LETTERS
Editors: You have published a good deal of material on Vietnam, and Irving Howe's articles analyze the situation well. His analyses seem to lead to definite conclusions, but he has shied away...
...Goldwater singles me out, let me give my own views and if any editor wishes to disagree, he will of course be able to do so...
...If Mr...
...As an end in itself, tolerance would be a norm...
...charming—and most dangerous" because 108 they "partake of all the Italian virtues and vices...
...But this is clearly impossible, for to apply universally, it would have to apply even to acts of intolerance...
...Therefore, in this context, to argue for the value of tolerance is to argue for the value of the various ends just cited...
...ALAN ESSNER and S. MAGZAMEN The ends-means ploy so engagingly discoursed upon by Messrs...
...There is an initial difficulty in identifying points of disagreement due to the vague and undefined manner in which the term, tolerance, is used...
...But in such an eventuality, the political situation would have been so sharply changed, and the repercussions of such change would be so enormous, that it seems quite impossible right now to say with any assurance what would then have to be done or said...
...In fact, the Communist vote has been reduced...
...It is our belief that the wish to avoid rejecting, to avoid ruling out, any form of behavior is responsible for the wide acceptance of tolerance as a norm...
...That would then require a serious reconsideration of proposals by those forces in the U.S...
...The only way I can see right now of perhaps bringing enough popular pressure to bear on the Johnson Administration so that steps will be taken to end the war, is to keep insisting that the U.S...
...This is a very disingenuous way to avoid the really important questions, for it is the ends themselves that must first be established...
...I want to see it come to a rapid end, and I want to see the removal of all foreign troops from Vietnamese soil...
...I want no part of it...
...Now it is possible that even if the U.S...
...It is only as a method that tolerance may have some relevance...
...His analyses seem to lead to definite conclusions, but he has shied away from making such conclusions...
...But it should be recalled that de Gaulle did not simply pull out of Algeria one foggy night...
...took all these steps, the Communists in Vietnam would still refuse to negotiate...
...Schmid then seductively leaps to the "remarkable" increase in the Communist vote concomitant with the shrinking in party membership...
...This is not a field in which there is a third camp...
...However, all of the various usages can be sorted out into two distinct categories: tolerance as a method, and as an end in itself...
...However, even a careful reading fails to reveal any awareness on the part of the author of this logical relationship...
...But this is not a position...
...Schmid...
...Editors: Italian Communism is perplexing enough without the introduction of distortions which mar an otherwise useful piece by Peter Schmid ("The Perplexities of Italian Communism," DISSENT, Sept.—Oct., 1966...
...David Spitz and others writing in the same tradition preclude, however, an attempt to determine this relevance by confusing it with a norm of behavior...
...cease using napalm in either North or South Vietnam, so that the country will not be utterly devastated in the next few years...
...2. Since power is meaningless unless it achieves the right ends, tyrants—who are not philosophers and therefore do not know the right ends—have no power...
...American policy in Vietnam is reactionary and thoroughly to be rejected...
...That means, to avoid any ambiguity, the removal of U.S...
...If that is not intolerance, words have lost all their meaning...
...At one point Mr...
...He put forward a series of proposals, and he created a political atmosphere which enabled the Algerians to enter negotiations with France...
...A norm is a prescription for action, a standard to which all behavior must conform...
...Why, then, does tolerance maintain so important a place in political theory...
...Tolerance imposes no burden on the believer—it in109 structs him merely to be passive...
...This is precisely what I want to see happen in regard to Vietnam...
...Essner and Magzamen reduces itself to this: any principle or act (as means) is to be judged and valued only in relation to—i.e., as it achieves—its end...
...Essner and Magzamen are welcome to this position...
...And finally it seems to me entirely appropriate and relevant that the peace movement demand from the Johnson Administration an unambiguous statement of readiness entirely to withdraw from Vietnam upon the completion of peace negotiations...
...In certain circles, this is known as the doctrine of Socialist Realism...
...The value of the ends are simply assumed...
...Very well...
...it is a series of hopes, pious or otherwise, and hedging, and non-positions...
...It need not be repeated that we have stopped bombing the North, and not much came of it...
...Howe's article in a recent issue gives all the arguments for getting out, and then comes to the conclusion that we ought to stop bombing North Vietnam and try to negotiate...
...His treatment of the subject is not only contradictory but a totally inadequate approach to the whole question of social values, as we shall attempt to show...
...The fact that tolerance can be revealed as an inconsistent norm will probably do little to dislodge it as a habit of thought and practice...
...I believe the war disastrous, politically and morally...
...It is the Italians themselves who are charming—and dangerous in their reckless maneuvering of the ballot (and automobilies...
