There's a straightforward way to resolve the paradox of tolerance, IMO. Treat tolerance as a social contract. An intolerant person has explicitly rejected the contract.
I agree. Straightforward and simple. But I don't think I know how to simply explain what a social contract is to someone. Does anyone have a good example of a social contract?
This doesn't work in everybody. There's a lot of things I like, and I would want everybody to do, that I recognize most rational people would never want.
If I followed this advice I would bother almost everybody I interact with.
The majority set the vibe. It's ugly, but there it is. If I reject this it will only cause friction in my life. So for people like me, a better quote is:
Act only according to maxims which those affected would have be universal
Perhaps. But the same would apply to the other golden rule. It's not "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them."
If you do what you feel is right, it doesn't matter if people disagree with you. You'd at least be ideologically consistent, not a hypocrite.
If being a good person requires pleasing people, there would be no good people in the world. "People" are impossible to please because it's an abstract category representing a generalized collective. You'll never please them all and that's okay.
Do what you believe is right, and sleep well at night knowing you tried your best.
If I remember correctly, Kant goes into detail about how others would be affected and how that influences the categorical imperative. I forget exactly what he says about it though
If your definition is "do what you believe is right" it absolutely needs to be paired with a requirement to put effort into figuring out what actually is right.
Well when you figure that part out let me know, I've been trying my whole life and so far everything I've come up with is bound to still piss someone off...
If your definition of right and wrong is based on what gains approval from others then you're in a very dangerous predicament and I hope to the gods I don't believe in that you're surrounded by decent people.
An agreement made to be able to share each other's space
Mutual assurances of safety in exchange for mutual acceptance of limits in regards to your shared spaces
If you break one of these agreements to others then you lose the privileges that they offered you
By demanding the benefits of a society you commit to honoring what it requires of you to maintain it
Look at stuff like the rules applied by hikers in the wilderness. "leave no trace" and sharing resources. Then you filter out a ton of the complexities of cities to show the basics of what it is.
Tolerance is not a moral stance, it is part of the social contract. Those that violate the social contract, like Nazis, are not protected by it. Paradox solved.
Exactly. The “paradox” part disappears as soon as you start viewing things through the lens of a social contract. The intolerant are intentionally and repeatedly breaking the social contract, and are therefore not protected by it.
Not sure where so many of you picked up that "social contract" view, but they seem to have misled you.
The paradox of tolerance applies when people stop using words and move to violence, or stalking someone to drive them insane. It very definitely doesn't mean that people who say things you don't like hearing shouldn't be tolerated.
People who actively try to harm others or call for others to be harmed. Not simply people who share honest views that not all people like hearing. That doesn't work, because no one would ever be permitted to say anything.
So if someone says something racist or transphobic, I can kill them, right?
Or perhaps what constitutes a violation of the social contract and what constitutes an appropriate penalty is actually not simple.
To provide a concrete example; the Catholic church, as an organisation, doesn't like trans people. What would tolerance being denied to the Catholic church look like in your world?
Something something due process, proportionality principle, etc. This isn't exactly trivial, but that first rule does help in determining who is the one infringing. To start with, both starting shit as well as unjustified escalation are both punishable.
It doesn't really help in determining who is doing the infringing either. There are places where saying "from the river to the sea" would be considered to be infringing on the social contract. And given that the social contract is a social construct, who's to say they're wrong?
We already have whole fields studying precisely this line sociology and more, analysis of power balances and stereotypes, and more. Again, it's complicated, but it's not happening in a vacuum, we know how to approach this
Except people try to push "hurt" to include people being honest that they don't like the way someone else lives or don't see that person as living up to their own values and morals.
That doesn't work at scale. Everyone in the world does something someone in the world finds extremely immoral and feels passionately about.
Everyone has a right to be honest. They don't have the right to call for others to be harmed or try to make them lower class citizens.
Two people having a difficult discussion trying to understand one another though both live in ways the other feels to be against their own values and mores is an example of mature adults demonstrating tolerance.
People shrieking that they must kill anyone who doesn’t like something about them is an example of intolerance.
And cannibals and people who eat dogs would have to live with hearing people tell them that's evil and wrong, and deeply religious people have to live with hearing people refute all of their beliefs. You don't associate with the people you can't get along with.
Forcing everyone to not state opinions that might offend everyone doesn't work, because the tens of thousands of combinations of cultures and backgrounds in billions of people mean that trying to force that would mean no one being able to speak.
There are people who feel that things that are completely unfactual are deeply meaningful personal parts of themselves, so we wouldn't even be able to stick to fact alone and not ever speak our opinions.
More than that it simply wouldn't work in reality, and the voices that could gain enough popular votes to make saying anything they don't like crime would do so while all of the minorities without that would have to endure it. There is no equitable way to manage it in reality.
People can hate me because of my skin tone. It's weird, and I'm not a fan of it, but they have the right to their personal world view and they have the right to express it just as I have the right to express mine. I do my best to get along and avoid being around the worst of them. If they start calling for me to be killed or to be forced into slavery then that's a problem. If they started following me around constantly chanting racist shit trying to get me to snap, that would also be a problem. But them simply being honest about their view is not. That isn't harming me, it's advertising to the world that they're shitty people.
IMO history shows that your approach breaks down the second a hateful group manages to cover sufficiently large swathes of land. You specified that you'd ban individuals from harassing targets:
If they started following me around constantly chanting racist shit trying to get me to snap, that would also be a problem.
But what if it's not individual people following you around, but entire towns full of people chanting racist shit every time you interact with other people (e.g. groceries, physicians, all private/public services)? You're still made into a second-class citizen.
And we literally saw this in the southern US both before, during AND in some locations after the US civil rights movement, so this is not a theoretical concern.
You're arguing with a 50 year old black man who has lived in the US his entire life. I got to enjoy the years in prison for being black thing. There's a huge difference between people expressing their honest views, as shitty as you may find those to be, and people trying to actually chase you out of town or hang you.
That's the entire point of what Popper actually said. Two people having a difficult conversation because both sees the other as living in some way they find to be against their own personal values and morals but accepting that both of them have the same right to exist is an example of mature adults demonstrating tolerance.
Everyone isn't always going to agree on anything, much less everything. There are plenty of things you do and about yourself that other people in the world would find against their own values and morals. They don't have the right to force you do be different or be unable to speak honestly from your own point of view. Likewise you don't have the right to force that onto others.
I'm not trying to argue, sorry, I'm really trying to understand. I'll try to concisely express where I fail to follow along.
The psychological effects of being rejected by most of society have been studied a lot, and it consistently shows a huge impact on people's well-being and lifespan. At the same time, we know that in entire areas/regions it would not be possible for large parts of targeted groups to live lives consistently circumventing such interactions.
In my mind, this means that either targeted groups would have to accept being second-class citizens in these locations, or society has to attempt to ban such practices.
There are more issues, but IMO this is the one I can't see how to argue against.
Forcing every human to not say anything that any other human might be upset to hear would be forcing that rejection onto everyone. It's not exactly healthy to tell people they're not permitted to simply be honest about their views and values.
There are plenty of people that every person in the world would see as not living up to their own values and morals if everyone knew everything about everyone. There will always be people you can't understand and have a difficult time communicating with because you're coming from such different points of view. You both have the same right to live, and to be honest about your views and feelings and have you perceive the world.
That's what tolerance is. It's not a simple and easy thing because it means accepting that people who strongly believe things total opposite of what you strongly believe have the same right to exist and be honest that you do.
The people who break that for calling on others to be killed, or beaten, or chased out of society, those are the people displaying actual intolerance.
Tolerance is useful because it conveys the notion of restraining from persecuting someone for something you specifically and perhapse strongly dislike (as long as it doesnt cross certain lines). It makes it unacceptable to use state or social power without a reasoned argument for actual harm.
So much of this shit is stacked on top of established cultural and social mores anyway.
Case in point, "Decency" can mean a lot of different things to different people. Is this about self-policing your speech and dress? Or extending charity to your neighbors? Or simply staying silent so as not to appear rude? Or being an outspoken crusader in the face of rudeness and impropriety?
Is it cuz tolerance is the bare minimum?
Tolerance is the benchmark for an egalitarian society. And the Hitler/Nazi reference is intended to illustrate the perils of showing tolerance for a foreign belief system, which queues up the "paradox" in question. If your goal is egalitarianism, how do you police against anti-egalitarian sentiment dressed up as "just another point of view"?
And who gets to decide what gets tolerated, anyway? Because any road you take can get you back to fascist tendency.
Is "intolerance of the intolerant" an excuse to wipe up a mob against a foreign religion you find distasteful? Is it a reason to break up social events or try and heckle opposition politicians or vandalize property? Or is it just a vibe you express when prompted, while otherwise allowing the "intolerable" ideology to persist?
This line of logic also doesn't really answer the hard questions, like, "What if the cops are in the club that you find intolerant?" Or "What if the national media club is promoting intolerant beliefs?" How do you refuse to tolerate the powerful, the wealthy, and the socially insulated?
It's just a philosophical concept that people online have fallen in love with because the truth is a lot of them are intolerant to people with views who don't match their own, and it gives them something to point to in order to feel justified in that intolerance.
"You say you don't like this thing I do, and I see that as intolerant, therefore this meme says I should destroy you."
They're on the wrong side of the problem, but they feel passionate and righteous about it so they see everyone else as the intolerant monsters.
It's more about how the word tolerance is a bad descriptor of what we're after, and honestly, the Right can tell. They know we CANT tolerate them, and jumping through hoops to justify the use of the WORD tolerance is absurd to me.
Obviously this isn't very important in the grand scheme, it just kinda annoys me
Tolerance is such a low barrier to pass - being as basic as "do nothing" - that is boundary acceptable even for the Right, because to it does not obligate anybody to act (in favor of others) and thus fits even those with a "what's in it for me" who will indeed do nothing if there's nothing in it for them whilst still being within the tolerant side of it.
One of these people replying here supports a regime that forcibly "reeducates" minorities and ban teaching of their languages, tolerating only a uniform national identity.
Yup. It's hard to have a conversation about anything when any given side is arguing from emotion, and defaults to accusing the other of being inferior or stupid. It's infuriating.
I think tolerance is simply a liberal idea, and it's been a demonstrably exploitable one. The moment a reactionary says "aren't you supposed to be tolerant", I simply don't know where they're getting that from. I tolerate what I want, and the intolerant don't get to invoke my tolerance.
Worth noting that “the tolerant left” was a term coined by conservatives, specifically to try to guilt the left into accepting them (and giving them ammo to use when the left rejects them).
Tolerance is, by its very nature, limited. That's the whole point.
It isn't some sort of ideal, like empathy, where more is better (although there are people, mostly bigots, who want to convince us otherwise), instead it is the result of our moral and ethical positions.
We tolerate what we think is ok, we don't tolerate what we think isn't ok.
The whole confusion comes from upholding tolerance as a principle or ideal rather than actually understanding it's purpose. When people look at it that way, they either accept it or reject it, but both of those are wrong.
Where does the idea of tolerance come from? Hundreds of years ago, the West was wracked with constant wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants, on top of witch hunts, crusades, inquisitions, the whole "scarlet letter" thing. It was after this whole mess that people decided that it wasn't worth it anymore, and that we should just call truces, that we should allow each other to practice different faiths without coercion. Eventually, this expanded to other aspects beyond just religious beliefs, however, the fundamental core of what it is is that truce between religious factions.
In many cases, it is possible to discuss disagreements and resolve things, or, it is possible to coexist while believing different things. Whether the sacremental wine turns into the blood of Christ literally or figuratively is a perfect example of that.
