Pluralism, Social Conflict, and Tolerance

Abstract

Ours is a fragmented age. Nationalities, ethnicities, genders, races, sexual orientations and ability statuses all mark lines of social conflict, frame people’s identities, and mediate their attachments to the political system. The “new social movements” seem to have replaced the familiar ideological struggles of the last century and displaced political parties and the state as the main sites of conflict. At the same time, there is a sharpened awareness of what I shall call doctrinal pluralism, the diversity of conceptions of the good, sometimes rooted in broader philosophical or ideological differences. What do fragmentation and pluralism have to do with each other, and what do they mean for politics in democratic societies? Those are the issues I explore in this paper. I have two suggestions, one purely critical, the other positive but also tentative. The critical one is this: many contemporary theorists exaggerate the extent of doctrinal pluralism and overestimate its threat to the stability of democratic government. The positive claim is that the familiar liberal devices for ensuring tolerance must be supplemented and in some areas replaced by strategies that seek to promote wider sympathies towards other people. Although doctrinal pluralism is both real and significant, it is more limited in scope than many contemporary liberals believe: few of the most important social differences involve differences of values; not all value pluralism leads to serious conflict; and some forms of social conflict can be moderated only by leaving behind the tolerance-based model of doctrinal pluralism. Or so I shall argue.