Bill 21 as an exemplar of the fragility of tolerance

ABSTRACT

In June 2019, Québec passed Bill 21, entitled: ‘An Act respecting the laicity of the State’. This bill bans public servants from wearing religious symbols in the workplace. Among the affected employees are judges, teachers, and government officers. This paper considers the ethical ramifications of Bill 21 on education. Particularly, this paper examines some prime arguments for and against abridging religious rights for teachers and public servants. Then, the paper explicates the immanent tension between the desire to advance tolerance and the exercise of intolerant practices against minorities. In this sense, the case of Bill 21 exemplifies the fragility of tolerance. Drawing from Dewey’s pragmatic understanding and agonistic models of democracy, the concluding section of this paper argues for the development of a more inclusive understanding of tolerance that will offer students educational experience and encourage them to constantly consider their predispositions and biases towards the other.

KEYWORDS:

• Tolerance
• democracy and education
• citizenship education
• agonism
• political emotions
• pragmatism
• secularism

In June 2019, the National Assembly of Québec passed Bill 21, a law entitled: ‘An Act respecting the laicity of the State’. This law, in service of enshrining the State of Québec as a ‘lay State’, bans public servants from wearing religious symbols in the workplace (Assemblée Nationale du Québec, 2019). Among the affected employees are judges, teachers, prison guards, and government officers. The religious symbols include clothing and other signs, such as Jewels and accessories (e.g. cross, hijab, or kippah) (Monpetit, 2019). The proponents of the law, which is also known as a law on secularism, want to protect Québec’s secular identity. In defending the law, Québec Premier François Legault argued that ‘it’s been a long time since we decided to separate Church and state … , and it’s been more than 10 years that we’ve been debating religious symbols. It’s time to nail down the rules’ (CBC News, 2019, n.p.). Legault’s claim echoes the premise that maintaining secularism, id est, the separation of the state and religion, means that the public sphere must be neutral.

The Bill has raised a political dispute and evoked great concerns related to the rise of ethnic nationalism, the increase of polarization, and the abridgement of civil rights. The English Montréal School Board has filed a legal challenge against the Québec Government claiming that the law infringes on the legal right of equality in education (Harris, 2019). Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, argued: ‘I don’t think that, in a free society, we should be legitimizing or allowing discrimination against anyone’ (Authier, 2019). For religious government employees, the law creates an impossible moral dilemma, requiring them to choose between their commitment to their religious creed and their work. The law, in general, conveys an unwelcoming message for immigrants.

Since the Bill passed, it has promoted a divisive school culture and increased cases in which religious students have been targets for school bullying (Taylor, 2022). In a diverse society, like the society in Québec, particularly in the metropolitan region of Montréal, this bill reflects the rise of nationalist sentiments and tribalism and what one may see as a sign of breaking bridges among cultures (Bauman, 2016).

Bill 21 exemplifies an immanent contradiction between the ambition of modern states to advance tolerance, on the one hand, and the exercise of intolerant practices against minorities, on the other. Thus, this paper considers the ethical ramifications of Bill 21 on education.¹ I argue that advancing a genuine sense of tolerance among students involves not only epistemological considerations of tolerance, but also an advancement of tolerance through a pragmatic approach with an agonistic lens. In the first part of this paper, following a brief review of the history of secularism in general and specifically in Québec, I review two main supporting arguments for prohibiting religious symbols. Each of these arguments are juxtaposed by a counter argument. Then, I discuss how liberal thinkers have structured a specific reasoning behind their understanding of tolerance. In the concluding part, I argue that galvanizing tolerance requires the advancement of a pragmatic understanding of tolerance crafted from an agonistic perspective.

The struggle for secularism: a brief contextual background of the case of Québec

The debate regarding religious symbols in a secular public sphere requires us to consider some historical grounds of the secular state, as well as the nature of secularism. One notable historical event traces back to 1648, when the Westphalia Peace Treaties were signed, ending the Thirty Years’ War. These treaties signaled the constitution of the European nation states and included some principles that paved the way for the development of the liberal state. One of the most important issues to be addressed in the Westphalia constitutional treaties was the separation of the state and the church, which ‘established a secular order by taking sovereignty over religious affairs away from the discretion of territorial princes and by establishing a proto-liberal legal distinction between private and public affairs’ (Straumann, 2008, p. 184).