However, it should be noted that this was a practical compromise driven by a balance of power between the respective sides. The word, "tolerance" should not be confused with the word, "acceptance." To tolerate something implies that you wish it were different, and you're just putting up with it out of necessity. It is a truce, a contract, a ceasefire, between different parties with conflicting aims and ideals. Go back in time and give either side modern assault rifles, a clear advantage, and they'd drop the idea of tolerance in a heartbeat.
When a ceasefire is violated, a certain degree of patience is called for. Itchy trigger fingers can destroy a peace that both sides are invested in maintaining. However, if one side is able to repeatedly and brazenly violate the ceasefire without consequence, then the ceasefire is essentially dead and no longer serves a meaningful purpose.
To view tolerance as a principle and ideal in itself means that you've already decided whether you're going to uphold or abandon the ceasefire before you've even seen how the other side is acting. Accepting tolerance on principle means letting people take advantage of you, while rejecting it on principle means alienating potential allies.
Obviously, it's impossible to tolerate the right because they are so intent on aggression against vulnerable people. However, and this is true, it is possible to tolerate different perspectives on the left, while disagreeing with them. Rather than letting one's experiences with the right inform their approach to tolerance in general, we should look at what is actually minimally necessary to coexist and potentially collaborate with people we disagree with. Instead of logicking one's way into saying that anyone who disagrees on any point is technically being intolerant and therefore paradox of intolerance, deplatform them and treat them exactly like fascists, consider whether they are actually being bigoted and intransigent, or whether it's more mundane disagreement.
Clearly nonsense, if you go under that temperature the particles begin to move backwards and you go back in time. Just like when you fly around the planet super fast a few times.
It's closer to the social contract of tolerance. If the contract is broken then the gloves are off, no one gives a damn about the universalist Christians but the Evangelicals are broadly hated on average, hell even my bloodthist is generally more socially acceptable than your average Evangelical since my focus is moreso directly on folks and entities who cause harm through secondary or primary effect.
Yeah, this doesn't scream of tolerance. Tolerance is just being accepting that not all people feel, believe, and think the way you do. Part of that is accepting that they have the right to be honest about how they feel just as much as you have the right to be honest about how you feel.
Two people having a difficult discussion trying to understand one another though both live in ways the other feels to be against their own values and mores is an example of mature adults demonstrating tolerance.
I was moreso using a group known for high control and outright bigotry as a counter example. I don't really care about what people personally believe until it becomes a danger, IE I don't care if some moron thinks germ theory is fake but as soon as they achieve a position of power and/or influence that's when I will propose just shooting them. Similarly groups who try to do conversion therapy can get fucked.
But on the counter I think plastic surgery is weird and gross most of time on an instinctual level, but I really don't care if people do it. I just will choose not to look at someone with more severe examples.
The problem is it's always going to be bigger and more personal things than that. There are over 8 billion humans, and tens of thousands of combinations of ethnicity, culture, religion, regional history, and economic position.
No matter what you hold most dear and feel to be an intrinsic part of who you are, there will always be people who find that to be against their own personal values and morals. And likewise there are people who have things they hold dear to themselves that you would find against your own personal values and morals.
That's fine. And everyone should have the right to be open and honest about these things despite our differences. That's what the word tolerance used as it is in this image means. Being willing to have difficult conversations with people who see you as immoral and whom you see the same way and accept one another's right to be despite that.
Many people try to twist it into meaning anyone who doesn't like something about them is intolerant and so should die. That's intolerance. That's the problem.
I get that and agree, frankly speaking I follow a grand philosophy of mind your own businessism wherein on the day to day you mind your own business unless someone else makes their business yours. Frankly I generally get along better with folks of different cultures the more foreign the better, because even if they fucken hate my guts the feeling has a solid chance of being mutual which is why you call a truce and don't interact unless needed. Frankly I think I hate people of my own culture more than any outsiders because on average they are stupid as shit and a disgrace to our ancestors, for context I'm a Scottish stock Redneck.
But there will always be a point where someone's religion, culture, or customs are an issue and you should know where the contract ends especially internally. For example do you allow say cults and high control groups in general to exist or do you stamp them out individually after someone inevitably gets hurt or killed? Do you allow the New Fundamentalist Baptists, the Fundementalists Latterday Saints, or even something like Scientology? That's not even getting into outright genocidal groups like Atom Waffen or individuals who are walking humanitarian nightmares like Elon Musk.
Personally I generally work of the ideal of your right to swing your fists ends at the face of others, it ain't perfect but it's broadly usable and establishes culpability. But broadly I don't thinks there's any good answer for this type of shit, folks have been arguing about it since the enlightenment at the latest and I doubt our little debate is gonna be the resolution. Hence why I work on the social contract version of tolerance since it sets the expectation that when the contract is broken by one of the parties then penalties will ensure retribution.
Do you allow the New Fundamentalist Baptists, the Fundementalists Latterday Saints, or even something like Scientology?
Anything that isn't seeking to physically harm people, harass them until they snap, or relegate them to some lower class. It's not my job to decide what beliefs are sane and nonsensical otherwise, or I'd be able to shoot lightning from my arse and probably around half of the world would have it's skin peeled off right before it started to rain salt. No one should be arbiter of who lives and who dies, because we'd all be shit at it.
Well goodie then cause the NFIB (forgot the independent in their name) are child abusers and genocidal, the FLDS rape kids and human trafficking, and Scientology has a whole damned list including crimes against humanity. But also I'm not even necessarily talking killing, save that for the worst and the oligarchs, a good example is Heavens Gate who shouldve all been arrested and sent through a deprogramming group since I'd consider a mass suicide to be coercive harm due to the fact they'd have been unlikely to do that without the cult.
Similarly I do think threats to the public from political power should also be met with force, but first cut the phone lines and pretend they don't exist. RFK Jr can't tell you to eat rotting skunk if he cant communicate and maybe they'll give up after awhile. Frankly I wish the states would block communication with the feds just to see what would happen.
But also I suspect we fundementally disagree, I've suffered the abuse of individuals and organizations and frankly I doubt I'll ever be not mildly murderous. I can bind it with my honor but it'll always be there. Honestly I did enjoy this discussion and I don't have the inkling to insult you and suggest grievous self harm, so I consider that to be damned near constructive.
But also I suspect we fundementally disagree, I’ve suffered the abuse of individuals and organizations and frankly I doubt I’ll ever be not mildly murderous.
I'm a black man on the edge of 50 in the US who spent 5 years in prison for being in the wrong place and the wrong time with the wrong skin tone.
Laying there just wanting to sleep reality away and unable to rest because of the endless sounds of people screaming and banging things against walls and bars I hated everyone and everything so much.
Then I realized it didn't effect anyone but me. It wasn't getting justice for myself. It wasn't shutting everyone else up so I could sleep. It was just festering inside and poisoning me. I was laying there steeped it hate and anger and shit because that's how I was choosing to exist, and I was the only one suffering because of it.
It took months to be able to honestly let it go, but it's the best thing I ever did for myself. You're self-aware. You're in control of your own mind and feelings. You decide how you look at things and what you let fester inside of you and poison you. Happiness isn't some blessing from the sky, it's a choice. It's not always an easy one, and it can take a lot of work to achieve, but it's probably the most important choice a person can make.
Part of that is accepting that they have the right to be honest about how they feel just as much as you have the right to be honest about how you feel.
I think you're only tolerant of bigots and no one else.
Tolerance is the basic acceptance that people who have views, values, and morals that differ from your own still have the same basic right to live that you do. It's not easy to have any conversation with someone when the two of you feel strongly and deeply on a thing in opposite ways.
Tolerance is something you don't need for people who agree with you on everything and share your world view. You only really need it for those you'd consider bigots or horribly wrong in their values because they don't match your own.
You only really need it for those you’d consider bigots or horribly wrong in their values because they don’t match your own.
People who think my friends shouldn't have rights or exist at all are bigots. People who insist that I should be forced to tolerate them are just stalling until they can progress to violence. That's what you're doing.
The number of people in the worlds and variables that result in countless varying points of view means that there will always be people who you would have a difficult time holding a conversation with, because their values and views are very different from your own. Everyone still has the right to live. Everyone still has the right to be honest about their views, even if they seem like complete assholes.
The line comes at insisting others different from yourself are inferior and don't have the same right to live and be. That is intolerance.
The line comes at insisting others different from yourself are inferior and don’t have the same right to live and be. That is intolerance.
So far in this comment section, your line has been set at about half a dozen different places. I think this is deliberate to make your position difficult to pin down and thereby effectively argue against.
Because you're trying to get people to blithely accept bigotry as a normal part of a healthy society, until such time as bigots achieve their (your) goals.
Feel free to actually cite anything I've said that you see as somehow being in conflict and I will explain them to you.
I suggest you actually take the time to read Karl Popper's works. You're arguing with a near 50 year year old man who spent 5 years in prison in the US for being black at the wrong place at the wrong time. You sound like a kid who hasn't had much actual experience with genuine intolerance, and so you're conflating it with people not agreeing with you on the internet.
Any movement that preaches intolerance and persecution must be outside of the law.
This is a common misconception about the Paradox of Tolerance, and I'm going to reference the person who invented it: Karl Popper in his 1945 work, The Open Society and Its Enemies:
I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.
But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
Popper argues that we should tolerate intolerance only up to the point of violence. That is, if one physically attacks us, we no longer have the burden of tolerance. Popper is commonly misquoted and intentionally misused to justify violence against disagreement, and that is clearly not his position.
The graphic above states that we should not tolerate "movements" which preach "intolerance." This is a subjective standard. I think Islam preaches intolerance. By this standard, I would be justified in banning all Muslims from immigrating to Denmark. This is why Popper used the much clearer standard of physical violence. Any modern society must tolerate disagreement - including "intolerant" disagreement. We resolve that intolerance at the ballot box. We cannot allow physical violence. No, someone saying mean words is not physical violence.
I disagree with this assessment of the text - assuming it's correct, I'm not familiar with the source.
What this extract is saying imo is as long as it's possible to effectively keep in check and counter intolerance with argument and public opinion, suppression is unwise.
But, tolerance should reserve the right to suppress intolerance before it becomes violent, specifically when intolerance acts in bad faith and refuses to participate in logical argument or debate, and instead denounces argument entirely.
So the threshold is not violence itself, but one example of what "may" lead to violence.
Just my 2¢ on the text (not my opinion on the topic).
There is no way to reconcile your interpretation with the actual text:
and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
A preemptive strike is neither stated nor implied by Popper. I find that a dangerous proposition for a democratic nation. It would justify any and all manner of violence based on nothing and anything but the subjective and active imaginations of the politically inclined.
I've re-read it and still kindly and respectfully disagree about the meaning of that excerpt in isolation. Whatever the implications of this interpretation are, I have no idea because I'm not familiar with the work (however naïvely).
Here's a detailed breakdown of my take:
I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies;
The key word here is always, so, intolerant philosophies shouldn't always be suppressed.
as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.
The condition for not suppressing intolerant philosophies is if they can be kept in check and countered by public opinion and rational argument.
But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force;
Reserve the right to suppression if necessary..
for it may easily turn out that
Because the following things might easily happen:
they [the intolerant] are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
An example of what may occur when the first approach fails due to essentially bad faith, and the reasoning for why to reserve the right to suppression. But it doesn't frame violence as the threshold for when to apply that suppression.
Anyway, that's my take. I'm still assuming this quote is accurate - I haven't checked it.
And once again I'm absolutely not agreeing with these positions or assertions about the suppression of intolerance, this is just how I understand the text.
You're misunderstanding a blurb and arguing based on your lack of knowledge on the topic.
Go read the man's works. He's not saying that you should kill everyone who might theoretically reach for a weapon instead of words. That's not even a sane position. That would mean killing everyone who doesn't agree with you.
