itself is intelligible
and subject to rational inquiry. The Christian proclaims that truth is woven into the
fabric of reality and is, therefore, something we interact with instead of something we
create subjectively. Of course, there are different levels of truth, some more subjectively
inclined than others (one’s favorite ice cream flavor versus the second law of
thermodynamics, for example). But ultimately, all truths are reflections of God himself,
worshiped by Christians as Truth incarnate.

The second theological idea is that the whole person is ordered to truth. Philosophically,
this idea is not unique to Christianity; it was Aristotle who first argued that man has a
rational principle (or nature) that separates him from other living organisms, which in
turn imbues man with a natural disposition toward the acquisition of truth.[iv] While
Christianity did not invent this definition of man, it heavily presupposes it, and it is
impossible to properly understand Christian theology and practice without first
recognizing this principle. If God created us so that we could experience perfect
communion with him—even dying for humanity after we fell astray from that purpose—
there must be a sense in which our natures are, in principle, capable of relating to God.
And since God is Logos, the Truth incarnate, human nature must be essentially rational
in order to fulfill this relational purpose. Even if ideas themselves may be irrational,
human nature could be counted on to perform rational activity so that truths can
eventually be found. Indeed, in the First Letter of Peter, Christians are called to always
be prepared to give an answer to questions about their faith.[v] Far from being a
practical directive for evangelization, Peter’s directive affirms that the Christian hope is
grounded in truth. Rationally defending this hope both reflects the Christian’s
relationship with God and participates in the divine wisdom through Logos.

“Because truth is fundamentally separate from the human person, Christians are
motivated to separate the beliefs that persons have about truth from the persons
themselves.”

For the Christian, then, all truth is contained in the divine personhood of God, and as
sub-creations and image-bearers of the divine, humans have the rational capacity and
inclination to interact with and apprehend truth. Because truth is fundamentally
separate from the human person, Christians are motivated to separate the beliefs that
persons have about truth from the persons themselves. Christian tolerance is a
recognition of this metaphysical reality—that, in the eyes of God, all humans have
inherent dignity because they, by nature, understand and desire truth, not because they
are successful at comprehending truth in its entirety. In fact, the mystery of God makes
such a quest impossible, and so the Christian understands that everyone deserves
respect regardless of the opinions they happen to hold, or how close they are to the
truth. The discovery of truth is both an individual and social activity, bound to
encounter roadblocks as individually fallible people disagree with the conclusions drawn
by their peers. The Christian response to this inevitable disagreement is nonetheless an
act of love and cooperation, drawn from a seemingly naïve but theologically grounded
vision that their mistaken interlocutors ultimately desire the same thing they do, and are
worthy partners in the quest for wisdom.
Nowhere is this practice better exemplified than by Saint Thomas Aquinas’ approach to
theology. Professor A. J. Conyers, in an article for First Things, draws attention to the
incredible diversity that populated the thirteenth-century intellectual community—
Muslim, Jewish, pagan, and Christian thinkers frequently dialogued and exchanged
ideas without any sense that they were betraying their core religious convictions. It was
in this oft-neglected period of history that Aquinas made his contribution to the Church.
His approach in his theological studies begins, according to Conyers, “by calling
attention to various important insights into the meaning of truth from a number of
sources, not all of them Christian.”[vi] Aquinas first quotes three Christian thinkers,
and, without skipping a beat, proceeds to quote Avicenna and Aristotle, a Muslim and
pagan philosopher respectively. Conyers draws two remarkable insights from his study
of Aquinas:

“[Aquinas] does not call attention to the fact that he is drawing from a plurality of
sources that represent diverse faiths. Nor is there the lazy air of relativism here.
Instead we find the resolute pressing forward to an idea of truth that can be common
to everyone because it is real for everyone…It promotes not a unity that is assumed
and goes unquestioned at the beginning, but one that is found at some cost to those
who search.”[vii]

“For Aquinas, practicing Christian tolerance meant recognizing that God’s truth is
universally relevant, unbounded by creed or nationality, and is thus reflected to
varying degrees in other cultures because Christ himself gives universal witness to that
truth.”

