Political Tolerance: Balancing Community and Diversity (Contemporary American Politics) [Hardcover]

Robert Weissberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 1998 | ISBN-10: 080397342X | ISBN-13: 978-0803973428

The virtues of tolerance seem absolutely unassailable, at first glance. Yet qualified behavioural tolerance seems to have been replaced by a blank-cheque attitudinal tolerance which threatens individual liberty and stifles free speech. This argument is at the centre of this compelling book. Robert Weissberg takes a serious look at the political shifts over the past 30 years and their effect on attitudes and behaviour. What should be tolerated? Is being highly tolerant a praiseworthy virtue? Is the welcoming of differences too often merely a facade to avoid the charge of intolerance?

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc (June 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080397342X
• ISBN-13: 978-0803973428
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,477,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in New York City and attended public schools there until I was twelve. My family moved to New Jersey and I eventually graduated from Teaneck High School in Teaneck, NJ. I received an AB degree from Bard College and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since 1969 I have taught political science at Cornell University, the University of Illinois-Urbana and am currently an adjunct professor of politics (graduate) at New York University.
I have written eleven books, the most recent are Political Tolerance, The Politics of Empowerment, Polling, Politics and Public Opinion, The Limits of Civic Activism and Pernicious Tolerance. Professional articles have appeared in the major political science journals plus more general publications such as Society and The Weekly Standard.

Many recent education-related writings are on the web, especially The American Thinker.com.
These include:
The Futility of American Education Reform (March 24, 2009) http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/how_todays_failed_educational.html

Demand, Not Supply Drives Educational Achievement (April 26, 2009) http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/04/demand_not_supply_drives_educa.html

The Long March of Kevin Jennings (October 6, 2009) http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/the_long_march_of_kevin_jennings.html

The Liberal Plot Against American Education (December 28, 2009) http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/the_liberal_plot_against_ameri.html

Should the Worst Schools Get the Best Teachers (January 20, 2010) http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/should_the_worst_schools_get_t.html


Obama and Education: Pork You Can Believe In (February 3, 2010) http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/obama_and_education_pork_you_c.html

Uplifting the Poor One Lie at a Time (March 28, 2010) http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/uplifting_the_poor_one_lie_at.html

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A good analysi with what is wrong, but doesn't go far enough, January 2, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Pleasant Hill, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Political Tolerance: Balancing Community and Diversity (Contemporary American Politics) (Paperback)

This book undertakes to expose the hypocrisy of the tolerance movement in the United States, that is the indoctrination of children and citizens into believing in a hierarchy of acceptable values. That is, homosexuality is tolerable and should be met with compassion, while religious fundamentalism is to be condemned because Christians are too intolerant, etc. Unfortunately, like many books that deal with culture it does a good job of grasping the logic of political tolerance, but ignores the evolutionary basis for the tension between the left and the right. When reading it, I had to keep comparing the observations with the analysis of evolutionary human behavior as described by Kevin MacDonald.

MacDonald's three books take what is described in Political Tolerance, and provides an evolutionary basis for its occurrence. The books are A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (1995), Separation and its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (1998), and The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (1998). To complete what Weissberg is observing one has to look at the tension between gentile and Jewish forces in the United States, and how they have played out. An analysis of values cannot be understood without understanding the underlying forces of social-identity theory (evolutionary resource and reproductive competition). Wiessberg's book lends credence to MacDonald's observations, they go hand in hand though from different perspectives.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A good start but doesn't go far enough in explanation., January 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Political Tolerance: Balancing Community and Diversity (Contemporary American Politics) (Hardcover)

This book undertakes to expose the hypocrisy of the tolerance movement in the United States, that is the indoctrination of children and citizens into believing in a hierarchy of acceptable values. That is, homosexuality is tolerable and should be met with compassion, while religious fundamentalism is to be condemned because Christians are too intolerant, etc. Unfortunately, like many books that deal with culture it does a good job of grasping the logic of political tolerance, but ignores the evolutionary basis for the tension between the left and the right. When reading it, I had to keep comparing the observations with the analysis of evolutionary human behavior as described by Kevin MacDonald.

MacDonald's three books take what is described in Political Tolerance, and provides an evolutionary basis for its occurrence. The books are A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (1995), Separation and its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (1998), and The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (1998). To complete what Weissberg is observing one has to look at the tension between gentile and Jewish forces in the United States, and how they have played out. An analysis of values cannot be understood without understanding the underlying forces of social-identity theory (evolutionary resource and reproductive competition). Wiessberg's book lends credence to MacDonald's observations, they go hand in hand though from different perspectives.