...As a practice, tolerance is a mask for passivity, a false standard which permits the illusion of principled inaction...
...This was the teaching of Socrates in the Gorgias, but fortunately not of Hobbes...
...But not the Party...
...As an ideology, tolerance prejudices even the attempt to formulate the true standards of social behavior...
...DAVID SPITZ We have received comments by Paul Goodman and Tom Kahn on Richard Flacks's article "On the Uses of Participatory Democracy" which appeared in the November—December issue of DISSENT...
...Spitz calls tolerance "a method by which we may correct our errors and improve our understanding...
...He calls the P.C.I...
...However, since "coercion" is not a nice word, let us, with Rousseau, say that this is only a way of forcing men to be free...
...troops...
...This ancient but quite naive proposition begs many questions, e.g., of the openness or multiplicity of ends, or the distinction between instrumental and intrinsic ends, or the fact that means and ends cannot be judged separately but must be taken together as interrelated parts of a total situation...
...The lack of clarity concerning the distinction between means and ends probably accounts for the confusion of tolerance with an end in itself...
...3. Since democracy is a government "for the people," it is foolish to ask "incompetent" people what they want...
...In turn, the negotiations were the fact that made possible—led to—peace and the withdrawal of French troops...
...What else can the application of a "rule" to human behavior be but an act of intolerance...
...that is, it must apply in all cases...
...For reasons of space, we have to save these comments for our next issue.—En...
...According to him, tolerance fosters not merely clarity of thought but also "the common good," "diversity," "the scientific method," etc...
...It was probably to describe this notion that the term "pure tolerance" was coined...
...It may be enough to point out some consequences of their own position...
...Some time the editors must make their choice, may we hope that this time will come soon...
...If we apply a rule, we are ruling out certain categories of behavior...
...The example of French withdrawal from Algeria is sometimes cited...
...It is, I agree, at a dangerously high level (26%, according to Mr...
...instead, it is proper to give them what they need...
...and our fairly noble leaders have been offering to negotiate, and nothing has come of that either...
...WALTER GOLDWATER IRVING HOWE replies: DISSENT does not take collective "positions": each editor speaks for himself...
...formally declare its readiness to negotiate with the NLF-Vietcong, immediately cease bombing the north, and refrain from any steps to escalate the war...
...Some individual editors have taken clear positions, but the magazine, and the chief editors, do not seem to have made up their minds...
...Messrs...
...4. Finally, since freedom and tolerance are simply methods by which men seek to achieve the right goals, other methods that realize those goals may be preferable...
...We will treat them in that order...
...But simple inquiries by any foreigner or any tourist would obtain for him the frank confession of Communist voters to their cynical, Realpolitik reasons for their vote: a lever to move the Christian Democrats or the ruling coalition toward the direction of making life more bearable...
...the choice is stay or leave...
...It is simply a statement of desire or preference, not a political strategy...
...These difficult and cornplex problems do not seem to perturb my two critics, and they require more space than has been allotted me in which to deal with them here...
...To be a standard the command to "be tolerant" must be universal...
...a way of shaking up the politicians who are all too quick in forgetting their campaign promises...
...which want to see the war ended...
...and his current article ends with "let there be .. . peace...
...a way of "getting back" at the shrugging oppression of Church and state...
...Spitz really wished to make tolerance the "fundamental rule," he would find himself in the embarrassing situation of having to violate it each time he applied it...
...EDWARD H. TUMIN ROME, ITALY, OCTOBER 6, 1966 Editor: We must take issue with David Spitz's approach to the problem of tolerance as expressed in his "polemic against Marcuse, Moore, and Wolff...
...But even assuming their establishment, tolerance would have to be shown to be both logically and empirically consistent with those ends...
...Now, it is a simple matter to show that tolerance as a normative standard is a meaningless concept since it contains a logical contradiction...
...Since Mr...
...The question then is: how can this end best be achieved...
...1. Since any aesthetic work—a painting, a poem, a novel—is to be judged by the values it promotes, only those efforts are worthy that achieve the right values...
...I also think it important to keep hammering away at the demand that the U.S...
...This is currently known as Guided Democracy, or People's Democracy—or Marcuse's Democracy...
...Leaving aside the vagueness with which these concepts are discussed, and the author's chronic tendency to merge all of them until they are indistinguishable from the notion of tolerance itself, we will restrict ourselves to commenting solely on tolerance as a method...
...My view is that the "demand" for unilateral withdrawal can at this time have no significant political consequences...
...Tolerance as a method, like any other method, derives its value from something else—namely, the end which it serves...
Vol. 14 • January 1967 • No. 1