Secularism, by its nature, aims to take the stance of neutrality over individuals’ rights to live according to their mode of life (whether they are atheist or religious people), as long as they do not intervene or impose their individual moral commitments on others (Maclure & Taylor, 2011). This rationality is rooted in two main principles: (1) ‘Equality of respect’, and (2) ‘freedom of conscience’ (Maclure & Taylor, 2011, p. 20). These two principles are critical when considering the tension between sovereign power and individuals’ moral commitments. For example, if states’ rules rest merely on secular principles and exclude religions from public life, they position members of religious communities as second-class citizens. Conversely, when states’ rules are governed by the dominant religion, they position all other groups in the society as second-class citizens.

As a point of departure for discussing common arguments for and against abridging religious rights for teachers, it is important to point out that while we can find some common principles of secularism, the manifestation of secularism is varied and involves distinctive interpretations in different societies. Maclure and Taylor (2011) point out that while the Quiet Revolution that began in the 1960s is associated with the secularization of Québec, the roots of this process trace back to the eighteenth century for pragmatic reasons:

Measures of religious tolerance were set in place beginning in the eighteenth century to ensure social peace and political stability, given the forced coexistence of French and British Canadians. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 and the Québec Act of 1774 acknowledged Catholics’ freedom of worship. (pp. 54–55)

Thus, the separation of the church and state and the cultivation of secularism as a means for advancing religious and multicultural tolerance are rooted deeply in Canada’s history. The Quiet Revolution in Québec did serve as a catalyst to change citizens’ dispositions towards the (Catholic) church and the embracing of cultural diversity. Nevertheless, long before Bill 21, there has been a debate within Québec regarding secularism, in particular in light of growing waves of immigration. For example, in 1994, there was a debate over calls for banning Islamic students from wearing the hijab (Islamic headscarf) in schools. Maclure and Taylor (2011) point out that, when reflecting upon such debates of the last few decades, it is evident that despite the continuous debates about religious symbols in schools the mode of governance has been guided by the idea of ‘“open” secularism’ (p. 58). Open secularism is based on both state neutrality, which eliminates any bias towards specific religions and/or groups, and recognizing that actively protecting people’s freedom to follow their spiritual/religious way of life is essential for including the different groups of the society in the public sphere and protecting the freedom of conscience.

In the broader context of the secularization of Quebec, Bill 21 cannot be disconnected from the pedagogical Ethics and Religious Culture Program (ERC), that was initiated in 2000. This program replaced a longstanding separation between the French (Catholic) and the Anglo (Protestant) approaches to education. Maxwell (2019) points out that the ‘ERC curriculum was developed to complete this process, replacing the curriculum on confessional religious instruction in 2008’ (p. 17). Key here is Quebec’s intention to maintain religious freedom by advancing a program that does not violate this principle, to require teachers to base their pedagogy on impartiality, and to avoid showing their personal religious, political, and ethical dispositions (Maxwell, 2019).

The attempt of Bill 21 to repudiate any association with religion in the public sphere and to ban civil servants from wearing religious symbols inevitably positions people who hold religious or conservative values as second-class citizens. On a deeper level, it creates challenges in the relationship between the state and the people and between the different groups in the society. The tension between sovereign power and individuals’ moral commitment merits a close look at those who advocate for restricting religious rights in the public sphere and those who reject such restriction. In what follows, I examine two common justifications for prohibiting religious symbols in public offices: state neutrality and state autonomy.