I don't think I'm saying that that's what the quote implies- when and how to use force within suppression isn't mentioned in the quote at all, it just says to reserve the right to suppression "even by force". But like I said, I'm not arguing a position or saying I agree with my understanding of the quote, I'm just sharing my understanding because it differed to someone else's.
You're pointing out that based on your tiny, fractional knowledge of a single excerpt of a man's writings your "understanding" doesn't match that of someone who's actually studied those works.
It's like taking the time to point out your understanding of the shape of the earth is based on a lifetime spent in a flat area. That doesn't mean believing the earth is flat has any validity.
If you'd like to have a meaningful understanding of the topic, then I highly encourage you to actually read and study Popper's works.
I think it's more like, I read someone say "this quote means X and it supports my position on this topic".
But, when I read the quote I thought "hmm, I really don't think that's what the words in that quote mean.." and so I decide to share that.
If you disagree with my take that's totally fine! I'm also not trying to make any claim as to the author's overall position. At this point I hope we can just agree to disagree and leave it at that.
and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
This is the operative statement to which I'm referring. If the party to which Popper is referring is not "answering arguments" with "fists and pistols," Popper is not making an affirmative case for suppression.
To be clear, he's not making an absolute statement either. He's not saying, "we may only ever suppress speech which is violent." However - and this is critical - he's also not making an affirmative statement that speech without violence should be suppressed. This is the original work and quote used to derive the Paradox of Tolerance, so I think it behooves us to heed that in this statement, he's referring to physical violence. Further, there are no statements of his in which he argues for suppression of non-violent speech.
I still kindly disagree with this understanding of the language though.
To me that whole section is justification for why to reserve the right to suppression: because the intolerant may not engage with argument in good faith, and they may instead tell their followers to denounce logical argument altogether and be violent.
The key word here is may, which to me means "this might happen". I basically read this as a warning of a potential outcome of intolerant philosophies - and why suppression might be needed and why to reserve the right to it - but not a threshold for when to suppress them.
But, at this point it seems like we might just have to agree to disagree on the meaning of the quote!
And once again, none of this is my opinion on the topic itself and I'm not endorsing a position, I'm only offering my understanding of the quote.
People don't have to participate in arguments on why your point of view is correct and their own values and morals are wrong. That doesn't give you license to "suppress" them. That would be you being intolerant and violent, not them.
... and now seeing that you seem to be using an alt to make this response I doubt I'll ever hear a word back. So many people on Lemmy seem to have multiple accounts to swap between for arguing and down voting.
So, the above was just my understanding of what the small snippet of text was saying, because I understood it differently to JasSmith, and I wanted to share that. But I wasn't endorsing or agreeing with the position of the text itself.
But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force
He then goes on, in the paragraph you quoted, to make it clear that it's refusing rational argument that's a problem because it can lead to violence, not violence itself.
Further, if you finish the paragraph it becomes clear that the opening statement is anything but a misunderstanding:
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
You don't have to agree with him, you can be partial to rawles, but popper was not vague.
He then goes on, in the paragraph you quoted, to make it clear that it’s refusing rational argument that’s a problem because it can lead to violence, not violence itself.
Not just that. He also very clearly requires there to be the incitement to physical violence:
and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
I agree with the end of the paragraph. His definition of intolerance includes the incitement to violence, and what he argues follows logically.
and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal,
Again, this isn't saying people simply saying things you don't like hearing should be criminal, it's the incitement to violence and persecution.
The difference between saying "I don't like black people" and saying "We should kill all of the black people."
People don't have to listen to your arguments about why their values and morals are wrong and awful. Just like you don't have to listen to people claim the same about your own. Tolerance is the simple acceptance that despite having different views and values, you both have the same basic right to live.
You're projecting your beliefs onto popper. You don't have to agree with him. I'm not interested in debating the appropriate nature of tolerance in society.
I really don't know how much more clear he could have been about his beliefs: incitement to intolerance is not the same as incitement to violence. He extremely plainly states that we should engage in rational dialogue if we can, but reserve the right to suppress intolerance, even by force, because they may begin preaching violence.
we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
Claiming the right to suppress them because it "may easily turn out" is not the same as "once it becomes clear".
He's extremely obviously not using incitement to intolerance as a stand-in for incitement to violence, because he says it should be criminal in the same fashion as incitement to violence.
we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
Consider the context in which he wrote what he wrote: world war two had just ended. We saw what happened when an open society allowed an intolerant right wing group to spread hateful rhetoric: they started small, got extreme, and then got violent.
Is it too much of a stretch to think he would have the opinion "it would have been okay to stop the Nazis when they were shitty, and before they got evil"?
In the aftermath, influenced by popper and people like him, Germany outlawed the entire ideology.
No one considers it counterintuitive or ambiguous if you need to tolerate people being violent or inciting violence against you.
simply saying things you don't like hearing
That's a disingenuous way of portraying hate speech. Even if you're in the "tolerate hate speech" crowd there's no reason to trivialize someone else's position.
You're under no obligation to agree with popper. There's no need to turn his position into a different one so you can agree with him. We don't need two Rawls.
they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
Violence. Not opinions.
There are plenty of people that every person in the world would see others as not living up to their own values and morals if everyone knew everything about everyone. There will always be people you can’t understand and have a difficult time communicating with because you’re coming from such different points of view. You both have the same right to live, and to be honest about your views and feelings and have you perceive the world.
That’s what tolerance is. It’s not a simple and easy thing because it means accepting that people who strongly believe things total opposite of what you strongly believe have the same right to exist and be honest that you do.
The people who break that for calling on others to be killed, or beaten, or chased out of society, those are the people displaying actual intolerance.
The entire point of what he said and goes on to say in many other writings is that people who insist on violence and can not be reasoned with are the intolerance that society can not tolerate.
Go sit and actually read his works. Don't bastardize a blurb over and over and try to sit there saying I'm the one being disingenuous and misunderstanding the man.
Thank you. It's insane that so many in here genuinely believe that this is saying they should kill anyone who says something they don't like hearing. People are addicted to viewing others as awful monsters for the crime of not sharing the same world but and personal values.
I was surprised to see how many people in this thread don't even understand what the word tolerance means in this context.
I rarely visit Lemmy anymore because it’s full of left wing authoritarians who think their morality and values could never, ever be wrong. If anyone disagrees with them it’s obviously because they’re Nazis. Oh and we like to kill Nazis. Hence the comic.
"But what if someone calls a trans person the wrong gender?"
Not hanging out with that person isn't good enough, they think they're morally justified in skinning anyone who says words they don't like alive. That the intolerant person is someone who says things they don't like, not the people cheering for that person to be skinned alive.
I don't understand how people who think they're so caring and welcoming can actually be so hateful and backwards. They're every bit as bad as the worst of the racists, and both groups feel they're justified in their insane hate.
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” - C. S. Lewis
People who cloak themselves in righteousness can justify even the worst atrocities committed in the name of their cause.
The sad irony is that all authoritarians convince themselves that they're doing it for the good of their people. We all know of the dangers of right wing authoritarianism. For some reason the left has an unbelievably large blind spot for it. Or maybe they're aware of it but like it? After all, there's no possible reality in which they might be wrong.
It's funny how the word "tolerance" already implies that something is bad but you just act as if it's not. You wouldn't tolerate having enough food and water, you'd only tolerate the lack thereof.
Not "bad", just "not your preference." I tolerate reality TV like 90-Day Fiance but it's not objectively bad. And, subjectively, it's better than most reality TV I've seen.
I tolerate eating Shin ramyun noodles when I'd rather be eating pad thai.
Similarly, you can tolerate people's life choices (e.g. "polyamory, as a relationship choice, or smoking weed", not "being gay or being trans" which is someone's intrinsic self) even if they're not your preference. And that doesn't imply anything about the choice.
And, as an aside, I think political polarization has erased the place of "tolerance" in discourse. Because now, tolerance looks like acceptance when a bigot wants to murder someone for choosing different. You have to vocally, enthusiastically be an ally to counteract the polarized hatred from the other side, and maintain some semblance of the world making sense.
No, it doesn't. Tolerance, like many words, has more than one single meaning. It's not being used as in "tolerating a terrible smell" but as in "being tolerant of others who hold different views."
It's just being accepting that not all people feel, believe, and think the way you do. Part of that is accepting that they have the right to be honest about how they feel just as much as you have the right to be honest about how you feel.
Two people having a difficult discussion trying to understand one another though both live in ways the other feels to be against their own values and mores is an example of mature adults demonstrating tolerance.
People shrieking that they must kill anyone who doesn't like something about them is an example of intolerance.
It implies something has to be tolerated because it is outside of the realm of the familiarity you would otherwise personally accept innately. Not bad, just an admission of the fallibility of personal experience at being completely objective at everything.
Understand tolerance as a social contract and not as a moral obligation. Tolerance is about piece within a society, not about right or wrong. If you do, there is no paradox, because the contract is broken and therefore does no longer apply. It also allows you to counter far right ideologies from whomever they come.
It's strange to see so many people repeating that "social contract" line like you all took the same seminar.
There are tens of thousands of combinations of ethnicities, cultures, religions, regional histories, and socioeconomic backgrounds, spread out over more than 8 billion humans. Values, norms, and morals have huge variances between individuals and groups.
There will always be people you have an extremely difficult time having a conversation with, because both of you feel the other is completely immoral because things about the other violates each of your personal values and morals. Tolerance is the acceptance that those other people have the same basic right to exist and live that you do. That's all.
It's being a sane, reasonable adult and simply not speaking with the people you can't handle speaking with, not calling for them to be killed for their differences.
Kill 6 billion demons. It’s a vast, well crafted universe with intricately personed characters who are never forgotten or discounted. It’s a deconstruction of the hero’s journey that doesn’t ever overstay its welcome. It’s an allegory for modern and ancient and interminable and spiritual and human woes. It’s pretty good.
i'd say it's relative to your culture. if you're a liberal woman growing up in iran or saudi arabia you're gonna hate your life.
but this opens up genuine discussions about right/wrong and whatever else.
the fact of the matter is that we just make up everything about humans and their relations as we go along. there is no real right or wrong, there's just perspective in any given moment in time and context.
if there are 34738434739473 iranian women who support their lifestyle and 40000 who don't then who's right?
according to americans the minority is right, but we pretend that they aren't in america when it comes to domestic concerns.
Anyone who says they don't like anything about anything anyone in the civilized and enlightened English speaking countries does or says is intolerant and so it's righteous and just to hate them and scream that they should die. And anyone who disagrees is an evil bigot who should also die. Duh.
They've been murdering each other over their religious disagreements for more than a thousand years, long before he ever came along. He just used them, like a tool, to reach his own ends.
He gave those who believe in such tripe the opportunity to exercise their beliefs "legally". They are waiting for another opportunity to do their holy work, always. Something something "chosen people", there can be only one.
More often than not this explanation is just used as a excuse to hate whatever group you want while labeling yourself as the good one. But applied to the ultimate consequences most people would still be intolerant.
The classical example of not tolerating nazis because they are intolerant to others, is used because it's a flawless example. The definition of a nazi is a person who wants to eliminate other groups from society just because what they are. A tolerant society cannot exist with them, so they have to go. Perfect.
But we have real life problems when we move from the perfect example to practical cases.
1The "everyone I don't like is a nazi" problem. Someone who wants to be a good intolerant just have to label their opponents as nazis, no matter if they are or not. Just the label is good enough.
While Nazis are used as a classical example. The more pure definition is, that tolerant society should not tolerate people who are intolerant. Thus, only allowed intolerance is the intolerance to the intolerant, any other type of intolerance should then make you a valid target for intolerance.
