There must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population

From Out of My Later Years by Albert Einstein, a collection of essays published in 1950.  From Chapter 6, On Freedom.  Emphasis added.

Let us, then, indicate two goals which may well be agreed upon by nearly all who read these lines.

1. Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labor of all.

2. The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable precondition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself it is not enough. In order to be content men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accord with their personal characteristics and abilities.

The first of these two goals requires the promotion of all knowledge relating to the laws of nature and the laws of social processes, that is, the promotion of all scientific endeavor. For scientific endeavor is a natural whole the parts of which mutually support one another in a way which, to be sure, no one can anticipate. However, the progress of science presupposes the possibility of unrestricted communication of all results and judgments—freedom of expression and instruction in all realms of intellectual endeavor. By freedom I understand social conditions of such a kind that the expression of opinions and assertions about general and particular matters of knowledge will not involve dangers or serious disadvantages for him who expresses them. This freedom of communication is indispensable for the development and extension of scientific knowledge, a consideration of much practical import. In the first instance it must be guaranteed by law. But laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man may present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. Such an ideal of external liberty can never be fully attained but must be sought unremittingly if scientific thought, and philosophical and creative thinking in general, are to be advanced as far as possible.

If the second goal, that is, the possibility of the spiritual development of all individuals, is to be secured, a second kind of outward freedom is necessary. Man should not have to work for the achievement of the necessities of life to such an extent that he has neither time nor strength for personal activities. Without this second kind of outward liberty, freedom of expression is useless for him. Advances in technology would provide the possibility of this kind of freedom if the problem of a reasonable division of labor were solved.

The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit in general requires still another kind of freedom, which may be characterized as inward freedom. It is this freedom of the spirit which consists in the independence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudices as well as from unphilosophical routinizing and habit in general. This inward freedom is an infrequent gift of nature and a worthy objective for the individual. Yet the community can do much to further this achievement, too, at least by not interfering with its development. Thus schools may interfere with the development of inward freedom through authoritarian influences and through imposing on young people excessive spiritual burdens; on the other hand schools may favor such freedom by encouraging independent thought.  Only if outward and inner freedom are constantly and consciously pursued is there a possibility of spiritual development and perfection and thus of improving man’s outward and inner life.

There are three conditions in here -  Freedom of speech, sufficient material well-being, and freedom from authoritarian constraints on freedom of thought.

We have, to some degree, solved the material challenge.  We are now so productive as a nation that the bottom quintile of income earners are materially better off than the top quintile even fifty or seventy-five years ago.  We no longer have absolute poverty to any significant degree, we have relative poverty.   

There is a small percent of the population (1%, 5%?) who have some combination of conditions (principally substance abuse, mental illness, and social ineptitude) who are at the knife's edge of poverty and where intervention for their material well-being is in conflict with our according them the full rights and dignities of autonomy.  In other words, there are people who would be materially better off if we allowed the state to intervene in their lives but we make it very difficult for the state to assume that role of guardian.

But as we have become more prosperous, we have created the circumstances of paradoxical self-destruction.  Age old beliefs of authoritarianism and control are ever more popular in some circles and in the Democratic Party.  The kind of authoritarianism and control which inevitably lead to economic failure and poverty but which sound idyllic in the abstract.  

Freedom of speech, (the first condition required by Einstein), is being encroached upon by government, by technology oligopolies, and especially by universities, the very institutions which should be guardians of freedom of speech.  

Freedom from authoritarian constraints and controls, (the third condition required by Einstein), is being eroded in our education system, both K-12 and universities, by making it difficult to learn or teach in those environments if not in fealty to the repressive ideologies of Critical Race Theory, Social Justice Theory, Gender Theory, etc.  The constraints and authoritarianism have snuck up on us but I think we have discovered them soon enough to turn the tide.  Regardless of the Democratic Party's attempts to redefine free parents as domestic terrorists.

The tide is turning and we will beat back the always emergent threat of authoritarianism and control.  It is interesting though to see how closely Einsteins words from the era of emergent global Communism and of McCarthyism ring so clearly in our financially prosperous but freedom-challenged era.  

Brings to mind John Philpot Curran's statement that "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active.  The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."