Excerpt

Universalism, relativism, and tolerance together form a nexus of ideas that entails philosophical, epistemological, and political aspects, while lying, as a whole and within the conditions of contemporary Western mass democracy, under the decisive influence of ideological likes and contentions. The historically new and politically striking element derives here from the positive and negative connection of the demand for tolerance with universalistic and relativistic positions. For, irrespective of the various designations, both universalism and relativism are—either as elaborated theoretical views or as manifest intellectual stances—far older and more ecumenical than the demand for tolerance, which is an exclusive product of…