Abstract

It seems that we can't speak about intolerance without first speaking about tolerance. This paper argues that we should think in the opposite direction. Before conceptualising tolerance we must first tackle the issue of intolerance and indifference. I propose to think of intolerance not as a privation of tolerance but as the expression of an original attitude. Two kinds of intolerance are distinguished. Next to the intolerance which is interwoven with the vulnerability of what Martha Nussbaum calls 'external goods', there are excessive forms of intolerance like fanaticism. This article focuses on a paradigmatic case of the first form of intolerance This ambivalent case is analysed in close connection with phenomena like defilement, pollution and blasphemy. Special attention is paid to the crucial role of seemingly unimportant rituals of excuse, marks of honour and gestures of respect and deference. In the last part I try to show how some forms of zealous fanaticism can be related to the first kind of intolerance. Fanaticism and indifference are thought of as two extreme ways of dealing with the vulnerability ofthe things we care about. By way of conclusion I sketch a model in which the relations between intolerance, indifference, fanaticism and tolerance are pictured