Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR TOYNBEE'S TOLERATION As I am a far-off resident and see THE NEW LEADER only when it arrives by surface mail, you will excuse the delay if I now send a criticism of what has appeared in...
...Assuredly, the pattern of life in the U.S...
...We go to the country for many reasons, among which fresh air and proper playing space tor our children are perhaps pre-eminent...
...Assuredly, the new suburbia is not a nostalgic revival of a small-town atmosphere...
...On the other hand, religious toleration and understanding, as history has shown, are by themselves no guarantee of peace...
...Far from fleeing reality, many of us find ourselves coming to grips with it far more effectively by moving freely among all types of our fellow countrymen than by confining our activities to publicity-sponsored cocktail parties in Manhattan...
...The Communists are distrusted, and this is the chief impediment to co-existence and peace...
...Communist atheism is therefore a legitimate target for attack by believing non-Communists, and for this Toynbee's recipe of a joint front is a very good prescription...
...We are engaged in developing new methods for dealing with problems of education, delinquency, health and human relations, new techniques for stimulation of the arts...
...Religious toleration is a desirable virtue, but how its achievement could solve the problems generated by Communism and nationalism has not been shown by Toynbee or, to my knowledge, by any other thinker...
...The atheism of the Communists is an attitude which, one may well believe, can be overcome by conviction, and a joint front of religions will make it easier for truth to prevail...
...Good-will and trust will govern the affairs of mankind if we secure a common faith in God and adherence to spiritual values...
...On the whole, I believe, American policy in foreign relations has not manifested a spirit of religious fanaticism...
...One of the chief impediments to the proselytization of the atheists is the division and discord among believers...
...Obviously Konvitz looks upon Communism as something against which only force can avail...
...We take with us our sense of political responsibility, sharpened in many of us by immediate contact with the problems of those about us...
...New Delhi, India C. RAJAGOPALACHARI Milton Konvitz replies: I do not suppose that any NL reader would disapprove of a plea "for tolerance, for conviction and faith without fanaticism, arrogance or self-centeredness...
...Indeed one may ask if this may not be good in itself apart from whether it may enable us to fight Communism more successfully...
...He does not plead for a new synthetic faith...
...ALICE BEAL PARSONS...
...namely "that we can have conviction without fanaticism, we can have belief and action without arrogance or self-centeredness or pride...
...g., Japan, India and Pakistan...
...Nyack, N.Y...
...We take an active part in our schools and in politics at the grass roots level as well as in the more rarefied strata...
...for Christian nations have made war among themselves, and Moslim countries today still need to achieve respect for one another and peaceful co-existence...
...We have friendly relations even with a nation committed to atheism— Yugoslavia...
...As I said in my review, this is in the best American tradition—in the tradition of Jefferson and Madison...
...This is merely another way of putting the sentiment that I quoted from Toynbee's book, which, says Toynbee, is his "crucial point...
...But it is a great pity that books and lectures on the subject should be left chiefly to city dwellers whose works indicate that they know practically nothing about the new pattern that is emerging...
...It is open to take the view that if anti-Communism has faith in itself it should hope that conviction can prevail and that force is of no real avail today...
...DEAR EDITOR TOYNBEE'S TOLERATION As I am a far-off resident and see THE NEW LEADER only when it arrives by surface mail, you will excuse the delay if I now send a criticism of what has appeared in your issue of November 24, 1958...
...is rapidly changing...
...with non-Christian nations—e...
...g., Italy and Spain...
...SUBURBIA Johon Braeman's review, in your February 23 issue, of Robert C. Wood's Suburbia: Its People and Their Politics has added to the dismay with which I am reading the many soap-opera distortions of the suburbs and the people who live in them...
...The distrust is attracted by their disbelief in God and therefore in spiritual values...
...But we who were born in the city and passed our youth among its many opportunities do not become different people just because we are living 30 miles from Times Square, 45 minutes by automobile, instead of in Brooklyn or the Bronx, 60 or 90 minutes from it by subway...
...It is this that induces Toynbee to press for a realization of the essential common truth in all religions...
...He pleads for tolerance, for conviction and faith without fanaticism, arrogance or self-centeredness...
...We have friendly relations with Catholic nations—e...
...I do not agree with the remark offered by Milton Konvitz ("A Plea for Religious Tolerance"), in the concluding paragraphs of his review of Arnold Toynbee's book on Religious Tolerance, with which he brushes away the plea for a united front of religion, viz., that it will not enable us to meet the "challenge" of Communism...
Vol. 42 • March 1959 • No. 10
