The paradox of tolerance in Western academia

Zenov Egor ORCID: 0000-0003-3328-8509 Postgraduate Student, Philosophy and Social Studies Department, Murmansk Arctic State University 183038, Russia, Murmansk region, Murmansk, Egorova str., 15 yegzenov@gmail.com

The idea of tolerance for strangers in Western society has always been surrounded by heated controversy, often resulting in open conflicts and disputes, for many decades. And if in the twentieth century this problem, despite its severity, was identified and understood – it was primarily about the rights of women, ethnic and sexual minorities – now its boundaries continue to expand, blurring in the course of this process. With the emergence of new minorities demanding equal respect and respect for their rights, the situation is becoming more and more ambiguous: the number of marginal groups is only increasing, and the majority sometimes finds themselves in the position of an oppressed minority, forced to put up with the idea of tolerance, suggesting a reverse approach that infringes on one group in favor of another. The harmful influence of the tolerance system, which some researchers call the ideology of political correctness, is especially evident in the Anglo-Saxon educational environment: the policy of "reverse" tolerance, typical of schools and universities, is becoming increasingly widespread. The mechanisms of this kind of "tolerance" require philosophical reflection and analysis that can identify the paradox and explain the reasons for its appearance.

 In modern Western society, the situation with tolerance is such that its mechanisms motivate action rather than discussion. This can be traced, for example, in the active position of sexual and ethnic minorities in the West: discontent and protests, previously typical of street performances, have now moved into the field of education, so the struggle for rights continues within the walls of university campuses. At the same time, truly vulnerable groups – for example, children with disabilities - still face the same difficulties as they did several decades ago: This once again shows that, first of all, modern Anglo-Saxon society pays attention to the rights of ethnic minorities and the LGBT community. Despite the fact that their situation has improved in recent years, the protests of these groups still remain one of the important problems of both the academic environment and the Western community as a whole. It seems that the reasons for this lie not only in the very nature of such groups, which turn out to be a "loud minority", but also in the structure of Western society.

It is worth noting that the question of the appropriateness of tolerance, which involves not so much equalization of rights as providing benefits for a certain group, is raised both in English and American realities: at the same time, both from the conditionally "conservative" and from the conditionally "liberal" side. In this regard, we note the article by U. Blok: the author explains the mood of the right wing in the United States, which is relevant today: the author selects examples from American higher education that give an idea of the excessive political correctness inherent in the academic environment. Let's pay attention to them: the administration of the University of Georgia forbade students to display both the American flag and the Confederate flag on the windows of their dorm rooms; the academician was fined for "incorrect laughter"; the educational environment itself differs in requirements for the "careful" use of vocabulary, the main of which, as it often turns out, is the rejection of the traditional designation this or that phenomenon ^{[1, p. 231]}. At the same time, the author notes that this approach is not popular with the students themselves; the university, according to him, imposes a Kantian hypothetical imperative on the student, arguing that he should "speak in a certain way and refrain from other ways of expressing thought."

This position, illustrating the failure of the system of tolerance, which is guided by Anglo-Saxon universities, does not lose relevance today: in American discourse, there is often an argument that draws parallels between the authoritarian regime and Western political correctness. At the same time, recently supporters of a tolerant attitude themselves have avoided using this concept; just as in Russia, they prefer the word "tolerance" – probably realizing the negative connotation accompanying "political correctness". The ratio of articles using the concepts of "political correctness" and "tolerance" when discussing the same problems that characterize academic discourse shows that over the past decade the term "political correctness" has become an ideological tool; its use is intended to discredit one of the sides of the discourse.

To try to explain political correctness, let's turn to the book by J. Lia, "Political Correctness and Higher Education: British and American Perspectives." The author explains that the discussion around political correctness cannot be unambiguously attributed to either the left or the right side of the political spectrum; in addition, he points out that avoiding the term "political correctness" does not mean that the discussion does not actually go beyond it ^{[2, p. 263]}. Sometimes it is deliberately abandoned because of the associations that it causes, because the history of the development of the term is associated with the pejorative meaning that American society has endowed it with. Moreover, there is a dispute about the very nature of the knowledge that the university provides to the student: the author points out that the Anglo–Saxon discourse is divided into defenders of tolerance and its opponents, even in cases when they are united by seemingly one goal - for example, the struggle for the principles of Enlightenment ideology. Interestingly, both groups participating in the discourse attribute diseases to each other: for example, supporters of political correctness (multiculturalists) they allegedly suffer from "oikophobia", that is, rejection of their own culture, and opponents of political correctness (relativists and skeptics) are infected with "veriphobia", fear of the truth ^{[2, p. 264]}.