To Conyers, the fact that Aquinas’ magnum opus, the Summa Theologica, is unfinished
reflects how much Aquinas internalized Christian tolerance. He was not afraid to declare
truth as he saw it, but he was also open to truth as it was discovered. For Aquinas,
practicing Christian tolerance meant recognizing that God’s truth is universally relevant,
unbounded by creed or nationality, and is thus reflected to varying degrees in other
cultures because Christ himself gives universal witness to that truth.[viii]

The shift from Aquinas to postmodernism was a slow one, the roots of which lie in the
decline of Scholasticism during the Enlightenment period. During the Enlightenment, a
new understanding of tolerance arose that claimed to provide a more expansive
application of tolerance’s spirit, but which in practice marginalized religious thought in
the public square. Two developments accounted for this change. The first was cultural—
Conyers argued that the religious wars that decimated Europe during the early modern
period led to “the growth of regional political authorities that gradually eclipsed the
local, familial, ecclesiastic, and sometimes informal authorities that governed (and to
some extent still govern) public life.”[ix] Post-wars European society saw religion as a
source of social unrest, and thereby relegated religious authority from matters of public
life to the realm of private conviction. This meant that most political discussions,
whether they be about the role of the state or the nature of a just society, marginalized
religious judgment by default. The second development was philosophical—the rise of
positivism threatened the epistemology of religious belief by denying it any rational
legitimacy. Positivism, a philosophical doctrine first proposed by Auguste Comte and
later expanded upon by Émile Durkheim and Moritz Schlick, restricted epistemic
validity to facts obtained by the scientific method.[x] Observation and verification, they
claimed, trump intuition, theological reasoning, and divine revelation. Thus, positivism
abolished the old religious approach to reason, which incorporates many different forms
of knowledge into one holistic practice of wisdom.

The hostility toward Christianity inherent in both developments, whether it be political

or philosophical, had a profound impact on the practice of tolerance. Both movements
claimed to advance the cause of tolerance—the political establishment thought that a
society free from religious authority could better pursue alternative ideas, and positivists
thought that the scientific method could create a framework of truth that offered a
systematic way of adjudicating truth claims while offering a means to separate ideas
from personhood. But what Enlightenment tolerance entailed in practice was an
underlying intolerance that targeted a broad segment of the religious population. At the
very least, intolerance was expressed when religious thought was assigned no epistemic
weight in the public sphere, since these ideas were only permitted to function as private
speculation about the unknown. This marginalization, combined with positivism’s
hostility towards religion, meant that religious thought was not just ignored, but
considered fundamentally irrational. If humans are rational animals, characterizing
religious thought as irrational (or arational) devalues the persons who hold those
beliefs, since it refuses to recognize the rational activity performed (e.g. contemplating
religious ideas). By decrying the entire religious category as intrinsically irrational,
positivist thinkers imply that people who cultivate religious wisdom are acting against
their rational nature.

“If humans are rational animals, characterizing religious thought as irrational (or
arational) devalues the persons who hold those beliefs, since it refuses to recognize the
rational activity performed (e.g. contemplating religious ideas).”

But while Enlightenment tolerance fails to be as expansive as it claims, postmodern

tolerance is a philosophical oxymoron. Any attempt to understand this oxymoron must
first consider postmodernism’s metaphysical dream, which R.R. Reno, editor of First
Things, characterizes as the “Empire of Desire.” Every culture has a metaphysical
dream—a desire for happiness and fulfillment grounded in a particular metaphysical
understanding of the world. Our culture today, argues Reno, has a postmodern
metaphysical dream, consisting of pure, primal desire emancipated from the stifling
discipline of moral norms. For the postmodernist, pure desire “must be seen as the
deepest, truest source of life.”[xi]Anything that seeks to control these desires, whether it
be moral law, cultural norms, or religious authorities, is an illegitimate vehicle of
oppression, dooming the human person to a life of frustration and conflict.

Of course, this dream must have metaphysical claims, but it is easy to see how the
Empire of Desire approaches the question of truth. Reno’s thesis makes a bold, yet
plausible claim: if desire is the truest source of life, then all other determinative
principles and authoritative truths are secondary. Objective truth, far from being an
unchanging reality grasped by the pursuit of knowledge, is instead another vehicle for
oppression, no different from the moral codes that prevent the human person from
achieving his or her desires. Thus, the existence of objective truth is not so much denied
necessarily by the postmodernist paradigm, but is rather deprived of any epistemic
weight in rhetorical exchanges (just as the religious viewpoint was denied epistemic
weight in Enlightenment discussions regarding the public sphere). Objective truth, if it
exists, does not matter; what matters to the postmodern vision is a truth ontologically
dependent on the primal desires of the human person, unfettered by laws that claim
authority over these desires. In theory, the postmodern metaphysical dream seems to
promote tolerance quite expansively. After all, if there are no universal truths that can
be properly apprehended by human persons, then there is no need to harmonize or
integrate a wide cacophony of different truth claims. All opinions are welcome to the
table, because all opinions are in some sense true (in the respect that both opinion and
truth are grounded in human desire). Subsequently, the tradition of finding unity in the
midst of diversity is rejected in favor of one that upholds a vaguely complacent form of
diversity that desperately tries to avoid disagreement wherever possible.

