Portland Public Library

On toleration, Michael Walzer

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-119) and index

index present

non fiction

On toleration

bibliography

35842615

Michael Walzer

The Castle lectures in ethics, politics, and economics

Michael Walzer examines five "regimes of toleration"--Multinational empires to immigrant societies - and describes the strengths and weaknesses of each regime, as well as the varying forms of toleration and exclusion each fosters. Walzer shows how power, class, and gender interact with religion, race, and ethnicity in the different regimes and discusses how toleration works - and how it should work - in multicultural societies like the United StatesWalzer offers an eloquent defense of toleration, group differences, and pluralism, moving quickly from theory to practical issues, concrete examples, and hard questions. His concluding argument is focused on the contemporary United States and represents an effort to join and advance the debates about "culture war," the "politics of difference," and the "disuniting of America." Although he takes a grim view of contemporary politics, he is optimistic about the possibility of coexistence: cultural pluralism and a common citizenship can go together, he suggests, in a strong and egalitarian democracy

Introduction. How to write about toleration -- Personal attitudes and political arrangements -- Five regimes of toleration -- Complicated cases -- Practical issues -- Modern and postmodern toleration -- Epilogue. Reflections on American multiculturalism