From the outside, this conflict seems frivolous, but the dispute about tolerance is not only relevant for the academic environment of Western countries, but is also of interest from a philosophical point of view: "political correctness" is only a means to an end; in fact, the dispute has an epistemological character. So, the conflict directly distorts the essence of education: it affects what kind of knowledge a student receives, in what format it will be presented, how he will learn it. The formulation of the Lia itself is characteristic, indicating that political correctness is a much larger phenomenon, including not only a dispute about the nature of the phenomenon itself, but about its functionality. The conflict can be justified philosophically: skeptics seek to protect the right to tradition, classical education, while multiculturalists propose to accept postmodernity as a given – something that is only a natural stage in the development of society ^{[2, p. 107]}.

Although the essence of the conflict has not fundamentally changed since the end of the noughties, the difficulties associated with it have only become more. Thus, the perception of political correctness largely depends on social changes among minorities, because the functional of the phenomenon is largely determined by the mood of the oppressed. Let's turn to a letter to the editorial board of an American journal devoted to social work: it states that "the problem of the academic environment is that both teachers and students feel as if they have to "walk on tiptoe" in order not to accidentally utter a phrase that may offend someone in their environment" ^{[3, p. 385]}. At the same time, in general, the author of the letter supports the idea of tolerance, which is necessary to create an environment for a "healthy audience"; nevertheless, it seems to her that political correctness requires all participants in the educational process to hush up both the problems themselves and related issues. On the other hand, she points out that representatives of ethnic minorities are offended when, during a discussion, for example, racial issues in a predominantly white class, someone asks the question: "what does your people think about this?". Note that in these situations, students do not consider themselves representatives of a specific race, sexual orientation or class, so they refuse to answer such questions and feel uncomfortable.

Based on this, it can be stated that in the Western environment, students continue to fight for the rights of minorities to which they consider themselves, but at the same time they see a certain danger in highlighting their characteristics. One might assume that they are offended by the generalization itself, because a person by himself cannot speak for the whole group – but students point out that they are not representatives of a particular community at all. Thus, it becomes convenient to classify yourself as a group in a situation where you can get some advantages or claim the oppression of individual freedom, but at the same time not advertise your affiliation in an academic setting that fundamentally involves discussing the differences and necessities of groups participating in the educational process.

To the question "what does your people think about it?" some of the students answered with other phrases; for example: "I don't mind sharing my thoughts and feelings, but I don't have to enlighten you" ^{[3, p. 385]}. Such a reaction of students in the context of the struggle for the rights of minorities seems inappropriate to us: on the one hand, the younger generation demands more rights and opportunities, on the other – a simple question touches them or puts them in a dead end. This answer seems all the more strange in the modern situation, when minorities clearly aim to explain their social position, but the everyday situation leads to mutual misunderstanding. The incident is indicative of the description of the situation in the West as a whole: it may seem that the oppressed position themselves ready for dialogue, but at the same time they are not able to explain the peculiarities of their own worldview and are easily irritated in an educational environment in which controversial situations should be clarified. The educational situation is thus deprived of its educational function: academic communication ends in failure due to a careless word. That is why the Anglo-Saxon education system does not always turn out to be a successful mediator for resolving disputes, especially if they affect the personal characteristics of the student. At the same time, the majority is obviously trying to establish contact with the minority; they, however, perceive this attempt as something offensive. The action of the minority, thus, in the Nietzschean spirit, turns out to be a reaction – a resentment designed to respond to the imaginary injustice of the outside world.