The state neutrality justification

One prominent justification for forbidding public servants from wearing religious symbols rests on the principle of state neutrality. This claim hinges on several interrelated premises regarding the contesting nature of different religious groups. Namely, diverse societies include people from different traditions and religions who hold different views regarding the meaning of collective public values, norms, and practices. Preserving the secular state principle of equality for all citizens (regardless their faith) requires the state to avoid taking any stance regarding different views, as well as avoiding prioritizing or discriminating against any community, religion, or ethnic group. Allowing public servants to wear religious symbols has the potential to undermine the principle of equality of respect and to breach the principle of state neutrality (McDonough, Maxwell, & Waddington, 2015). For example, a judge who wears a religious symbol (such as a kippah or hijab) may raise doubts regarding impartiality, especially in cases in which one of the parties is identified as a member of the same religion as the judge. The same holds for teachers, whose religious appearance may influence social cohesion, as well as encourage students to feel favored or discriminated against. Thus, proponents of state neutrality claim that, in order to provide equal, just, and respectful public services, public servants need to abstain from presenting any religious sign in the workplace.

While the justification of state neutrality rests on some genuine concerns, it is not sufficient cause to restrict teachers from wearing religious symbols. The prime criteria of measuring public servants’ performance should be the quality of their work and their ability to perform their duties based on the principles of the institution they serve, without letting their religious creed interfere. Prohibiting devout teachers from wearing religious symbols implies that their faith makes them more likely to breach state neutrality (Maclure & Taylor, 2011). Can we assume that breaching the principle of state neutrality is a result of one’s visible appearance or of one’s actions? For example, a religious science teacher, who does not display any ambivalence in respect to scientific concepts (such as evolution), should be evaluated based on his or her teaching quality and not based on his or her appearance. This example can be elaborated on by considering a case in which one may feel ambivalence toward the curriculum but does not wear religious symbols (or covers or disguises worn religious symbols). In this case, due to the absence of visible religious symbols, no sanctions against the teacher would be enacted, though the risk of breaching the principle of state neutrality exists. Thus, in this case, protecting the principle of state neutrality must be driven by how teachers demonstrate their commitment to their role and to the espoused values of the state’s education system and not on how they demonstrate their religious affiliations.

The state autonomy justification

A second justification rests on the principle of the separation of the state and the church. The idea of separating the state from the religious sphere aims to protect the state’s autonomy to operate free from any interference by the church (or any other religion). This idea, as McDonough et al. (2015) point out, ‘captures the ideal of the secular state as a res publica’ (p. 254), which delineates collective norms and safeguards the secular principles of protecting individuals’ equality and respect by allowing people to operate based on their worldviews and not by the influence of religious authority. This principle aims to secure the trust of the citizens in their government. A representation of religious symbols in public offices may suggest religious interference in public life.

This claim merits clarification. Public servants have positions of power, and the state must ensure that this power is not abused, especially when thinking about teachers, who influence their students’ worldviews. This premise lies in the concern of divided loyalties. Religious people may need to split their loyalties between their religion and their state. Yet the secular modus operandi requires the public sphere to operate based on liberal values. The concern regarding teachers (and other public servants) who wear religious symbols is twofold. First, since teachers are supposed to be role models for their students, their religious appearance may confer a prioritization of certain values, norms, and codes that outweigh the desirable norms that the liberal state wishes to advance. Second, if teachers are committed to their religious values more than the liberal values of the state, teachers’ religious beliefs may seep into their teaching practices (McDonough et al., 2015).

There are some fundamental problems with the claim of state autonomy. The first problem is related to the ambiguity of religious people in relation to liberal state rules. In this sense, both Rawls (1993) and Habermas (1992) discussed the futility of coercive laws. Habermas, for example, suggests that members of religious groups would be forced to differentiate between their role within their communities and their roles as public servants (Yates, 2007). Requiring teachers to separate their religious beliefs and their commitment to the secular institution for which they work (such as in the example of the science teacher) makes sense, as long as it does not infringe on the right to equality and respect. However, wearing religious symbols is not optional for many religious adherents, and requiring people to remove those symbols during their work hours violates the secular commitment to equality and respect. The second problem is related to the nature of the liberal state. In a diverse society, there are people who may question liberal values and may potentially have moral commitments that are not necessarily aligned with those of the nation, regardless of their religious or non-religious affiliation. Hence, focusing on religious symbols does not protect secular principles, but discriminates against specific populations, whose identities are more visible than those of other communities.

