Tolerance and relativism

'Toleration is not an assertion of relativism. It is, rather, the forbearance from judging and acting on judgments in the public sphere that one might well believe oneself entitled to make in private. Toleration entails the suspension of public disbelief, or at least political action thereupon, about matters that one might nonetheless consider well within the realm of private moral judgment. Relativism, by contrast, is denial of grounds for judging at all. They could not be more different—
and, crucially, relativism removes the possibility of toleration because it removes the possibility of reasoned judgment.'

http://kennethandersonlawofwar.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-weekly-standard-article-mormons.html

There are many other excellent things in this piece (which is available in its full form on the Weekly Standard website) but this struck me as a hugely important factor in todays politics. It immediately brought to mind the words of the Dutch minister when discussing the seemingly inevitable rise of the Muslim population of Holland to become the majority, that Dutch people ought to establish themselves on friendly terms so that when Sharia is voted in as the new Dutch law, the Muslims will be kind in like turn. There is no private moral judgement vs public moral judgement in Islam. That is something we in the west have created uniquely in the history of mankind. The alternative, as Kenneth Anderson points out, is increasingly fractious politics ending up in internicine violence.