ABSTRACT
After the more political arguments, I also put forward my wider than usual view of tolerance, based on a reading of the arts. I argue that the arts in general are in the main tolerant activities, requiring mutual understanding and communication on the part of artists, performers, and audiences in order for the artist’s vision to be fully realized. This may stretch the meaning of the term tolerance further than usual and there is thereby a risk of diluting its relevance, but I hope that what I propose will be convincing or ‘good enough’ as a way of looking at old ideas through a different perspective.
I use a commentary on Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, with the confusion between two sets of twins, two ‘doubles’, as a way of showing a world where different and apparently alien cultures can be tolerated in a situation of conflicting desires and confusions about identity and the meaning of home. I argue that Shakespeare demonstrates in this and other texts a remarkable ability to tolerate conflicting, strange, and ambiguous elements, which offer us a vision of a respectful and human world, where otherness is to be wondered at, not disavowed, a vision which still stands as a beacon of humanity in dark times.