Despite the normative frailty of the state neutrality and state autonomy justifications, it is hard to ignore how separatist ideas have gained popularity in recent days. The global rise of the popular right, the proliferation of hate groups, and the immigration crisis are all factors that one may take into consideration in analyzing laws such as Bill 21. The separatists’ efforts demonstrate what Martha Nussbaum (2007) describes as ‘the fragility of tolerance’ (p. 1). I deem that reflecting upon tolerance is key both as a point of departure to understand the current social trend and as an important ethical stance for educators and students. In the following passages, I will discuss the nexus of nationalism, diversity, and tolerance and deliberate on the need to nurture a pragmatic agonistic understanding of tolerance.

Nationalism, diversity, and tolerance

In the previous section, I pointed out that equality of respect and freedom of conscience are the foundational principles of secularism. These principles echo the centrality of tolerance in liberal thought. In this sense, Maclure and Taylor (2011) note that state neutrality, at least in its original form, ‘went hand in hand with the establishment of modes of religious tolerance that allowed a greater freedom in the exercise of previously banned faiths’ (p. 22). While the origin of secularism was a reaction to the church, the equality of respect, freedom of conscience, and state neutrality aim to advance tolerance and safeguard the rights of diverse religious groups and philosophical movements.

Despite the fact that tolerance is conceived as a central tenet in modern democratic states, multicultural tensions tend to lead to different forms of discrimination and marginalization of minorities. Bill 21 clearly demonstrates that the state neutrality claim affects mainly minority communities. In considering tolerance as mitigating social divergence, one may rightly argue that tolerance is too often perceived as a panacea for healing deep-rooted social problems, such as racism, misogyny, and other types of prejudice. Indeed, discussions about discrimination tend to fall into clichés that oversimplify the intricate layers of intolerance. Nevertheless, social disagreements and political emotions cannot be fully resolved by the legal or constitutive systems. Advancing a vibrant society, in which diverse communities can peacefully live together, requires the advancement of tolerance (Bowlin, 2016). How then, can we understand the immanent contradiction between the striving of modern states to advance tolerance, on the one hand, and the manifestation of intolerant practices against minorities, on the other hand?

A partial explanation can be found in John Locke’s (1689/1990) account of toleration. His discussion on tolerance deals with the contesting values of the secular state and religious communities. Given the bloody history of the Christian world, and the historical context of nation-state formation, which separated itself from the church, Locke was well aware of how the secular sovereign may exercise power over contesting religious institutions. In light of the historical context, Locke deemed that, as long as religious practices do not violate others’ rights (such as imposing religious rituals on non-believers), the state must protect individuals’ rights to practice their religious creeds and should not use any coercive rules against faithful communities (Locke, 1689/1990). His vehement call for protecting religious communities’ rights is rooted in his social contract theory and his understanding of individuals’ rights. Locke’s position delineated the core principles of the secular state and the ways liberal thinkers conceptualize the idea of tolerance.

In general, the idea of tolerance requires us to restrain ourselves from reacting to others’ actions, beliefs, utterances, or worldviews that we reject (Heyd, 1996). While this definition is broad and results in multiple variations among liberal thinkers, it can be summarized by the two fundamental plinths, when looking tolerance at the governance level: (1) ‘The state has a duty to avoid interfering in freely chosen pursuit of individuals unless it has the powerful reasons to do so’, and (2) ‘the state has a duty to safeguard individual choice against (undue) interference by others’ (Harel, 1996, p. 115).

