Redefining tolerance: Accepting the gift

The problem of toleration has traditionally been addressed from liberal perspectives, emphasizing the individual over the community. In contrast, postmodern thought introduces the theory of the gift, revealing the bonds erased by liberal individualism. This article proposes an alternative conceptualization of tolerance within the paradigm of the gift: tolerance as accepting the gift. The existence of the given demands tolerance of its disruptive implications: the encounter with the other and the recognition of an underlying debt. Drawing on the debate on the gift between Jean-Luc Marion, Jacques Derrida and John Milbank, I explore the social and political implications of this perspective on tolerance. I argue that radical acceptance of the gift requires abandoning the paradigm of sameness in favour of difference and recognizing the impossibility of abstractly resolving the problem of tolerance. While liberal tradition privileges individual freedom, tolerance from the perspective of the gift calls for communitarian virtues – hospitality, responsibility and forgiveness. Finally, recognizing the radical ‘given condition’ of the gift rethinks politics not from a sovereign hierarchy of power but from an anti-sovereigntist paradigm rooted in vulnerability.