And here is when I see the biggest problem. That society doesn't usually fit most people values. I would give you several examples. Take billionaires, take robbers, take whatever kind of person you don't like, not only don't like but you don't want anyone like that in your society, for reasons different to them being intolerant. There are other undesirable values in a person that sometimes are worse than intolerance. The lack of tolerance to those people really puts you in the same spot as the Nazi in the paradox of intolerance. As you are hating on people for reasons different than they not being tolerant.
I see two honest solutions and one dishonest one.
The first honest solution is to strictly adhere to the idea of being tolerant everyone but the intolerant idea. Which will imply a higher effort to accept people in the society that you currently don't want to accept. Embrace that tolerance is the ultimate goal and just reject the intolerant, accepting everyone else, no matter what.
The second honest solution is to reject complete unconditional tolerance to everyone but the intolerant. Create a more strict set of values of what the society should tolerate. And embrace the idea that complete unconditional tolerance is a not the goal.
The dishonest solution is just lie about it. Seek excuses, loopholes or overcomplicated cherry picking reasonings on why the people you don't want to tolerate are actually intolerants and then covered by the paradox of intolerance and be happy with it.
To each their own. In the later years I'm feeling myself leaning more for the second honest solution. Unconditional tolerance is not a goal per se. I try to create a developed moral system that could actually be universal and that everyone and anyone could and should follow. And think that maybe I should not tolerate anyone that breaks this ethical rules. Basically instead of saying that the "golden rule" is to be tolerant and that's the only rule that people is not allowed to break. My golden rule is more on the lines of "be a good person", which is harder to define but I think it's more solid, and that's the only rule that should not be broken.
Being a billionaire is a choice, a choice to hoard money to the detriment of everyone and everything around you. One could easily choose to not be a billionaire by paying taxes and funding their local social support services and donating to charity. Intolerance of greed on the scale of billions of dollars should be the norm as it is actively detrimental to society.
Robbery is a violation of personal safety and social boundaries and is also actively detrimental to society. It is also a choice.
Intolerance of the choices of others that violate the social contract of "don't be greedy, don't steal, don't hurt others, etc..." is valid intolerance in my opinion.
Nazis are intolerable because they are intolerant of the vast majority of humanity itself and for reasons outside of most people's control. Sure, you can make it a choice and convert to Judaism, but the vast majority of Jews are born into Judaism; It's not a choice like greed on the scale of billions or breaking and entering.
For that reason alone, Nazis are worth disposing of. The myriad additional reasons to hate Nazis just makes the job easier.
Nobody says "everyone I don't like is a Nazi". But a lot of Nazis, who are rightly disliked by most people for being Nazis seem the see things that way.
Never heard "they call anyone with a different opinion a Nazi!" where the opinion in question didn't turn out to be some real Nazi shit.
See my comment in response to their reply unde yours. This person absolutely is a Nazi. Not because I disagree with them, but because they are arguing for tolerance for Nazis.
Example:
"Unless you’re a republican or other type of nazi. Then you can absolutely go all the way to hell.
Tolerance got us here."
this person, comment copy on lemmy, is actually implying that every republican is a nazi. Their use of the world "tolerance" makes me think that they are actually an example of what I say that people use the paradox of intolerance as an excuse to feel vindicated about their thoughts rather than as a moral theory to follow.
It's the first example I found, but I think is hard to deny that a non negligible number of people think that one of the two major parties in the US country is a nazi party. Giving that the US is a two party system saying that the only other side are all nazis, is almost equivalent to saying that everyone that doesn't think like me are nazis.
I've also seen a lot of the time the argument "if you have a table of 10 people sitting with 1 nazi, you have 10 nazis". It's a common argument, that's not even related to those other 9 people ideologies, just that they shared a space with a nazi they automatically get counted as nazis.
As an exercise to these people I would like to ask what "constitutes a nazi" by their thoughts. And afterwards calculate what many people in their country falls under that definition. If the number is high enough I think is more likely that the person is calling nazi to every person who doesn't think like them rather than such a big chunk of the population actually beliefs and follows the national-socialism ideology of Adolf Hitler.
The Republican party is currently openly supporting the idea of masked secret police disappearing people off the streets and sending them to concentration camps based on their race.
Yes, Republicans are Nazis. Yes, that includes the ones you're friendly with.
I have beef with both parties, so if that's what I were doing, I'd be saying it about a lot more than the third of the country that's openly decided to support Nazism. As far as everyone else, your argument still fails to persuade, because the statement "Republicans are a subtype of Nazi" is factually correct by any reasonable analysis. So no, even at that scale it isn't "everyone who doesn't think like me" it's "everyone supporting this plainly Nazi shit we're seeing daily in real time".
I've also seen a lot of the time the argument "if you have a table of 10 people sitting with 1 nazi, you have 10 nazis"
That's the crux of the paradox of tolerance. People who are tolerant of Nazis have the same net effect on society as Nazis themselves. Making no distinction between someone who openly supports throwing people into camps based only on their race and people who don't actually support it but are fine enough with it to have a friendly dinner with someone who does is again, the objectively correct position.
It sounds to me like you're either the Republican variety of Nazi or the "apolitical go-along-with-it" style of Nazi and you're looking for validation that you aren't a Nazi. You won't find that here. It's not because I disagree with you, it's because you're openly arguing for tolerance of Nazis.
The Republican party is currently openly supporting the idea of masked secret police disappearing people off the streets and sending them to concentration camps based on their race.
Using your example, that means the Democrats are also Nazis; they've also used ICE (with masks) to deport millions of people at gunpoint for concentration camps and/or deportment.
Exact same organization. Same masks. Same camps. Millions of times.
So... if you're a Democrat, per your own example you are a variety of Nazi... in which case I agree with you.
Using your example, that means the Democrats are also Nazis; they've also used ICE (with masks) to deport millions of people at gunpoint for concentration camps and/or deportment.
No argument here, but that wasn't the point under discussion.
You are kind of proving my point by wildly missing my point.
First here we are with the "you are a nazi" argument. You disagree with me, I'm automatically a nazi.
Second of all. If you read my comment again you'll clearly read that I advocate that tolerance is not the goal. I'm not saying we should "tolerate" nazis. I'm actually advocating for not tolerating not only nazis but a whole bunch of other people as well (I just don't feel the need to call them nazis for not tolerating them), because I think tolerance by itself is not the supreme golden rule that will make the society we live into the utopia we deserve.
But the point is that once you are true about this you should construct a more robust moral code that "nazis bad and everyone I don't like is a nazi", because that's just not going to get us anywhere. We need good people in our society. Not just thugs flying your favourite flag. And for that the definition of who stays and who don't shouldn't be a political tag. But the adherence to a robust moral code.
But obviously bad people who think they are good only because their political tag doesn't find this a very pleasant idea.
You argue that people supporting masked secret police disappearing people based on race doesn't necessarily make them a Nazi, and that argument makes you a Nazi. It really is that simple.
You want to define "Nazi" as meaning only people following the exact political philosophy of the 1930s NSDAP, which is exactly how neonazis and other Nazi subtypes want it defined, as it keeps them from being banned for being Nazis.
"Nazi" to most people means anyone supporting a militarized ethnonationalism, and especially anyone supporting the use of state violence against designated out groups. For the most part that means Republicans and their supporters, along with Zionists and their supporters, plus assorted independent neonazi factions that don't have those kinds of numbers. But yes, it also includes anyone looking at what those groups are doing and arguing they aren't Nazis, or ignoring that they're Nazis for social or business reasons.
My definition of Nazi in the modern sense of the world, (a neonazi we could say). Is that of a person who wants the state to have absolute power to enforce a reactionary society that will embrace a glorious past, exterminating every group of population that doesn't fit into this objective.
By that definition, no not all republicans are nazis, some are, of course, many even, but not all, not by far. And obviously, not all people who deny your arguments about who is a nazi automatically becomes a nazi.
It doesn't mean they are good people. But here is the thing, not every bad person is a nazi.
You might be a very bad person, and still not a nazi.
A problem with you way of seeing things, is that, is conveniently arbitrary. You can actually call absolutely anyone you like a nazi. That's a fast route for authoritarianism. Tou want to kill anyone? Easy, you say they are a nazi and their death is justified in your eyes.
That's just bad. You can have a system that defines who is good and who is not by such an arbitrary system.
Look at it this way. By your definition you are yourself a nazi. Because if I'm a nazi and I'm here you are sharing this space with a nazi, making yourself a nazi... See how easy is to label someone as a nazi by those definitions?
No. Our moral system should be stronger, should be able to accurately determine if a person is a good person or not based on their actions, without any chance of arbitrary labeling any person as bad by the convenience of an authoritarian figure.
Your inability (or more likely refusal) to understand simple concepts doesn't invalidate those concepts.
There is nothing arbitrary about "people who support a militarized ethnostate" nor about "people who support state violence against a designated out group".
No part of the "ten Nazis at the table is about sharing space, it's about it ignoring their atrocities and being friendly with monsters.
If you want people not to say you're a Nazi, why don't you try just saying without any prevarication "masked secret police snatching people off the street because of their race is wrong, that's Nazi behavior and people who support it shouldn't be tolerated".
You won't. Because you clearly do support that kind of behavior.
There are also a plurality of underlying issues not explored by this, because it's treated as first order only problem. Like... why is it that people become intolerant and why they blame certain groups for things.
And usually that's underlying economic or inequality conditions in the society or other forms of social upheaval.... which people generally don't want to address so much as they want to focus on the social sorting of hating and being hateful as the 'solution'. It's much easier to be tolerant when you are in an environment where members are all roughly of equal status, harder when there are perceived or real inequalities and abuses of power.
Real world is more complicated because people don't hate for no reason. They may, have very legit reasons, and you likely may have the same reasons directed towards a different group.
Everyone does vastly over simplify this, because well, they want to use is as a litmus test to prove they are good and other people are bad, and that's the only 'use' of this principle. Which is what folks do with a lot of moral/social guidelines... they want to reduce them to sorting mechanisms with themselves on the 'right' side of the sort... and if you challenge that notion maybe it's not that simple... you must be one of the 'bad' people.
Further, everyone is intolerant of something. Even if they won't admit it. Nor will they admit... that they and everyone else make mistakes. People's mind and behaviors change... a whole other second order factor also totally outside the scope of this 'paradox'. and for a lot of folks on lemmy... you can't ever change or be reformed from your previous views... etc.
We also have the wonderful case of social movements that seek to turn innocuous behaviors into intolerable assaults on themselves, like the 'manspreading' nonsense from Tumblr.
I think it's better understood as a phenomena, not a principle or a rule or any of that. You don't have to 'accept' or 'reject' it. You should think about it though, about the implications of where you draw the line, because in real life it is never as clean as 'nazis bad, everyone non-nazi good', and there are so many legal and other examples that get into murkey waters.
But that's just people exploiting ambiguity, not a real problem with the principle. It's an implementation problem. And since every other alternative will be dependent on a similar definition with a threshold up define bad, this one can't be substantially worse.
You're counting wrong when you're talking about "most". If most people hated society you would not see cities larger than a few thousand people. People are annoyed by it, but they accept it because they know what they get in return (conservative propaganda is essentially about lying about what makes society good)
We already do partial tolerance. It's called fines instead of deportation, it's called reputation instead of tarring. What you're really looking for here is stronger cultural enforcement.
There are different types and expressions of tolerance, so I think getting tied up in knots about a mythical all-encompassing tolerance that no cunt on Earth preaches (not even Jesus or the Buddha) is probably a side quest that doesn't need completing. It's like two linguists who've read a class of philosophy having a grammar nazi stand-off. You may as well include being abused and conned by criminals in that kind of tolerance, which is obviously stupid, but it's no more stupid than thinking your personal philosophy is threatened when faced with a nazi whose goals you wanna prevent coming to fruition.