Part of the secular state’s efforts to safeguard toleration is the creation of collective ceremonies, symbols, and emotions that are not limited to a specific group. Those rituals can be associated with national holidays, as well as with songs and other forms of art. Having collective ceremonies is crucial for social cohesion as well as for the ability of one group to recognize other groups as part of their society. Yet those rituals are the roots for shaping patriotic sentiments that too often lead to intolerance (Nussbaum, 2007). While the foundation of the nation state signaled the divorce of the state from religious rules, it also signaled the creation of cultural narratives, values, and collective norms. Thus, the endeavor of national groups to attain self-determination is not because they see themselves as identical to other nations, but because they wish to reinforce the differences (Tamir, 2019). The idea of equality, as developed by the secular state, has been treated with a degree of ambiguity between the rationale of the secular state and its political emotions, as Tamir notes:

National feelings are seen as primordial, that is, the kind of feelings one develops in the very early stages of development. Unlike liberal or democratic beliefs, which must be nurtured in more advanced developmental stages, national feelings are taken to be natural. (p. 423)

In order to overcome the primordial instincts, the state has separated the private and the public realms. The private sphere, as previously noted, allows people to conduct their lives based on their religious or non-religious beliefs. However, the public sphere aims to remain neutral in respect to the different interests and demands of different groups. Ideas such as diversity and multiculturalism can be understood as an extension of the public sphere, ‘where particular identities can be expressed without undermining the rational, normative purity of the realm of the state’ (Tamir, 2019, p. 424). The popularity of multiculturalism and cosmopolitan ideas of the last century reached their pinnacle in the early 1990s with the fall of the iron curtain and with the establishment of the European Union. The trust in advancing more diverse, tolerant, and open societies stirred up great hope for a better future and was described by Fukuyama (1989) as ‘the end of history … the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government’ (p. 3). Alas, the last two decades have demonstrated that they were all but the end of history. While as educators we strive to develop tolerance and to build bridges among diverse students, the current historical time seems to go against this effort. I do not suggest that those efforts are futile, but rather claim that political disagreements, such as in the case of Bill 21, require us to develop a more critical understanding of human relations.

Tolerance, as discussed thus far, is largely informed by liberal thought, which strives to achieve consensus, or what Rawls (1993) defined as ‘overlapping consensus’ (p. 144) or the attempt to consolidate a set of political principles that people can agree upon, despite their different backgrounds and political affiliations. The challenge, as critical theorists argue, is grounded in the insensibility of liberal thought to structural injustices, which hinders the possibility of overcoming entrenched cultural and political emotions. For example, Marcuse (1969) argued that, despite the positive goals of the liberal framing of tolerance, advancing tolerance requires societies to consider how class structures and ‘constitutional inequality’ determine human relations:

In such a society, tolerance is de facto limited on the dual ground of legalized violence of suppression (police, armed forces, guards of all sorts) and of the privileged position held by the predominant interests and their ‘connections’. (p. 85)

While much of Marcuse’s critique is focused on the formation of discourse, his critique is pertinent also to the ways in which ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ stipulate what behaviors, practices, and rituals are legitimate (and illegitimate) in the public sphere.

The allegedly neutralization of public issues, such as prohibiting public servants from wearing religious symbols in the workplace, is based on the principle of objectivity. Yet it is evident that the influence of such policy on minority groups, whose religious symbols may be more visible than other groups in the society, is unproportionally greater. In the context of schooling, the meaning of such policy entails an impossible dilemma for religious adherents. For example, a Muslim, Jewish, or Sikh teacher would have to make the choice of either leaving their job or acting against their faith. In addition, under the guise of neutrality, the erasure of religious symbols from everyday school life posits a distorted representation of the society. It is often claimed that, among other things, schooling aims to support tolerance, diversity, and respect for different cultures and beliefs. Having teachers from different cultural backgrounds may support that purpose and mitigate students’ predispositions about certain societal groups.

Banning teachers from wearing religious symbols does not only foil the desire to advance tolerance, but also frames the public discourse around issues of diversity and tolerance. In this respect, Bill 21 does not simply represent the principle of state neutrality. It reflects the deep commitment of Québécois to advance a community that is primarily based on French culture. The disturbing aspect of this case is that what appears to be a fight for secularism is part of a long-standing tension between the Catholic and the non-Catholic populations (Warren, 2019). This analysis, coupled with the increasing number of immigrants who moved to Québec in the past few years, invigorated nationalist movements, as well as the consolidation of draconian policies, such as prohibiting public servants from wearing religious symbols.

