Tolerance keeps the tolerated group in a subordinate, revocable position.
Evidence
The second method is what we usually call tolerance or toleration; a word that has been used with a wide variety of meanings. What it normally meant was to allow the other, subject to certain conditions, to retain his otherness, his separate identity, and to grant him some, many, even most, but rarely all of the rights of citizenship. In Islamic law this is the system of the dhimma, whereby followers of certain approved religions, not all, were allowed to survive in that form, practising their own religions within their own communities, living by their own laws and institutions and enjoying many, though not all, of the privĀ ileges of full membership of the state. The degree of tolerance accorded in the different societies that practise it varies from minimal to maximal. Even at best, it remains a revocable concession, granted by a dominant group to a subordinate group. ā Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1020
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Defines toleration as distinct from coexistence: a revocable concession of limited rights by a dominant group.
- XREF: Connects to the dhimma system discussion in stand directives and cross-cultural tolerance comparisons.
- SEED: An essay angle: what modern ātoleranceā rhetoric inherits from this older structure of revocable concession and subordinate otherness ā e.g. how ābeing toleratedā still implies not belonging.