It is precisely in the area of disagreement, however, where postmodernism runs into a

problem—because all ideas are personal, any disapproval of ideas is inherently
disapproving of the person who holds those ideas. Indeed, writer Molly Oshatz argued
that the nature of “debate” to a postmodernist would be unrecognizable to those who
maintain a traditional understanding of truth:

“If truth is something neutral that exists outside of all of us, [as the classical thinkers
understood it], then we can discuss it and disagree about its content without involving
ourselves personally, at least not right away. But if the only truth for me is my own
personal truth arising from my identity and circumstances, then any and all
disagreement about what is is by definition personal.”[xii]

No longer is intellectual disagreement a mutually beneficial exchange that brings its

participants closer to truth. Instead, disagreement is a power struggle between various
actors who seek to impose their worldviews on each other. Force and persuasion become
indistinguishable in this Darwinian battle for personal gratification, and any concession
made is grounded in identity submission—the recognition that you, in some sense, are
flawed and inferior to your opponent.

“The unfortunate irony is that postmodernism, taken to its rational conclusion, even
undermines the very idea of safe spaces.”

Therein lies the central paradox of postmodernism—that its only tool for claiming the
mantle of tolerance actually deprives tolerance of any real meaning and significance. It
is thus no surprise that safe spaces are such a contentious issue today. In a postmodern
age, disagreement is not just a personal act, but an inherently violent one. For victims of
tragedies and marginalized communities, it is completely understandable, even rational,
to create a space as a refuge from this violence—postmodernism (and natural desires for
human dignity) demands it. But the unfortunate irony is that postmodernism, taken to
its rational conclusion, even undermines the very idea of safe spaces.
Because all disagreements are inherently violent, even small disagreements are
ultimately threatening in a postmodern framework. And since there is some gradient of
difference between any two people, there will always be some element of insecurity in
any given space. A safe space may unite persons affected by a tragedy, but that same
group may exhibit profound differences in other areas, which opens the group up to
power struggles when those differences eventually emerge. Postmodernism reduces all
differences to potential avenues for violence—hence, so long as variation exists between
individuals, there is no shared space in which a person can be truly safe from danger.

Postmodernism conflates truth and personhood, and in doing so confines the person to
a state of perpetual insecurity and vulnerability. It is this fear of violence that prevents
modern persons from recognizing the inherent dignity of their peers. But while the
postmodern metaphysical dream envisions truth as fundamentally personal, the
Christian metaphysical dream understands truth as fundamentally predicated on the
divine—Christ as Logos, Truth incarnate. Objective truth is real, and is not ontologically
equivalent to human experience or applications of the human capacity for rationality.
This dream, like the postmodern one, promotes personal conviction, but does so in a
way that understands conviction as an attempt to understand the world rather than as
an abstract expression of primal desire. On its face, the Christian understanding of truth
appears intolerant, since any personal conviction necessarily understands conflicting
convictions as false. But this critique entirely misses the point on the purpose of
tolerance, which was desired because it promoted unity in a pluralistic society through
the search and discovery of universal truths. No doubt this unity is difficult and costly to
achieve. But Christian tolerance ultimately allows these costs to be shared—the
Christian worldview emancipates believers from their natural tendency to devalue their
opponents and redirects them onto a path that sees every person as a fellow searcher
who deserves support and respect. This freedom provides the only stable foundation for
tolerance, which, when properly cultivated, embodies the love that Christ has for
mankind.

Joshua Tseng-Tham is a double major in philosophy and economics at Dartmouth.

What to Read Next:

[i] Teddy Amenabar, “The New Language of Protest,” The Washington Post, 19 May
2016, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2016/05/19/what-college-students-
mean-when-they-ask-for-safe-spaces-and-trigger-warnings/>.
[ii] Rainer Forst, “Toleration,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N.
Zalta, 21 June 2012,
<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/toleration/>.

[iii] See John 1:1.

[iv] Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” in Classics of Western Philosophy, 8th Edition, ed.
Steven M. Cahn (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2012), 283-284.

[v] See 1 Peter 3:15.

[vi] A. J. Conyers, “Rescuing Tolerance,” First Things (August 2001).

[vii] Conyers, Rescuing Tolerance.

[viii] Conyers, Rescuing Tolerance.

[ix] Conyers, Rescuing Tolerance.

[x] Jorge Larrain, The Concept of Ideology (London: Hutchinson, 1979), 197.

[xi] R. R. Reno, “Empire of Desire: Outlining the Postmodern Metaphysical

Dream,” First Things (June 2014).

[xii] Molly Oshatz, “College Without Truth,” First Things (May 2016).