Tolerare ergo sum? Dialogi polsko-niderlandzkie
Tolerare ergo sum? A Polish-Dutch Dialogue about Tolerance

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to examine two different approaches to the issue of tolerance, which can be seen in the contexts of the Netherlands and Poland. The author deliberately uses the term “approach” here in his analysis in order – above all – to focus not on whether the societies under discussion are tolerant or not (yet or any longer). The answer to the question of (in)tolerance remains secondary to the (socially constructed) “definition” of tolerance, which is then accepted as a diagnostic tool for the (non-)existing state of things. Adopting such a perspective makes it possible to identify two different models of tolerance, which the author would like to propose using as analytical instruments in considering Dutch and Polish tolerance, as well as their dilemmas, while accepting that the “Dutch model” would be based on the treatment of tolerance as the “product” of a pragmatic strategy of risk management in a pluralistic socio-cultural context, while the “Polish model” would render the principle of tolerance an ideological “starting point” – a fundamental value that is subject to instrumentation and demands (unqualified) implementation.

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