Thresholds of Tolerance: Censorship, Artistic Freedom, and the Theatrical Public Sphere

Abstract

What are the limits of tolerance in situations of cultural and religious pluralism? And how do we, how do states police these limits, prevent them from being so severely tested that concerned groups feel provoked to protest against the constitutionally protected rights of other groups to practice their cultures, voice their opinions, or even, most provocative of all, lay claim to artistic freedom and thereby, potentially, and actually, overstep the line demarcated by tradition rather than law, which I would like to term the “thresholds of tolerance”? Such infringements on the thresholds of tolerance are generally policed by censorship. I defi ne censorship here as any kind of institutionalized form of control over the freedom of expression exercised by state, or semi-state bodies. This may be in the form of the offi ce of censor, the Lord Chamberlain for example, or by indirect means-ultimately the ideal form-of internalized rules and proscriptions, where those active in the public sphere (journalists, writers, artists, preachers, etc.) abide by the rules. East Germany, for example, had no offi cial censor but it certainly had censorship. West Germany then and Germany today also had and has censorship, as we shall see, even though freedom of opinion is enshrined in the German constitution. In fact all polities practice censorship of one form or another in order to ensure the maintenance of cultural and religious values and to protect these values against infringement. The establishment and maintenance of such censorship bodies mark thresholds of tolerance.