Tolerating people who have characteristics that are not necessarily of their own choosing is not in the same ballpark as tolerating those who want to eradicate that first group. "Leave people alone" is better, it includes preventing the non-leaving alone of people by cunts, e.g. nazis, with no paradoxes involved. "But leave me alone to be a nazi!" ok, what does being a nazi involve? "The sterilisation and extermination of..." lemme just stop you there. Done!
Paradoxically, the paradox of tolerance is most often cited in the course of branding someone as "intolerant" and thereby excusing your intolerance of them.
Its a problem of semantics. Who really is sufficiently intolerant to be intolerable?
that is legally forcing intolerance though, not tolerance. Legally forced tolerance is like the first amendment to the constitution that legally protects all political beliefs including those that all women should be shot
As long as someone is only stating their dislike they have every right to be an idiot and tell me they don't like me because of my skin color. They don't have the right to try to whip up a mob to hang me or advocate that be done.
There are far to many cultural, ethnic, religious, and regional historic backgrounds that lead to people having far too many points of view, values, morals, and norms for us all to ever agree on anything. There will always be people in the world who think the things I do are wrong by their personal values and morals. That's alright. They're allowed to be honest about that. They're not allowed to try to kill me or force me into some lower class state because of that.
Holding a sign that says "We hate blacks"? Assholes, but okay.
Throwing rocks to bash in black folks heads? Not okay.
Saying "I just don't like black people, they don't seem right"? Asshole, but okay.
Saying "Black people should all be put to death"? Not okay.
Advocating killing people because you see them as a bigot from your own narrow and individual world view is literally the thing that people shouldn't be tolerant of.
i see the paradox of tolerance not as a defense of tolerance, but as its demolition. it shows that tolerance is not a coherent principle: taken absolutely, it destroys itself; limited, it depends on some higher principle that is not tolerance.
for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal
It's kind of hard to read this particular footnote as a rejection of tolerance because of how violently it opposes anti-tolerance.
The person who put forward the idea, or gave it a name, was a pretty notable philosopher who was notably in favor of a discourse driven liberal democracy, and against fascism.
He didn't mean paradox in the sense of "self contradictory and unresolvable" like the liars paradox. He meant it in the sense of "seemingly contradictory".
In order to have the most tolerant, rational discourse driven society possible there are some things you cannot tolerate, nor engage in discussion with , because if you cannot be persuaded there cannot be rational discussion.
So the paradox was named by a person explaining why you don't have to listen to Nazis just because you want to be open to new ideas and perspectives.
Coming to the conclusion that it's not contradictory is agreeing with the argument that it's okay to just tell Nazis to fuck off.
I see, well said. I'm not well informed on the absolute origin of the phrase. It wasn't clear to me if the philosopher was responding to people saying that being intolerant of Nazis/other types of bigots in the pursuit of tolerance of diverse types of people was contradictory and therefore not morally or ethically sound, or just spontaneous hand-wringing.
Not a direct response, but a response as part of a larger philosophical narrative.
He was a true believer in a society driven by rational discussion and the free exchange of ideas, which was the main point of his work.
As part of describing how he thought society should be run (tldr: we should discuss things, change institutions peacefully, and make small changes that we can actually tell if they worked instead of upending society in the name of an untested ideology) he spent some time describing the edge cases and weaknesses, which is where the quote comes from.
He wrote the work during WW2 after fleeing Germany, so there's more than a little implied context that people would have at the time of publication. Basically a general vibe of "what the fuck! Let's not do that again!"
It's very simple. People will never all agree with one another on all things. People will have differences in their values, morals, and beliefs.
Tolerance is accepting that even if you and another person have a near impossible time speaking to one another because you both feel completely opposed on the morality of a thing, you still both have the same basic right to live.
Intolerance is physically attacking others, stalking them to drive them insane, calling for them to be killed, etc.
I see what you're saying, but to me it's not a paradox that needs addressing because to most people it's obvious that these are qualitatively different kinds of tolerance. To me it feels like a technical gotcha divorced from the obvious intent. I might be assuming too much there.
The paradox is in wondering how so many people completely miss the point and don't realize that saying people who say words you don't like or don't hold your personal values and morals should die is them being the intolerance this is warning about, not the other people.
If intolerance is outlawed though, the terms must be very clear, lest the intolerant use those law against those who would use them against them. Intolerance of ideas is different than intolerance of people.
I mean that's a long-winded explanation of a simple concept. "Intolerant of intolerance". It's very simple but the bigoted twats try to weasel through loopholes in wordplay.
Intolerance adapts. Usually when that is the basis, they will be the one throwing the "you are intolerant, ergo we do not support you so we can sustain our tolerance" claims. Tolerance has to be able to at least identify what type of intolerance is being sanctioned, and to accept that it will always have some form of bias that will tag or not tag as intolerance that which different tolerance groups on the same "side" might.
mb your tolerance doesnt expand and cover the same stuff than the person next to you.
mb the call to tolerance is always a manipulation
mb tolerance in istelf isnt even a good principle
This is a slippery slope. Preaching that people should be killed is a far cry from saying you don't view someone's actions as being moral.
With 8 billion people in the world and tens of thousands of different cultures, ethnicities, religions, and regional histories that often feel in direct conflict about things both sides find to be important to who they are everyone is never going to see everything in the same light.
Telling everyone that they can't share opinions or truths that any other might find offensive would effectively silence all speech and communication. Worse it would push those dislikes into dark corners where they're shared only with those who agree and they can feather and become rabid.
Society needs to find a balance where all people are free to express themselves openly as long as they're not trying to physically harm others.
It means that we all need to understand and accept that not everyone will like us or support the things we see as a normal part of our lives, and that's alright. They don't need to. They can say they don't. They should be allowed that freedom of expressing their honest views.
It's the preaching and condoning of actual harm is the problem and the line. People online will be very displeased to hear that because many like to equate speaking out about a thing to trying to kill any people who do it are that thing.
They are not the same thing. You have every right to not like me or be honest that my life doesn't match up with your own personal values and mores. You do not have the right to say that means I should be persecuted or killed. There is a distinction between those things, and we all need to know it and keep it in mind.
I don't understand why this fucking thing keeps getting posted. Of course a tolerant society wouldn't allow intolereance. If they did they wouldn't be a tolerant society.
Hilter was initially intolerant to those who were intolerant of the rich. National Socialism was universally unpopular for an entire generation. But it flipped and gained massive universal appeal in the shadow of a bloody communist initiated civil war.
You can't preach tolerance while being intolerant of people who happen to have more money than you, just like you can't claim to be tolerant while being intolerant of those with more melanin than you. It's all relative. No one has zero money and very few have zero melanin. But anyone who has more than me is a bad guy is not a very tolerant position.
Anyone reading this is in the 10 percentile globally. It's like light blacks being racist to dark blacks (which is a real thing).
people used 're****' as a general slur for years and nobody was rounding up the mentally challenged for extermination. in fact, nobody ever used this word in front of the mentally challenged other than the socially awkward.
nazi's shouldn't be tolerated. but the modern world acts like people who make mistakes or are mildly offensive are the same thing as nazis.
God, I hate the insanity over that. It's actually ironic that so many people online now freak out at the word retarded. It's gone through the same endless cycle as stupid, moron, idiot, dumb, imbecile, blind, crazy, cripple, dim, slow, gimp, invalid, mad, psycho, and many others.
People on Lemmy will freak out about retard, while using many of those other words regularly without even noticing them. They were all words used as clinical terms for issues in the past, that then began to be misused to insult people who didn't have those issues, then became considered "bad" words and were replaced with new clinical terms.
There's nothing special about the word, it's just the latest one to go through the cycle. It's no more or less offensive than many of the others. It's a way to virtue signal without actually doing anything.
The people who get upset at hearing "retard" aren't likely dedicating their lives to do anything at all to make the lives of people with severe developmental disabilities any better. They're not making it easier for them to be in society. They're still calling others things like dumb and stupid that have the exact same impact.
It's not the word that causes people to feel like shit. It's the awful truth that many people with severe developmental deficiencies understand that to varying extents. Hearing someone mocked with a word that means they're not smart is shit when you know it could be an accurate description of you.
Before people get upset about words they see as signaling others as being bad people they're permitted to judge and spit hate one they should spend a few years changing the diapers of adults who can't control that several times a day, every day. Meet a woman in her 50s who has a Master's degree and used to have a great career and fancy things who was thrown from a horse and is now seemingly around 10 mentally. And who knows that and remembers how smart she used to be and all the things she used to have and be able to do on her own while needing someone to clean her ass several times a day because she can't control her bowels any more.
I'm sure all the lovely people here down voting are doing it because they actually have experience working with and caring for people with IDDs, and not just because they want to signal how virtuous and good they are. Blah.
You sound like the type of person who would call things ‘gay’.
Jfc, how do you refer to black people?
Strangers, or my family?
Brilliant casual racism while being too lazy to even look at my last few comments before you wrote it. Amazing.
Meet a woman in her 50s who has a Master’s degree and used to have a great career and fancy things who was thrown from a horse and is now seemingly around 10 mentally. And who knows that and remembers how smart she used to be and all the things she used to have and be able to do on her own while needing someone to clean her ass several times a day because she can’t control her bowels any more.
That woman's name was Lisa. I took care of her for 2 years while working on my degree. My dad kept working with her from then until she passed. Want to tell me your experience caring for people with IDDs beyond embarrassing yourself on the internet?
I don't like the idea of tolerating anyone. Tolerance, to me, feels like I have to make an effort of sorts to withstand someone else's existence. I definitely don't like everybody, so I don't make friends with everyone, but I do treat all people politely, and accept and respect that they exist.
That's not understanding the meaning of the word tolerance. It doesn't mean making friends with everyone, is simply accepting that others who don't share your world views and beliefs have the same right to exist that you have.
203 Comments
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 135 pts · 2d
There's a straightforward way to resolve the paradox of tolerance, IMO. Treat tolerance as a social contract. An intolerant person has explicitly rejected the contract.
TBi@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 2d
Fully agree. Being tolerant is part of the social contract. If you break the rules then why should we play the same game.
5765313496@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
I agree. Straightforward and simple. But I don't think I know how to simply explain what a social contract is to someone. Does anyone have a good example of a social contract?
Bougie_Birdie@piefed.blahaj.zone · 21 pts · 1d
Choose to fit your audience:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
If you deny my right to exist, you forfeit yours
Fuck around and find out
Talk shit, get hit
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 10 pts · 1d
You forgot one:
In other words, don't do something that you would be upset if someone else did.
BillyTheKid2@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 1d
This doesn't work in everybody. There's a lot of things I like, and I would want everybody to do, that I recognize most rational people would never want.
If I followed this advice I would bother almost everybody I interact with.
The majority set the vibe. It's ugly, but there it is. If I reject this it will only cause friction in my life. So for people like me, a better quote is:
Act only according to maxims which those affected would have be universal
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 22h
Perhaps. But the same would apply to the other golden rule. It's not "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them."
If you do what you feel is right, it doesn't matter if people disagree with you. You'd at least be ideologically consistent, not a hypocrite.
If being a good person requires pleasing people, there would be no good people in the world. "People" are impossible to please because it's an abstract category representing a generalized collective. You'll never please them all and that's okay.
Do what you believe is right, and sleep well at night knowing you tried your best.
