The illusion of tolerance: how the left became what it hated

Why today’s liberals are so often blind to their own bigotry.

Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

We’ve all seen it by now — in classrooms, on panels, in group chats with old university friends. The louder someone proclaims their open-mindedness, the more likely they are to sneer at anyone who doesn’t share their worldview. The paradox of modern progressivism isn’t hidden — it’s become a feature, not a flaw.

Humans have always suffered from double standards, of course. But what’s fascinating and troubling is the way today’s progressive left has moralised those double standards into a kind of virtue. The result is a culture where open-mindedness is not practised, but performed; where empathy is extended selectively; and where prejudice is not defeated, merely redirected.

Take the friend who rails against systemic injustice and applauds every progressive cause — but rolls her eyes at the “idiot” who votes Republican in a swing state. Or the colleague who champions diversity of background, but cannot fathom diversity of thought. Or the student activist who preaches inclusion, yet happily ostracises anyone who dares question the orthodoxy of their cause.

This isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s what psychologists call moral licensing — the subconscious habit of using one good deed to justify a bad one. You marched for women’s rights, so it’s fine to sneer at middle-American Christians. You voted for Obama, so you can’t possibly be racist. You posted a black square on Instagram, so you’re absolved of the need to speak to anyone who voted for Brexit or Trump.

But the deeper danger lies not in the contradiction — we are all, to some degree, walking contradictions — but in the lack of awareness. The left has become so convinced of its moral superiority that it no longer feels the need to examine itself. And in that space, something sinister has crept in: a quiet but growing disdain for people who do not think the “right” way.

I say this not from a place of progressive disillusionment, but as someone who leans conservative — in the Scrutonian sense of conserving what is valuable, not scorning what is new. I once read The Guardian with youthful curiosity, but I’ve come to believe that civil society depends not on ideological dominance, but on the ability to engage competing views with seriousness and good faith.

We like to imagine that intolerance lives in the other tribe. That bigotry is something only they do. But history shows us — and psychology confirms — that the line between virtue and vice does not run between left and right, but straight through the human heart.

If liberalism is to mean anything at all, it must be the commitment to engage with those we disagree with — not to convert or condemn, but to understand. Otherwise, we are simply rearranging the furniture of prejudice and calling it progress.

It’s easy to call for compassion when the other person agrees with your worldview. It’s much harder — and much more important — to practice it when they don’t.

Until the left learns to extend its famed empathy not just to the fashionable oppressed, but to the unfashionably unconvinced, it risks becoming the very thing it once stood against.

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Further reading

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt — A seminal exploration of why good people are divided by politics and religion, and why understanding others’ moral foundations is essential for any functioning democracy.

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill — Still one of the most powerful defences of free thought and open discourse — especially with those we most disagree with.

How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay — A practical and provocative guide to navigating ideological minefields without losing your mind — or your moral compass.