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Subject Area: Political Theory

Intolerance vs. Self-Actualization - Leonard P. Liggio, Literature of Liberty, April/June 1978, vol. 1, No. 2 [1978]

Edition used:

Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought was published first by the Cato Institute (1978-1979) and later by the Institute for Humane Studies (1980-1982) under the editorial direction of Leonard P. Liggio.

Part of: Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 20 vols. 19781-982

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Intolerance vs. Self-Actualization

Fred H. Willhoite, Jr.

“Evolution and Collective Intolerance.” The Journal of Politics 39 (1977): 667–684.

Applying evolutionary analysis to politics creates disturbing thoughts. If the very process of natural selection reinforces human aggression and competition, what hope does mankind have for peace?

Collective intolerance endangers liberty (meaning Mill's freedom of dissent). This becomes clear by exploring the connection between man's biological nature and his attitudes toward diverse, threatening, and novel ideas. “Collective intolerance” here means the tendency in members of a group not only to insist upon behavioral and intellectual conformity but also to repress unconventional behavior or expression.

Will evolution solve the problem of collective intolerance? To answer this, we must search back into our evolutionary roots, examine recent efforts by biologists to discover the attitudes of the lower primate groups to challenges from contesting groups, as well as investigate modern scientific conceptions of natural selection. Conclusions may be drawn from these primate examples and from what is known about man's behavior toward competing groups when he was still in the herding phase. In effect, man possesses a genetic disposition to identify with a group in order to secure his own survival. Consequently, group survival—and the corresponding necessity to homogenize the group through shared ideas, customs, religious beliefs—dictates intolerance for dissent within the group and opposition to competing societies with different belief systems. Thus, the proliferating warfare of the preceding four centuries is directly linked to the increase in communication between these divergent societies.

What, then, is the likelihood of promoting toleration and liberty within society if man is biologically predisposed to be intolerant? The primary solution is rationality. Once men in competing societies recognize that nuclear war may annihilate all groups, they might discern that increased cooperation is the only means of securing survival. And finally, constitutional guarantees within states ought to be institutionalized in order to protect the liberty to dissent.

II

Civil Liberties

To what legal and civil rights are individuals entitled? How free and immune are citizens in the pursuit of their independent choices and actions, especially when such choices and actions are unpopular?

Our next group of summaries explores the often controversial claims of individuals to live freely in civil society, protected in their persons and nonviolent activities.

The historical panorama of America's fitful protection of various civil liberties opens this sequence. We then survey narrower issues, including the right to die, the parents' right to choose education, the right to bear arms, and the debated right to read or view pornography. The concluding topic comes full circle and raises sobering doubts about how consistently the legal system extends civil liberties and impartial justice during emotionally charged times.