Abstract of "Intolerance: A General Survey" by Lise Noel

Noel, a Francophone Quebecer, analyzes intolerance and oppression in Canada, France, the US and the UK, based on age, race, class, gender, sexual orientation and health. She defines intolerance as a worldview that puts one's own group ahead of others. Oppression, then, is the behavior that results from holding an intolerant worldview. Her analysis has broad implications for the world-wide process of in-group/out-group identification, or "othering" by illustrating how popular culture, academic theories, religious teachings and scientific precepts all contribute to 'the discourse of intolerance [that] legitimizes relations of domination... [and] gives validity to the most brutal forms of oppression' (Vickers, Jill.)