The test of tolerance: understanding an opinion before rejecting it

Against fanaticism, the Enlightenment made tolerance a virtue: Locke shows that no one can be compelled to believe, Voltaire makes it a fight. The practice carries this demand into our disagreements: faced with an opinion that jars you, suspend rejection long enough to understand it in its strongest version. To understand is not to approve; but one refutes well only what one has first grasped, and one defends another's right to speak the better for having heard what they say.