If I remember correctly, Kant goes into detail about how others would be affected and how that influences the categorical imperative. I forget exactly what he says about it though
Natanael@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 19h
If your definition is "do what you believe is right" it absolutely needs to be paired with a requirement to put effort into figuring out what actually is right.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 16h
Well when you figure that part out let me know, I've been trying my whole life and so far everything I've come up with is bound to still piss someone off...
If your definition of right and wrong is based on what gains approval from others then you're in a very dangerous predicament and I hope to the gods I don't believe in that you're surrounded by decent people.
BreadOven@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 9h
This. I'm not sure why others are arguing your point. I guess they don't actually understand what you're saying?
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 6h
Happens all the time to be honest
Natanael@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 1d
An agreement made to be able to share each other's space
Mutual assurances of safety in exchange for mutual acceptance of limits in regards to your shared spaces
If you break one of these agreements to others then you lose the privileges that they offered you
By demanding the benefits of a society you commit to honoring what it requires of you to maintain it
Look at stuff like the rules applied by hikers in the wilderness. "leave no trace" and sharing resources. Then you filter out a ton of the complexities of cities to show the basics of what it is.
Folstar@lemmus.org · 60 pts · 1d
This is an asked and answered question.
Tolerance is not a moral stance, it is part of the social contract. Those that violate the social contract, like Nazis, are not protected by it. Paradox solved.
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 1d
Exactly. The “paradox” part disappears as soon as you start viewing things through the lens of a social contract. The intolerant are intentionally and repeatedly breaking the social contract, and are therefore not protected by it.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16h
Not sure where so many of you picked up that "social contract" view, but they seem to have misled you.
The paradox of tolerance applies when people stop using words and move to violence, or stalking someone to drive them insane. It very definitely doesn't mean that people who say things you don't like hearing shouldn't be tolerated.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
People who actively try to harm others or call for others to be harmed. Not simply people who share honest views that not all people like hearing. That doesn't work, because no one would ever be permitted to say anything.
Leviathan@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 1d
It's not a paradox, it's a social contract.
You don't like Nazis? Tolerance granted.
You don't like trans people? Tolerance denied.
It's incredibly simple to understand, isn't paradoxical and is easy to live by.
svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1d
So if someone says something racist or transphobic, I can kill them, right?
Or perhaps what constitutes a violation of the social contract and what constitutes an appropriate penalty is actually not simple.
To provide a concrete example; the Catholic church, as an organisation, doesn't like trans people. What would tolerance being denied to the Catholic church look like in your world?
Natanael@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 19h
Something something due process, proportionality principle, etc. This isn't exactly trivial, but that first rule does help in determining who is the one infringing. To start with, both starting shit as well as unjustified escalation are both punishable.
svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 14h
It doesn't really help in determining who is doing the infringing either. There are places where saying "from the river to the sea" would be considered to be infringing on the social contract. And given that the social contract is a social construct, who's to say they're wrong?
Natanael@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 12h
Again, who is harmed?
And when one side is clearly hypocritical, we can establish that that their contract is unbalanced and unfair and strike the unfair terms.
... like for example determining that people like Netanyahu don't have the moral authority to punish others from doing what he himself does;
https://newrepublic.com/post/178243/benjamin-netanyahu-literally-says-from-the-river-to-the-sea
We already have whole fields studying precisely this line sociology and more, analysis of power balances and stereotypes, and more. Again, it's complicated, but it's not happening in a vacuum, we know how to approach this
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
It's insane. So many people use this to warp their own intolerance as somehow justified.
"He said I'm not living according to his morals, so I'm justified in killing him."
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Except people try to push "hurt" to include people being honest that they don't like the way someone else lives or don't see that person as living up to their own values and morals.
That doesn't work at scale. Everyone in the world does something someone in the world finds extremely immoral and feels passionately about.
Everyone has a right to be honest. They don't have the right to call for others to be harmed or try to make them lower class citizens.
Two people having a difficult discussion trying to understand one another though both live in ways the other feels to be against their own values and mores is an example of mature adults demonstrating tolerance.
People shrieking that they must kill anyone who doesn’t like something about them is an example of intolerance.
FooBarrington@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Wouldn't that mean that e.g. trans people have to live with being deadnamed and mis-gendered?
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 19h
And cannibals and people who eat dogs would have to live with hearing people tell them that's evil and wrong, and deeply religious people have to live with hearing people refute all of their beliefs. You don't associate with the people you can't get along with.
Forcing everyone to not state opinions that might offend everyone doesn't work, because the tens of thousands of combinations of cultures and backgrounds in billions of people mean that trying to force that would mean no one being able to speak.
There are people who feel that things that are completely unfactual are deeply meaningful personal parts of themselves, so we wouldn't even be able to stick to fact alone and not ever speak our opinions.
More than that it simply wouldn't work in reality, and the voices that could gain enough popular votes to make saying anything they don't like crime would do so while all of the minorities without that would have to endure it. There is no equitable way to manage it in reality.
People can hate me because of my skin tone. It's weird, and I'm not a fan of it, but they have the right to their personal world view and they have the right to express it just as I have the right to express mine. I do my best to get along and avoid being around the worst of them. If they start calling for me to be killed or to be forced into slavery then that's a problem. If they started following me around constantly chanting racist shit trying to get me to snap, that would also be a problem. But them simply being honest about their view is not. That isn't harming me, it's advertising to the world that they're shitty people.
FooBarrington@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16h
IMO history shows that your approach breaks down the second a hateful group manages to cover sufficiently large swathes of land. You specified that you'd ban individuals from harassing targets:
But what if it's not individual people following you around, but entire towns full of people chanting racist shit every time you interact with other people (e.g. groceries, physicians, all private/public services)? You're still made into a second-class citizen.
And we literally saw this in the southern US both before, during AND in some locations after the US civil rights movement, so this is not a theoretical concern.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16h
You're arguing with a 50 year old black man who has lived in the US his entire life. I got to enjoy the years in prison for being black thing. There's a huge difference between people expressing their honest views, as shitty as you may find those to be, and people trying to actually chase you out of town or hang you.
That's the entire point of what Popper actually said. Two people having a difficult conversation because both sees the other as living in some way they find to be against their own personal values and morals but accepting that both of them have the same right to exist is an example of mature adults demonstrating tolerance.
Everyone isn't always going to agree on anything, much less everything. There are plenty of things you do and about yourself that other people in the world would find against their own values and morals. They don't have the right to force you do be different or be unable to speak honestly from your own point of view. Likewise you don't have the right to force that onto others.
FooBarrington@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6h
I'm not trying to argue, sorry, I'm really trying to understand. I'll try to concisely express where I fail to follow along.
The psychological effects of being rejected by most of society have been studied a lot, and it consistently shows a huge impact on people's well-being and lifespan. At the same time, we know that in entire areas/regions it would not be possible for large parts of targeted groups to live lives consistently circumventing such interactions.
In my mind, this means that either targeted groups would have to accept being second-class citizens in these locations, or society has to attempt to ban such practices.
There are more issues, but IMO this is the one I can't see how to argue against.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3h
Forcing every human to not say anything that any other human might be upset to hear would be forcing that rejection onto everyone. It's not exactly healthy to tell people they're not permitted to simply be honest about their views and values.
There are plenty of people that every person in the world would see as not living up to their own values and morals if everyone knew everything about everyone. There will always be people you can't understand and have a difficult time communicating with because you're coming from such different points of view. You both have the same right to live, and to be honest about your views and feelings and have you perceive the world.
That's what tolerance is. It's not a simple and easy thing because it means accepting that people who strongly believe things total opposite of what you strongly believe have the same right to exist and be honest that you do.
The people who break that for calling on others to be killed, or beaten, or chased out of society, those are the people displaying actual intolerance.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · -2 pts · 20h
yes, and the legal framework can (and should) differ from the social contract
4am@lemmy.zip · -4 pts · 1d
This is why they are trying to make “establishment” a slur
P1k1e@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 1d
Why are we so tied to the word tolerance specifically? Decency, kindness, courtesy, and empathy seem to be more what were all aiming for anyway.
Is it cuz tolerance is the bare minimum? (This is a genuine question)
Jason2357@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 1d
Tolerance is useful because it conveys the notion of restraining from persecuting someone for something you specifically and perhapse strongly dislike (as long as it doesnt cross certain lines). It makes it unacceptable to use state or social power without a reasoned argument for actual harm.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
So much of this shit is stacked on top of established cultural and social mores anyway.
Case in point, "Decency" can mean a lot of different things to different people. Is this about self-policing your speech and dress? Or extending charity to your neighbors? Or simply staying silent so as not to appear rude? Or being an outspoken crusader in the face of rudeness and impropriety?
Tolerance is the benchmark for an egalitarian society. And the Hitler/Nazi reference is intended to illustrate the perils of showing tolerance for a foreign belief system, which queues up the "paradox" in question. If your goal is egalitarianism, how do you police against anti-egalitarian sentiment dressed up as "just another point of view"?
And who gets to decide what gets tolerated, anyway? Because any road you take can get you back to fascist tendency.
Is "intolerance of the intolerant" an excuse to wipe up a mob against a foreign religion you find distasteful? Is it a reason to break up social events or try and heckle opposition politicians or vandalize property? Or is it just a vibe you express when prompted, while otherwise allowing the "intolerable" ideology to persist?
This line of logic also doesn't really answer the hard questions, like, "What if the cops are in the club that you find intolerant?" Or "What if the national media club is promoting intolerant beliefs?" How do you refuse to tolerate the powerful, the wealthy, and the socially insulated?
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
It's just a philosophical concept that people online have fallen in love with because the truth is a lot of them are intolerant to people with views who don't match their own, and it gives them something to point to in order to feel justified in that intolerance.
"You say you don't like this thing I do, and I see that as intolerant, therefore this meme says I should destroy you."
They're on the wrong side of the problem, but they feel passionate and righteous about it so they see everyone else as the intolerant monsters.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Not even destroy, per say. Just kinda be snotty to online (or in person).
They're in the wrong set of bleachers, maybe. But I'm hard pressed to describe how many of these people are doing anything effectual.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
They're effectively causing a lot of headaches and exasperation.
P1k1e@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
To be fair I get the idea of the comic.
It's more about how the word tolerance is a bad descriptor of what we're after, and honestly, the Right can tell. They know we CANT tolerate them, and jumping through hoops to justify the use of the WORD tolerance is absurd to me.
Obviously this isn't very important in the grand scheme, it just kinda annoys me
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
Tolerance is such a low barrier to pass - being as basic as "do nothing" - that is boundary acceptable even for the Right, because to it does not obligate anybody to act (in favor of others) and thus fits even those with a "what's in it for me" who will indeed do nothing if there's nothing in it for them whilst still being within the tolerant side of it.
P1k1e@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 10h
I assume your referring to the Liberal Right and not the Conservative Right
RadiallyAxiomatic@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 1d
I would guess that is why. We should push for greater ideals, as you say, but I will begrudgingly accept tolerance as the minimum.
Natanael@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 1d
One of these people replying here supports a regime that forcibly "reeducates" minorities and ban teaching of their languages, tolerating only a uniform national identity.
The irony, right?
prex@aussie.zone · 19 pts · 2d
Karl Popper is also the guy who wrote about falsifiability
Big brain right there.
Edit: fixed the link.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 7 pts · 2d
I see so many people fall into the trap of spouting unfalsifiable statements when talking about AI.
Fawkes@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Yup. It's hard to have a conversation about anything when any given side is arguing from emotion, and defaults to accusing the other of being inferior or stupid. It's infuriating.
vk6flab@lemmy.radio · 19 pts · 2d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
nek0d3r@midwest.social · 16 pts · 1d
I think tolerance is simply a liberal idea, and it's been a demonstrably exploitable one. The moment a reactionary says "aren't you supposed to be tolerant", I simply don't know where they're getting that from. I tolerate what I want, and the intolerant don't get to invoke my tolerance.