A similar thought was expressed by S. Kierkegaard, speaking about envy: he interprets this concept as "a unifying principle characteristic of a dispassionate, very reflective era." The philosopher points out that envy has two sides: individual egoism and the egoism of the environment, which can manifest itself in relation to the individual. According to the philosopher, first of all the individual needs to break out of his personal imprisonment, in which he is held by his own reflection, but even after that the individual remains in prison, built by the reflections of members of his environment. Kierkegaard points out that "it is the reflection that imprisons the personality itself, not the tyrants and the secret police, not the clergy and not the aristocracy – while the reflection does everything in its power to prevent this distinction... selfish envy demands too much from a person; it nurses and pampers him, as it nurses and pampers the love of a weak mother, and his own envy does not allow him to sacrifice himself" ^{[4, p. 81-82]}. Kierkegaard's idea of a special reflexive era reflects the situation with Anglo-Saxon tolerance: having broken the shackles that restrained them for centuries, gender, ethnic and social minorities are still looking for the culprits of their own problems, focusing on the abstract idea of equality, which has little to do with reality: equality in this case turns out to be distant and unattainable. Having broken one prison, an individual ends up in another, trying to break already new boundaries. Projecting this idea onto the current situation, it can be noted that neither benefits for admission, nor changes in educational programs and schedules of schools and universities are sufficient – according to Kierkegaard, we are transported to the age of reflection, characterized by the desire to level everything, although the idea of the equation appears only an unattainable abstraction ^{[4, p. 84]}.

Thus, we come to another fundamental problem with tolerance in the Western sense: it is expanding and being filled with new functions, while pushing the boundaries of the unacceptable more and more. If earlier lexical manifestations of intolerance were considered unacceptable (for example, offensive designations of minorities), then over time the number of taboo phenomena has only increased. Some articles indicate that students negatively perceive such changes, because they not only restrict academic freedom, but also introduce uncertainty: so that it becomes almost impossible to determine the boundaries of what is permissible. At the same time, the boundaries are often created by the students themselves: inventing, for example, "trigger warnings", which, according to some students, should accompany some courses. Thus, this hinders social work in higher education: in an attempt to protect students from mentions of traumatic experiences, lectures on abortion are removed from the program, for example ^{[5, p. 3]}. Although such changes find support among some students, some teachers emphasize the inconsistency of such an approach, including from a rational point of view: "trigger warnings" that can cause negative associations are ubiquitous in social work necessary for the functioning of educational institutions. Starting from the fact that some students may theoretically be offended by any topic, the quality of education suffers. At the same time, the data show that attempts to rebuild the personality in order to fight post-traumatic syndrome only lead to deterioration of mental health ^{[5, p. 4]}.

Despite the fact that assessments of the tolerance system and its mechanisms vary, many authors predict that the trend with the expansion of its boundaries in the educational environment will continue; the cultivation of tolerance and the change of students' views during the educational process remain the most important guidelines for the Anglo-Saxon academic environment. Major studies conducted in the last decade analyze the ability of students to develop tolerance and develop courses that would be successful in this aspect ^{[6, p. 3]}. At the same time, students treat them ambiguously: someone, after taking courses, pointed out that even their outlook on life has changed ^{[6, p. 11]}, others - that the tolerance of their classmates has hardly changed ^{[6, p. 12]}. Thus, many students are not sure about the effectiveness of tolerance education. The ambiguity in which students find themselves is also evident in other works: one English study shows that many students are not sure of the validity of the idea of "equal opportunities": when asked if they agree that "the same opportunities for gays/lesbians, ethnic minorities and women have gone too far," the majority chose the answer "I don't know" ^{[7, p. 5]}.

The above shows that in the Western educational environment it is still in limbo: on the one hand, many students are not sure what to do and how to act in order not to offend someone from their environment, which leads to the idea of the harmful influence of mechanisms that support "academic" tolerance. On the other hand, the academic community predicts that tolerance will not only remain an important aspect of the academic sphere in the West, but will also be further developed. It seems that with this state of affairs in Anglo–Saxon education, a conflict is brewing between those who feel uncomfortable in the current "politically correct" conditions, and those who popularize this political correctness - so that some students feel cornered. This state of affairs seems to be beneficial for supporters of tolerance: if someone criticizes the "politically correct" order, his example can be used as another proof of intolerance against minorities - and present this situation as another argument in favor of the functioning of tolerance in the academic environment.