Bill 21 is a clear example of a growing global concern regarding the infringement of civil rights and the decline of social tolerance. As such, it requires educators to consider tolerance as an essential component in their everyday practices and as part of advancing civil literacy that, inter alia, involves ‘recognizing the role of pluralism in public life, and learning the skills to engage with people of different backgrounds with whom we disagree’ (Soules & Jafralie, 2021, p. 44). Hitherto, efforts to foster tolerance included activities such as ‘mix it up’, which aimed to help students learn about diverse cultures and racial backgrounds and to find shared interests and values (Tonder, 2013). Alas, those initiatives tend to be superficial, sporadic, and incongruent with the requirement of teachers to hide their religious affiliations. The tension between the desire to foster tolerance and the attempt to enforce conformity can be related to Bernard Williams’ depiction of tolerance as ‘necessary and impossible’ (Williams, 1996, p. 18). He suggests that, historically, tolerance has been understood as either following an indifferent approach or adopting a Hobbesian approach. The indifferent approach may be associated with the tendency of schools to ‘proceduralize’ tolerance, rationalize it, and hold a preoccupied understanding of tolerance. These practices may help students talk about tolerance, but not to talk through tolerance. Conversely, the reasoning of the Hobbesian approach is based on balancing power and not a genuine sense of tolerance as a virtue.

Against the tendency to either advance indifferent or procedural forms tolerance, I argue that transforming the way teachers and students perceive the idea of tolerance involves the embodiment of a pragmatic, agonistic understanding of tolerance.

Pragmatic agonistic understanding of tolerance

The previous sections have complicated common assumptions about tolerance, and the limitations of relying upon neutrality and objectivity claims as a basis for delineating public reason. Bill 21 exemplifies the intricacies of utilizing the principle of neutrality as a means to enact laws and develop public practices. As pointed out earlier, the rationality of Bill 21 is congruent with Quebec’s ERC pedagogical requirements to teachers’ impartiality. The requirement that teachers remain impartial in class is not limited to religious issues. It also relates to difficult political and cultural issues. While that attempt to decontextualize controversial issues in the classroom is not unique to Quebec, Maxwell (2019) rightly notes that there are cases when neutrality and impartiality maintain intolerance. In such cases, teachers can –

demonstrate the virtue of intellectual responsibility, to show students that it is possible to have an opinion about a contested issue and yet still engage in a balanced and critical examination of the evidence for and against. (p. 20)

What is at stake is the perpetuation of cultural and social inequalities, as well as the propagation of intolerance, or what Marcuse (1969) astutely described as ‘repressive tolerance’ (p. 85). My aim in this final section is to consider how Dewey’s pragmatism with an agonistic approach can support a more humane understanding of tolerance and in particular how it challenges attempts, such as those of Bill 21, to neutralize and decontextualize diverse sociocultural issues from the public sphere, with a focus on schools.

In his work, Dewey does not give a special account of tolerance. Yet his attempt to develop a coherent understanding of human conduct in a community and his considerations of people’s interactions and transactions are essential both for developing a vibrant and healthy society and delineating a deeper understanding of tolerance. Considering Dewey’s accounts of habit can help us move beyond a particular analysis of tolerance and advance a more humane approach of human relationship. The Deweyan concept of habit implies a holistic relation between individuals’ dispositions, natural capacities, and the society (Rice, 2009). As Dewey (1916/2008) explains, ‘A habit means an ability to use natural conditions as means to ends. It is an active control of the environment through control of the organs of action’ (p. 45). His understanding of habit goes against the common reduction of this concept to routines or what he calls ‘bad habits’ (Dewey, 1916/2008, p. 47), which do not require one to think upon his or her actions and do not fulfill humans’ capacities to think critically, openly, and creatively.