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Worth noting that “the tolerant left” was a term coined by conservatives, specifically to try to guilt the left into accepting them (and giving them ammo to use when the left rejects them).
BillyTheKid2@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
I thought it was an ironic insult used to fool their base that the other side was irrational.
bramkaandorp@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Tolerance is, by its very nature, limited. That's the whole point.
It isn't some sort of ideal, like empathy, where more is better (although there are people, mostly bigots, who want to convince us otherwise), instead it is the result of our moral and ethical positions.
We tolerate what we think is ok, we don't tolerate what we think isn't ok.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
There's a large hole in your logic there.
Objection@lemmy.ml · 16 pts · 1d
The whole confusion comes from upholding tolerance as a principle or ideal rather than actually understanding it's purpose. When people look at it that way, they either accept it or reject it, but both of those are wrong.
Where does the idea of tolerance come from? Hundreds of years ago, the West was wracked with constant wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants, on top of witch hunts, crusades, inquisitions, the whole "scarlet letter" thing. It was after this whole mess that people decided that it wasn't worth it anymore, and that we should just call truces, that we should allow each other to practice different faiths without coercion. Eventually, this expanded to other aspects beyond just religious beliefs, however, the fundamental core of what it is is that truce between religious factions.
In many cases, it is possible to discuss disagreements and resolve things, or, it is possible to coexist while believing different things. Whether the sacremental wine turns into the blood of Christ literally or figuratively is a perfect example of that.
However, it should be noted that this was a practical compromise driven by a balance of power between the respective sides. The word, "tolerance" should not be confused with the word, "acceptance." To tolerate something implies that you wish it were different, and you're just putting up with it out of necessity. It is a truce, a contract, a ceasefire, between different parties with conflicting aims and ideals. Go back in time and give either side modern assault rifles, a clear advantage, and they'd drop the idea of tolerance in a heartbeat.
When a ceasefire is violated, a certain degree of patience is called for. Itchy trigger fingers can destroy a peace that both sides are invested in maintaining. However, if one side is able to repeatedly and brazenly violate the ceasefire without consequence, then the ceasefire is essentially dead and no longer serves a meaningful purpose.
To view tolerance as a principle and ideal in itself means that you've already decided whether you're going to uphold or abandon the ceasefire before you've even seen how the other side is acting. Accepting tolerance on principle means letting people take advantage of you, while rejecting it on principle means alienating potential allies.
Obviously, it's impossible to tolerate the right because they are so intent on aggression against vulnerable people. However, and this is true, it is possible to tolerate different perspectives on the left, while disagreeing with them. Rather than letting one's experiences with the right inform their approach to tolerance in general, we should look at what is actually minimally necessary to coexist and potentially collaborate with people we disagree with. Instead of logicking one's way into saying that anyone who disagrees on any point is technically being intolerant and therefore paradox of intolerance, deplatform them and treat them exactly like fascists, consider whether they are actually being bigoted and intransigent, or whether it's more mundane disagreement.
atro_city@fedia.io · 15 pts · 2d
Absolutes are absolute bullshit.
prex@aussie.zone · 14 pts · 2d
...all of them
P1nkman@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2d
Absolutely.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub · 5 pts · 2d
Indubitably
atro_city@fedia.io · 1 pts · 2d
Absolutely paradoxical
hanrahan@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 1d
Absolute Zero?
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Clearly nonsense, if you go under that temperature the particles begin to move backwards and you go back in time. Just like when you fly around the planet super fast a few times.
WereHacker@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 2d
Only the Sith deals in absolutes wise sounding bong O.o
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Sounds kinda absolute, ngl.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 1d
It's closer to the social contract of tolerance. If the contract is broken then the gloves are off, no one gives a damn about the universalist Christians but the Evangelicals are broadly hated on average, hell even my bloodthist is generally more socially acceptable than your average Evangelical since my focus is moreso directly on folks and entities who cause harm through secondary or primary effect.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
Yeah, this doesn't scream of tolerance. Tolerance is just being accepting that not all people feel, believe, and think the way you do. Part of that is accepting that they have the right to be honest about how they feel just as much as you have the right to be honest about how you feel.
Two people having a difficult discussion trying to understand one another though both live in ways the other feels to be against their own values and mores is an example of mature adults demonstrating tolerance.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1d
I was moreso using a group known for high control and outright bigotry as a counter example. I don't really care about what people personally believe until it becomes a danger, IE I don't care if some moron thinks germ theory is fake but as soon as they achieve a position of power and/or influence that's when I will propose just shooting them. Similarly groups who try to do conversion therapy can get fucked.
But on the counter I think plastic surgery is weird and gross most of time on an instinctual level, but I really don't care if people do it. I just will choose not to look at someone with more severe examples.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
The problem is it's always going to be bigger and more personal things than that. There are over 8 billion humans, and tens of thousands of combinations of ethnicity, culture, religion, regional history, and economic position.
No matter what you hold most dear and feel to be an intrinsic part of who you are, there will always be people who find that to be against their own personal values and morals. And likewise there are people who have things they hold dear to themselves that you would find against your own personal values and morals.
That's fine. And everyone should have the right to be open and honest about these things despite our differences. That's what the word tolerance used as it is in this image means. Being willing to have difficult conversations with people who see you as immoral and whom you see the same way and accept one another's right to be despite that.
Many people try to twist it into meaning anyone who doesn't like something about them is intolerant and so should die. That's intolerance. That's the problem.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
I get that and agree, frankly speaking I follow a grand philosophy of mind your own businessism wherein on the day to day you mind your own business unless someone else makes their business yours. Frankly I generally get along better with folks of different cultures the more foreign the better, because even if they fucken hate my guts the feeling has a solid chance of being mutual which is why you call a truce and don't interact unless needed. Frankly I think I hate people of my own culture more than any outsiders because on average they are stupid as shit and a disgrace to our ancestors, for context I'm a Scottish stock Redneck.
But there will always be a point where someone's religion, culture, or customs are an issue and you should know where the contract ends especially internally. For example do you allow say cults and high control groups in general to exist or do you stamp them out individually after someone inevitably gets hurt or killed? Do you allow the New Fundamentalist Baptists, the Fundementalists Latterday Saints, or even something like Scientology? That's not even getting into outright genocidal groups like Atom Waffen or individuals who are walking humanitarian nightmares like Elon Musk.
Personally I generally work of the ideal of your right to swing your fists ends at the face of others, it ain't perfect but it's broadly usable and establishes culpability. But broadly I don't thinks there's any good answer for this type of shit, folks have been arguing about it since the enlightenment at the latest and I doubt our little debate is gonna be the resolution. Hence why I work on the social contract version of tolerance since it sets the expectation that when the contract is broken by one of the parties then penalties will ensure retribution.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
Anything that isn't seeking to physically harm people, harass them until they snap, or relegate them to some lower class. It's not my job to decide what beliefs are sane and nonsensical otherwise, or I'd be able to shoot lightning from my arse and probably around half of the world would have it's skin peeled off right before it started to rain salt. No one should be arbiter of who lives and who dies, because we'd all be shit at it.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
Well goodie then cause the NFIB (forgot the independent in their name) are child abusers and genocidal, the FLDS rape kids and human trafficking, and Scientology has a whole damned list including crimes against humanity. But also I'm not even necessarily talking killing, save that for the worst and the oligarchs, a good example is Heavens Gate who shouldve all been arrested and sent through a deprogramming group since I'd consider a mass suicide to be coercive harm due to the fact they'd have been unlikely to do that without the cult.
Similarly I do think threats to the public from political power should also be met with force, but first cut the phone lines and pretend they don't exist. RFK Jr can't tell you to eat rotting skunk if he cant communicate and maybe they'll give up after awhile. Frankly I wish the states would block communication with the feds just to see what would happen.
But also I suspect we fundementally disagree, I've suffered the abuse of individuals and organizations and frankly I doubt I'll ever be not mildly murderous. I can bind it with my honor but it'll always be there. Honestly I did enjoy this discussion and I don't have the inkling to insult you and suggest grievous self harm, so I consider that to be damned near constructive.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 19h
I'm a black man on the edge of 50 in the US who spent 5 years in prison for being in the wrong place and the wrong time with the wrong skin tone.
Laying there just wanting to sleep reality away and unable to rest because of the endless sounds of people screaming and banging things against walls and bars I hated everyone and everything so much.
Then I realized it didn't effect anyone but me. It wasn't getting justice for myself. It wasn't shutting everyone else up so I could sleep. It was just festering inside and poisoning me. I was laying there steeped it hate and anger and shit because that's how I was choosing to exist, and I was the only one suffering because of it.
It took months to be able to honestly let it go, but it's the best thing I ever did for myself. You're self-aware. You're in control of your own mind and feelings. You decide how you look at things and what you let fester inside of you and poison you. Happiness isn't some blessing from the sky, it's a choice. It's not always an easy one, and it can take a lot of work to achieve, but it's probably the most important choice a person can make.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 33m
I think you're only tolerant of bigots and no one else.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 29m
Tolerance is the basic acceptance that people who have views, values, and morals that differ from your own still have the same basic right to live that you do. It's not easy to have any conversation with someone when the two of you feel strongly and deeply on a thing in opposite ways.
Tolerance is something you don't need for people who agree with you on everything and share your world view. You only really need it for those you'd consider bigots or horribly wrong in their values because they don't match your own.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 18m
People who think my friends shouldn't have rights or exist at all are bigots. People who insist that I should be forced to tolerate them are just stalling until they can progress to violence. That's what you're doing.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 12m
The number of people in the worlds and variables that result in countless varying points of view means that there will always be people who you would have a difficult time holding a conversation with, because their values and views are very different from your own. Everyone still has the right to live. Everyone still has the right to be honest about their views, even if they seem like complete assholes.
The line comes at insisting others different from yourself are inferior and don't have the same right to live and be. That is intolerance.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7m
So far in this comment section, your line has been set at about half a dozen different places. I think this is deliberate to make your position difficult to pin down and thereby effectively argue against.
Because you're trying to get people to blithely accept bigotry as a normal part of a healthy society, until such time as bigots achieve their (your) goals.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3m
Feel free to actually cite anything I've said that you see as somehow being in conflict and I will explain them to you.
I suggest you actually take the time to read Karl Popper's works. You're arguing with a near 50 year year old man who spent 5 years in prison in the US for being black at the wrong place at the wrong time. You sound like a kid who hasn't had much actual experience with genuine intolerance, and so you're conflating it with people not agreeing with you on the internet.
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 19h
This is a common misconception about the Paradox of Tolerance, and I'm going to reference the person who invented it: Karl Popper in his 1945 work, The Open Society and Its Enemies:
Popper argues that we should tolerate intolerance only up to the point of violence. That is, if one physically attacks us, we no longer have the burden of tolerance. Popper is commonly misquoted and intentionally misused to justify violence against disagreement, and that is clearly not his position.
The graphic above states that we should not tolerate "movements" which preach "intolerance." This is a subjective standard. I think Islam preaches intolerance. By this standard, I would be justified in banning all Muslims from immigrating to Denmark. This is why Popper used the much clearer standard of physical violence. Any modern society must tolerate disagreement - including "intolerant" disagreement. We resolve that intolerance at the ballot box. We cannot allow physical violence. No, someone saying mean words is not physical violence.
squalless@programming.dev · 8 pts · 14h
I disagree with this assessment of the text - assuming it's correct, I'm not familiar with the source.
What this extract is saying imo is as long as it's possible to effectively keep in check and counter intolerance with argument and public opinion, suppression is unwise.