The opinion about the ambiguous situation in the Western academic environment can be traced in a number of other modern works: one of the main problems is indicated, in particular, that radicals involved in politics on American campuses have become particularly influential at universities. The management of educational institutions often have neither the will nor the desire to somehow resist radicalization: they turn out to be silent and indifferent ^{[8, p. 34]}. The reason for this is that faculty members, usually in administrative positions, are afraid for their places: if they are not fired for trying to defend an unpopular point of view, career advancement is unlikely – this creates a situation in which changes in education can only come from outside. This problem is similar to a student's: just as students do not want to be excluded from the university, so do not want employees to substitute their careers.

The situation in which the workplace becomes more important for a person than his personal views leads to the fact that the fight against political correctness does not stop in the Euro-Atlantic educational environment: one of the goals of a liberal society is the cultivation of a free education system functioning within a tolerant state in which tolerant citizens live ^{[9, p. 516]}. Such a landmark, characteristic of the modern philosophy of education in Western countries, once again emphasizes the ambiguity of the boundaries of tolerance: how are they extensible and how are they defined? If we really want to build a tolerant state, whose citizens sincerely believe in accepting someone else's, can a stranger have views that are unacceptable for the traditional cultural tradition of this state?

Let's imagine a hypothetical situation in a Western higher education institution: students, together with a teacher, talk about changing the moral guidelines of modern society. One of the students declares: "homosexuality is a sin." Probably, in a tolerant environment, such a statement will be taken calmly, because the ideal "tolerant state", which is a fundamental guideline for modern Western education, assumes that everyone has the right to their own opinion. In our time, however, such a statement will be criticized and defined as untenable, because it does not correspond to the agenda, and the student himself is perceived as a marginal, while, perhaps, both by the teacher, conventionally obliged to condemn intolerance, and by classmates who perceive such a remark as narrow–mindedness and dullness. Perhaps this is the flaw in the functioning of tolerance in Western society: it cannot exist independently, as a self-sufficient landmark or view, and is determined not by cultural and historical landmarks, but by the socio-political situation. To draw a line in this understanding will help the quote of the American philosopher J. Horton, who characterizes the Western perception of the concept of tolerance: "... I do not think that there is any rational perspective, any Archimedean point, any view from nowhere that would justify the reasonableness or correctness of a specific meaningful concept about the virtue of tolerance. Tolerance is not a virtue at all, standing aside from moral and political conflicts, in which it should act as a mediator" ^{[10, p. 40]}.

Thus, it was revealed that the mechanisms of tolerance in the Western educational environment are characterized by ambiguity: despite the fact that they are designed to protect minorities, in fact, the mechanisms give these groups rights beyond those that really ensure their equal coexistence in an academic setting. The situation has reached such a point that due to the uncertain limits of tolerance, most students have only a rough understanding of what is permissible and what is forbidden. This not only undermines the educational process, but also has a detrimental effect on Western society as a whole: students graduate with a lack of understanding of what to expect from their social environment, and minorities receive another lever of pressure – through such an important institution as education.

As a result of the analysis, a paradox in the functioning of tolerance was revealed: Western students can classify themselves as a certain minority and defend their rights, but often avoid discussions on the topic of equal opportunities, because they tend not to advertise belonging to any - for example, ethnic – group. Thus, some students, on the one hand, are fighting for the freedoms of minorities, but if they are included in this group during the dialogue, they are not satisfied with the situation of equal discussion, because any generalization of their personality with a minority is perceived as an insult. The situation with tolerance that has developed in the Western educational environment makes it possible to regulate academic discourse in a way that is convenient for minorities: they promote their agenda, while avoiding a full discussion of pressing issues. It seems that this problem is fundamental, because it is primarily related to how tolerance generally functions in Anglo-Saxon education: in order to offend a representative of a minority, it is enough to make a gesture that he considers inappropriate, or say something that seems unacceptable to him, in order to end the discussion and at the same time remain in a winning position. Given that tolerance is not perceived as an aspect of the worldview in the Western worldview, the tendency to turn tolerance mechanisms into a socio-political tool in Euro-Atlantic education will not go away.