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The idea of toleration as the appropriate response to difference has been central to liberal thought since Locke. Although the subject has been widely and variously explored, there has been reluctance to acknowledge the new meaning that current debates offer on toleration. This book starts from a clear recognition of the new terms of the debate, reflecting the capacity of seeing the other's viewpoint, and the limited extent to which toleration can be granted. Theoretical statements on toleration posit at the same time its necessity in democratic societies, and its impossibility as a coherent ideal. There are several possible objections to, and ways of developing the ideal of, reasonable tolerance as advocated by John Rawls and by some other supporters of political liberalism. The first part of the book explores some of them. In some real-life conflicts, it is unclear on whom the burden of reasonableness may fall. This part discusses the reasonableness of pluralism, and general concept and various more specific conceptions of toleration. The forces of progressive politics have been divided into two camps: redistribution and recognition. The second part of the book is an attempt to explore the internal coherence of such a transformation when applied to different contexts. It argues that openness to others in discourse, and their treatment as free and equal, is part of a kind of reflexive toleration that pertains to public communication in the deliberative context. Social ethos, religious discrimination and education are discussed in connection with tolerance.
Inequality is a coin that cannot be understood by studying only one of its faces. In the preface to this volume, besides critically interrogating poverty, Williams asks what qualitative questions should we be asking about the rich?
(Moulaert et al. 2013; Della Porta 2015; Martinelli 2017). I propose an explanation of why social actors emerged outside traditional parties in southern European societies with the aim of restating rights, and shifting the discourse from austerity to social inequalities. The chapter concludes with a brief note on the challenges in scaling up from urban citizenship practices and local politics to the level of effective national coordination of progressive political actors and policies which could promote new social contracts. Cities under economic austerity 177
, particularly women’s suffrage. Together they embody many of the themes of this chapter. Haweis is but one of many examples of individuals who combined progressive political and social tendencies with a strong interest in music and a belief in its power to shape human behaviour. It is well known that the nineteenth century saw profound shifts in religious belief brought about by what
-roots campaigns. Second, from the mid-1980s, there was a change in emphasis and the collective threw its considerable weight behind the encouragement of black art and literature. Finally, having broken into the mainstream media, it dissolved in April 1991. The origins of the collective Farrukh Dhondy, one of the first people to write for Race Today under Darcus Howe’s editorship, argues that the collective grew out of the most progressive politics of the British Black Panther movement.3 The Panthers had been founded as a nationalist and Leninist organisation by Nigerian
English radicalism has been a deep-rooted but minority tradition in the political culture since at least the seventeenth century. The central aim of this book is to examine, in historical and political context, a range of key events and individuals that exemplify English radicalism in the twentieth century. This analysis is preceded by defining precisely what has constituted this tradition; and by the main outline of the development of the tradition from the Civil War to the end of the nineteenth century. Three of the main currents of English radicalism in the twentieth century have been the labour movement, the women’s movement and the peace movement. These are discussed in some detail, as a framework for the detailed consideration of ten key representative figures of the tradition in the twentieth century: Bertrand Russell, Sylvia Pankhurst, Ellen Wilkinson, George Orwell, E.P. Thompson, Michael Foot, Joan Maynard, Stuart Hall, Tony Benn and Nicolas Walter. The question of ‘agency’ – of how to bring about radical change in a predominantly conservative society and culture – has been a fundamental issue for English radicals. It is argued that, in the twentieth century, many of the important achievements in progressive politics have taken place in and through extra-parliamentary movements, as well as through formal political parties and organisations – the Labour Party and other socialist organisations – and on occasion, through libertarian and anarchist politics. The final chapter considers the continuing relevance of this political tradition in the early twenty-first century, and reviews its challenges and prospects.
politically active students, including his family friend and near neighbour, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the future leader of independent Bangladesh. Progressive politics and the Soviet Union The political consciousness of men such as Tasadduk Ahmed and Sheikh Mannan – and also Sheikh Mujib – was not only a product of their local experiences. They and their fellow activists emerged through world-wide developments in secular socialist movements and ideas. In his survey of Bengal Politics in Britain, Faruque Ahmed observes that ‘before 1970 most of the Bengali politicians in
‘critique of political ecology’ that the intellectual gaze might shift to identifying the mechanisms through which new and progressive political-ecological configurations can be forged, something that is centrally important if we are really concerned with inflecting the infernal socio-ecological dynamics of the political ecology of present-day capitalism in a socially more equitable
of compassion and justice to the lower animals’ counted for more than abstract philosophy. In fact, even the theory of human rights rested not on reasoning but on an apprehension ‘by the moral faculty, however difficult it may be to establish it on an unassailable logical basis’.12 In practice, therefore, an assertion of animals’ rights depended on feeling, analogy and association rather than on rational proof. It was part of a nexus of inspirational ideas typical of the turn of the century, embracing also progressive politics, theosophy, vegetarianism and feminism
compassion and justice to the lower animals’ counted for more than abstract philosophy. In fact, even the theory of human rights rested not on reasoning but on an apprehension ‘by the moral faculty, however difficult it may be to establish it on an unassailable logical basis’.12 In practice, therefore, an assertion of animals’ rights depended on feeling, analogy and association rather than on rational proof. It was part of a nexus of inspirational ideas typical of the turn of the century, embracing also progressive politics, theosophy, vegetarianism and feminism, and