Thinking critically requires one to encounter ideas, experiences, and ways of life that may evoke uneasiness, disagreement, and discomfort. The idea of habit, in this sense, suggests that our habits can be changed based on different social realities. Dewey (1916/2008) notes: ‘Any education given by any group tends to socialize its members, but the quality and value of such socialization depends on the habits and aims of the group’ (p.77). Living our life by following ‘ready-made “ideas”’ (p. 141) hinder our ability to genuinely consider our predispositions, beliefs, and convictions.

A genuine toleration cannot be nourished unless people grapple with issues that they disagree or feel uncomfortable with (Williams, 1996). Simply put, tolerance is not a theoretical exercise, nor a set of procedures people may follow in order to achieve mutual understanding. Indeed, procedures have an important role in supporting, and in some cases protecting, marginal groups, but when I call for the advancement of tolerance in an embodied sense, I mean that it must transcend procedures and allow people to encounter different views, beliefs, and ways of life, including visible characterizations of different groups such as religious symbols.

Bill 21 is an exemplar of liberal attempts to rationalize human conduct, including complex relationships in diverse societies. The problem, as Englund (2016) rightly notes, is that advancing trust, mutual respect, and understanding cannot be achieved based solely upon rational arguments. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the role of emotions in influencing and delineating civic culture and political life. An agonistic understanding of democracy brings to the fore the need to recognize emotions as a means to foster civic participation and improve public debate (Knight Abowitz & Mamlok, 2019). Conflicts, according to this view, are indispensable from human relations, and, therefore, acknowledging disagreements and biases and allowing people to express their diverse identities are all essential for vibrant democratic life to thrive. In this sense, the liberal attempt to gain consensus (Rawls, 1993) or set aside political emotions is futile and may ultimately lead to increasing sociocultural conflicts (Ruitenberg, 2009). In her analysis of political order, Mouffe (2013) claims that liberal theories are oblivious to the antagonistic nature of political life and warns that the ‘political in its antagonistic dimension cannot be made to disappear by simply denying it or wishing it away’ (p. 4). In lieu of eradicating disagreements, agonistic models wish to recognize social conflicts as an intrinsic element of public debate (Glover, 2012). Yet making conflicts productive is contingent upon our ability to move from an antagonistic form of conflict to an agonistic one. Simply put, what is at stake is the ability to recognize people, groups, or any other political forces with whom we may disagree not ‘as enemies to be destroyed, but as adversaries whose ideas might be fought, even fiercely’ (Mouffe, 2013, p. 7).²

Developing a pragmatic sense of tolerance through an agonistic lens in education involves the arrangement of school life in a way that would offer students experiences that would encourage them constantly to consider their attitudes and assumptions towards the other. Inter alia, nurturing intellectual attitudes and flexible habits is necessary for supporting students’ engagement in pluralistic society. In this sense, it is critical to move beyond following ready-made ideas about what counts as tolerance; students should have opportunities to recalibrate their habits, based on specific contexts, problems, and circumstances that form their experiences (Rice, 2009). I have argued that, in addition to cultivating a Deweyan understanding of habit among students, it is important to help students grapple with disagreements and conflicts in an agonistic way. I contend that the amalgam of a pragmatic understanding of habit through an agonistic perspective can help students to embody a sense of tolerance, despite distinct disagreements and conflicts. Yet the conditions needed for such an approach cannot be based on laws (such as Bill 21) that, in the guise of neutrality attempt to erase not only the visible differences among social groups, but also the underlying cultural, political, and discursive cleavages.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 While the paper focuses on Bill 21, which reflects a longstanding cultural tension in Québec, the theoretical analysis aims to consider a broader understating of the fragility of tolerance, and the need to consider conceptual frameworks that will better support the cultivation of tolerance in educational settings.

2 It is important to point out that agonism is a component of a number of political theories, which will not be able to be captured in this paper. In general, agonism has been evolved into two distinct directions: associative and dissociative agonism. This paper follows the rationality of dissociative agonism, which recognizes the division of ‘us and them’ as part of human relations (Mouffe, 2013; Ruitenberg, 2009).