Latest best seller from François-Marie Arouet

February 15, 2015 12:21 PM

After the Charlie Hebdo killings, Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance is flying off the shelves.

The publishing house Gallimard, which puts out the pocket edition of Voltaire's tolerance manifesto, says it is already on its second reprint. Nearly half as many copies have been sold in the last three weeks than in the last 12 years.

(The linked NPR article is datelined today but does not mention today's shootings in Copenhagen at the "Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression" conference and at the Great Synagogue, but it's hard to imagine those hurting Treatise on Tolerance's sudden popularity.)


Treatise on Tolerance

Traité sur la tolérance (N.b. lots of notes, for readers of French)

posted by jfuller (9 comments total)

Under the conditions prevailing in this country, tolerance does not, and cannot, fulfill the civilizing function attributed to it by the liberal protagonists of democracy, namely, protection of dissent. The progressive historical force of tolerance lies in its extension to those modes and forms of dissent which are not committed to the status quo of society, and not confined to the institutional framework of the established society. Consequently, the idea of tolerance implies the necessity, for the dissenting group or individuals, to become illegitimate if and when the established legitimacy prevents and counteracts the development of dissent. This would be the case not only in a totalitarian society, under a dictatorship, in one-party states, but also in a democracy (representative, parliamentary, or 'direct') where the majority does not result from the development of independent thought and opinion but rather from the monopolistic or oligopolistic administration of public opinion, without terror and (normally) without censorship. In such cases, the majority is self-perpetuating while perpetuating the vested interests which made it a majority. In its very structure this majority is 'closed', petrified; it repels a priori any change other than changes within the system. But this means that the majority is no longer justified in claiming the democratic title of the best guardian of the common interest. And such a majority is all but the opposite of Rousseau's 'general will': it is composed, not of individuals who, in their political functions, have made effective 'abstraction' from their private interests, but, on the contrary, of individuals who have effectively identified their private. interests with their political functions. And the representatives of this majority, in ascertaining and executing its will, ascertain and execute the will of the vested interests, which have formed the majority. The ideology of democracy hides its lack of substance.

Herbert Marcuse, Repressive Tolerance (1965/1968)
posted by standardasparagus at 12:42 PM on February 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

Sadly, as per usual, those most likely to benefit are those least likely to read it.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:15 PM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

I just want give France some props. My country, when subjected to terrorist attacks, fucked the response up enormously and started an entirely unrelated war. I think I'd rather have the culture where the response to violence is a spike in sales for Voltaire.
posted by Ipsifendus at 1:59 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Voltaire was a vicious anti-Semite so I don't know if I should take him seriously on the topic of tolerance.
posted by silby at 2:20 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Voltaire was contemptuous of most religions, actually.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:20 PM on February 15, 2015

Voltaire was contemptuous of most religions, actually.

posted by ZenMasterThis

You get that "being contemptuous of religion" and being anti-Semitic are different, right?
posted by silby at 5:06 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Voltaire was a vicious anti-Semite so I don't know if I should take him seriously on the topic of tolerance.
silby

Of course you should. Being a hypocrite doesn't make you wrong. Attack the ideas if they're wrong, not the man.
posted by Sangermaine at 5:21 PM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

You get that "being contemptuous of religion" and being anti-Semitic are different, right?

The problem is that France has a bit of an issue with linking the two - see the Dreyfuss Affair for an example.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:36 AM on February 16, 2015

Mod note: Several comments deleted. Extended exchange about whether quoting Marcuse is a sign of privilege is a derail and tanking the thread; if you guys really want to pursue that with each other maybe take it to email. Thanks.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:06 PM on February 16, 2015