Introduction 1

Respect, Toleration and Diversity: Protecting Individual Freedom in Liberal Societies Peter Balint A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences University of New South Wales, January 2009 ORGINALITY STATEMENT ‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’ Signed …………………………………………….............. Date …………………………………………….............. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.' Signed ……………………………………………........................... Date ……………………………………………........................... AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT ‘I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital format.’ Signed ……………………………………………........................... Date ……………………………………………........................... Abstract In diverse societies like Australia, Britain, Canada and The Netherlands, government policy has increasingly focused on inter-citizen relations. There have been demands for citizens to respect each others’ differences, as well as fears about declining social cohesion and acts of intolerance. In political theory, these themes also have currency, although here they often have been obscured by a tendency to think in terms of ‘majorities’ and minorities’, and ‘we’ and ‘they’, rather than in terms of the state and the individual citizen. This thesis argues that while respect of difference may seem to be the best way to successfully accommodate individual difference, it is an indefensible demand on the citizen: such a demand is both excessive and unnecessary, and has the potential to unjustifiably limit individual freedom and the accommodation of difference. Further, the requirement for social cohesion is often overstated, while acts of intolerance are best avoided by citizens respecting each others’ sameness (citizenship) rather than their difference. As far as the state is concerned, by clearly distinguishing specific instances of tolerance (which always involve forbearance) from the general practice of toleration, the thesis defends toleration as a general and maximally permissive practice – one which is compatible with both liberal neutrality and the maximal accommodation of individual difference, and thus the freedom of individuals to live their lives as they see fit. Preface Before enrolling as a PhD student, I spent a couple of years as a humanities teacher in the Australian TAFE (Technical and Further Education) system. One of my roles was teaching an alternative Year 10 program to a group of young people, who for various social, personal and behavioural reasons had not ‘gelled’ with the traditional school system. These students came from a wide a range of backgrounds, with a very high number of first and second generation migrants, some indigenous kids, and even some kids from seemingly middle-class backgrounds. These young people – many of whom were more enthusiastic and intelligent than a great deal of the university students I have since taught – were, as one would imagine, not afraid to speak their mind, and had finely tuned bullshit detectors. Their behaviour towards each other was also far from civil. They were stereotypically ‘multicultural’ in appearance, and as a group they would have made the perfect picture for the front page of a multicultural policy document or media campaign. But their actions towards each other displayed none of the ‘harmony’ and ‘respect for diversity’ that such documents commonly proclaim. Yet, on the whole, in their non-harmonious way they managed to get along as a group. On the odd occasion that real fights broke out, it was over things that had nothing to do with their ethnic background, but more to do with things such as which girl had stolen somebody else’s boyfriend. vi Preface At roughly the same time, the Australian TV show Pizza, set in western Sydney, was in its heyday. In Australia, this was the early 21st Century’s Wogs out of Work or Kingswood Country (equivalent UK examples here would be The Kumars at No. 42, Goodness Gracious Me, or Love Thy Neighbour). Pizza successfully used humour, and often very cutting humour, to deal with inter-ethnic relations. Whereas these previous shows had mainly dealt with Italian and Greek migrant relations with ‘Anglo’ Australia, Pizza threw everyone into the mix: Lebanese, Maltese, Italian, Vietnamese, Kiwi, Maori, and Bogan backgrounds, among many others, were represented and all ruthlessly parodied. The characters constantly laughed at and showed little respect for each others’ backgrounds. And there were fights, often very big ones. But once again, these fights were not normally about ‘ethnic’ stuff, but about other issues – usually drugs, and often about dodgy pizza. Back to TAFE. As a humanities teacher I taught subjects such as Australian Studies and Community Identity, both of which had large components dealing with the issues of Australian multiculturalism. The teaching resources I was given, and the ones I found in the TAFE library, were full of material about ‘respecting difference’, ‘the importance of diversity’, ‘living in harmony’, and ‘cultural exchange’. Yet, as I have described, these multicultural kids did very little of this sort of thing; they, like the characters in Pizza, regularly teased and cajoled each other, and this was often along ethnic lines. While these students lived far from harmonious lives and had to deal with some very serious matters, at least in the interactions I saw, their ethnicity had very little to do with this. Preface vii It was this set of observations that was the initial starting point of this thesis. I was faced with teaching resources and a more general policy approach that seemingly tried to turn multicultural relations into something like idealised friendship relations. Yet at the same time, I increasingly felt that it would be both much more feasible, and perhaps desirable, if these sorts of relations were seen more along the lines of being good neighbours, and not necessarily close neighbours at that. I was not driven by the thought that the verbal violence of TAFE or Pizza was a good model for a society, but instead, that society can function, and does function, without the soft and cuddly notions of respect of difference that seemed so favoured by multicultural educators – and that when problems do arise they may often have very little to do with these sorts of differences. These feelings were reinforced when, just before enrolling in my PhD program, I visited a former undergraduate tutor who was now a lecturer in social policy. When I told her of my general interest in the issues of diversity, her first response was along the lines of: ‘don’t use words like tolerance and toleration, they have a really bad name’. She then proceeded to explain that ‘people don’t want to be just tolerated’, and that ‘it involves negative valuing and non-acceptance’. Having not yet raised these terms, but having intended to ground my eventual thesis in what I thought were important and not particularly controversial values, I was a little taken aback. How could concepts with such an important political pedigree have become no-go zones? This was the motivation behind the other major thread of the thesis: I wanted to see whether toleration could, in fact, be benign, and whether it always had to involve viii Preface negative valuing. At the same time, it seemed to me that the practice of tolerance as forbearance was exactly what was required in inter-citizen relations. Fast forward a few years, and what you have in front of you is my response to these questions: What should be asked of citizens of diverse societies in their relations with each other? And how should toleration be understood as a framework for accommodating diversity? Acknowledgements Other than my students and fellow staff at TAFE Sydney Institute and Paul Fenech (a.k.a Pauly Falzoni) and the whole Pizza crew, I have several important intellectual and personal debts to acknowledge. This thesis, unsurprisingly, benefited an incredible amount from the feedback, support, and encouragement of a great many people. First and foremost, I am grateful to Geoffrey Brahm Levey as my primary supervisor, who through his critical feedback and attention to detail pushed this thesis well beyond the level it would otherwise have been.

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