But, tolerance should reserve the right to suppress intolerance before it becomes violent, specifically when intolerance acts in bad faith and refuses to participate in logical argument or debate, and instead denounces argument entirely.
So the threshold is not violence itself, but one example of what "may" lead to violence.
Just my 2¢ on the text (not my opinion on the topic).
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 13h
There is no way to reconcile your interpretation with the actual text:
A preemptive strike is neither stated nor implied by Popper. I find that a dangerous proposition for a democratic nation. It would justify any and all manner of violence based on nothing and anything but the subjective and active imaginations of the politically inclined.
squalless@programming.dev · 4 pts · 10h
I've re-read it and still kindly and respectfully disagree about the meaning of that excerpt in isolation. Whatever the implications of this interpretation are, I have no idea because I'm not familiar with the work (however naïvely).
Here's a detailed breakdown of my take:
The key word here is always, so, intolerant philosophies shouldn't always be suppressed.
The condition for not suppressing intolerant philosophies is if they can be kept in check and countered by public opinion and rational argument.
Reserve the right to suppression if necessary..
Because the following things might easily happen:
An example of what may occur when the first approach fails due to essentially bad faith, and the reasoning for why to reserve the right to suppression. But it doesn't frame violence as the threshold for when to apply that suppression.
Anyway, that's my take. I'm still assuming this quote is accurate - I haven't checked it.
And once again I'm absolutely not agreeing with these positions or assertions about the suppression of intolerance, this is just how I understand the text.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 3h
You're misunderstanding a blurb and arguing based on your lack of knowledge on the topic.
Go read the man's works. He's not saying that you should kill everyone who might theoretically reach for a weapon instead of words. That's not even a sane position. That would mean killing everyone who doesn't agree with you.
squalless@programming.dev · 2 pts · 1h
I don't think I'm saying that that's what the quote implies- when and how to use force within suppression isn't mentioned in the quote at all, it just says to reserve the right to suppression "even by force". But like I said, I'm not arguing a position or saying I agree with my understanding of the quote, I'm just sharing my understanding because it differed to someone else's.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 54m
You're pointing out that based on your tiny, fractional knowledge of a single excerpt of a man's writings your "understanding" doesn't match that of someone who's actually studied those works.
It's like taking the time to point out your understanding of the shape of the earth is based on a lifetime spent in a flat area. That doesn't mean believing the earth is flat has any validity.
If you'd like to have a meaningful understanding of the topic, then I highly encourage you to actually read and study Popper's works.
squalless@programming.dev · 1 pts · 1m
I think it's more like, I read someone say "this quote means X and it supports my position on this topic".
But, when I read the quote I thought "hmm, I really don't think that's what the words in that quote mean.." and so I decide to share that.
If you disagree with my take that's totally fine! I'm also not trying to make any claim as to the author's overall position. At this point I hope we can just agree to disagree and leave it at that.
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 1h
This is the operative statement to which I'm referring. If the party to which Popper is referring is not "answering arguments" with "fists and pistols," Popper is not making an affirmative case for suppression.
To be clear, he's not making an absolute statement either. He's not saying, "we may only ever suppress speech which is violent." However - and this is critical - he's also not making an affirmative statement that speech without violence should be suppressed. This is the original work and quote used to derive the Paradox of Tolerance, so I think it behooves us to heed that in this statement, he's referring to physical violence. Further, there are no statements of his in which he argues for suppression of non-violent speech.
squalless@programming.dev · 1 pts · 18m
Thanks for clarifying the quote's source etc.
I still kindly disagree with this understanding of the language though.
To me that whole section is justification for why to reserve the right to suppression: because the intolerant may not engage with argument in good faith, and they may instead tell their followers to denounce logical argument altogether and be violent.
The key word here is may, which to me means "this might happen". I basically read this as a warning of a potential outcome of intolerant philosophies - and why suppression might be needed and why to reserve the right to it - but not a threshold for when to suppress them.
But, at this point it seems like we might just have to agree to disagree on the meaning of the quote!
And once again, none of this is my opinion on the topic itself and I'm not endorsing a position, I'm only offering my understanding of the quote.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 12h
People don't have to participate in arguments on why your point of view is correct and their own values and morals are wrong. That doesn't give you license to "suppress" them. That would be you being intolerant and violent, not them.
... and now seeing that you seem to be using an alt to make this response I doubt I'll ever hear a word back. So many people on Lemmy seem to have multiple accounts to swap between for arguing and down voting.
squalless@programming.dev · 2 pts · 9h
So, the above was just my understanding of what the small snippet of text was saying, because I understood it differently to JasSmith, and I wanted to share that. But I wasn't endorsing or agreeing with the position of the text itself.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 11h
He then goes on, in the paragraph you quoted, to make it clear that it's refusing rational argument that's a problem because it can lead to violence, not violence itself.
Further, if you finish the paragraph it becomes clear that the opening statement is anything but a misunderstanding:
You don't have to agree with him, you can be partial to rawles, but popper was not vague.
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 1h
Not just that. He also very clearly requires there to be the incitement to physical violence:
I agree with the end of the paragraph. His definition of intolerance includes the incitement to violence, and what he argues follows logically.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 11h
Again, this isn't saying people simply saying things you don't like hearing should be criminal, it's the incitement to violence and persecution.
The difference between saying "I don't like black people" and saying "We should kill all of the black people."
People don't have to listen to your arguments about why their values and morals are wrong and awful. Just like you don't have to listen to people claim the same about your own. Tolerance is the simple acceptance that despite having different views and values, you both have the same basic right to live.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 7h
You're projecting your beliefs onto popper. You don't have to agree with him. I'm not interested in debating the appropriate nature of tolerance in society.
I really don't know how much more clear he could have been about his beliefs: incitement to intolerance is not the same as incitement to violence. He extremely plainly states that we should engage in rational dialogue if we can, but reserve the right to suppress intolerance, even by force, because they may begin preaching violence.
Claiming the right to suppress them because it "may easily turn out" is not the same as "once it becomes clear". He's extremely obviously not using incitement to intolerance as a stand-in for incitement to violence, because he says it should be criminal in the same fashion as incitement to violence.
Consider the context in which he wrote what he wrote: world war two had just ended. We saw what happened when an open society allowed an intolerant right wing group to spread hateful rhetoric: they started small, got extreme, and then got violent.
Is it too much of a stretch to think he would have the opinion "it would have been okay to stop the Nazis when they were shitty, and before they got evil"? In the aftermath, influenced by popper and people like him, Germany outlawed the entire ideology.
No one considers it counterintuitive or ambiguous if you need to tolerate people being violent or inciting violence against you.
That's a disingenuous way of portraying hate speech. Even if you're in the "tolerate hate speech" crowd there's no reason to trivialize someone else's position.
You're under no obligation to agree with popper. There's no need to turn his position into a different one so you can agree with him. We don't need two Rawls.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 3h
Violence. Not opinions.
There are plenty of people that every person in the world would see others as not living up to their own values and morals if everyone knew everything about everyone. There will always be people you can’t understand and have a difficult time communicating with because you’re coming from such different points of view. You both have the same right to live, and to be honest about your views and feelings and have you perceive the world.
That’s what tolerance is. It’s not a simple and easy thing because it means accepting that people who strongly believe things total opposite of what you strongly believe have the same right to exist and be honest that you do.
The people who break that for calling on others to be killed, or beaten, or chased out of society, those are the people displaying actual intolerance.
The entire point of what he said and goes on to say in many other writings is that people who insist on violence and can not be reasoned with are the intolerance that society can not tolerate.
Go sit and actually read his works. Don't bastardize a blurb over and over and try to sit there saying I'm the one being disingenuous and misunderstanding the man.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16h
Thank you. It's insane that so many in here genuinely believe that this is saying they should kill anyone who says something they don't like hearing. People are addicted to viewing others as awful monsters for the crime of not sharing the same world but and personal values.
I was surprised to see how many people in this thread don't even understand what the word tolerance means in this context.
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 16h
I rarely visit Lemmy anymore because it’s full of left wing authoritarians who think their morality and values could never, ever be wrong. If anyone disagrees with them it’s obviously because they’re Nazis. Oh and we like to kill Nazis. Hence the comic.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 16h
"But what if someone calls a trans person the wrong gender?"
Not hanging out with that person isn't good enough, they think they're morally justified in skinning anyone who says words they don't like alive. That the intolerant person is someone who says things they don't like, not the people cheering for that person to be skinned alive.
I don't understand how people who think they're so caring and welcoming can actually be so hateful and backwards. They're every bit as bad as the worst of the racists, and both groups feel they're justified in their insane hate.
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 13h
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” - C. S. Lewis
People who cloak themselves in righteousness can justify even the worst atrocities committed in the name of their cause.
The sad irony is that all authoritarians convince themselves that they're doing it for the good of their people. We all know of the dangers of right wing authoritarianism. For some reason the left has an unbelievably large blind spot for it. Or maybe they're aware of it but like it? After all, there's no possible reality in which they might be wrong.
myszka@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 1d
It's funny how the word "tolerance" already implies that something is bad but you just act as if it's not. You wouldn't tolerate having enough food and water, you'd only tolerate the lack thereof.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Because its a bad faith argument.
qarbone@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
Not "bad", just "not your preference." I tolerate reality TV like 90-Day Fiance but it's not objectively bad. And, subjectively, it's better than most reality TV I've seen.
I tolerate eating Shin ramyun noodles when I'd rather be eating pad thai.
Similarly, you can tolerate people's life choices (e.g. "polyamory, as a relationship choice, or smoking weed", not "being gay or being trans" which is someone's intrinsic self) even if they're not your preference. And that doesn't imply anything about the choice.
And, as an aside, I think political polarization has erased the place of "tolerance" in discourse. Because now, tolerance looks like acceptance when a bigot wants to murder someone for choosing different. You have to vocally, enthusiastically be an ally to counteract the polarized hatred from the other side, and maintain some semblance of the world making sense.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
No, it doesn't. Tolerance, like many words, has more than one single meaning. It's not being used as in "tolerating a terrible smell" but as in "being tolerant of others who hold different views."
It's just being accepting that not all people feel, believe, and think the way you do. Part of that is accepting that they have the right to be honest about how they feel just as much as you have the right to be honest about how you feel.
Two people having a difficult discussion trying to understand one another though both live in ways the other feels to be against their own values and mores is an example of mature adults demonstrating tolerance.
People shrieking that they must kill anyone who doesn't like something about them is an example of intolerance.
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1d
It implies something has to be tolerated because it is outside of the realm of the familiarity you would otherwise personally accept innately. Not bad, just an admission of the fallibility of personal experience at being completely objective at everything.
melfie@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 10h
Foofighter@discuss.tchncs.de · 13 pts · 22h
Understand tolerance as a social contract and not as a moral obligation. Tolerance is about piece within a society, not about right or wrong. If you do, there is no paradox, because the contract is broken and therefore does no longer apply. It also allows you to counter far right ideologies from whomever they come.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 15h
It's strange to see so many people repeating that "social contract" line like you all took the same seminar.
There are tens of thousands of combinations of ethnicities, cultures, religions, regional histories, and socioeconomic backgrounds, spread out over more than 8 billion humans. Values, norms, and morals have huge variances between individuals and groups.
There will always be people you have an extremely difficult time having a conversation with, because both of you feel the other is completely immoral because things about the other violates each of your personal values and morals. Tolerance is the acceptance that those other people have the same basic right to exist and live that you do. That's all.
It's being a sane, reasonable adult and simply not speaking with the people you can't handle speaking with, not calling for them to be killed for their differences.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 2d
bravesilvernest@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 2d
Oh shit, another reader of the best long running webcomic!
Gullible@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1d
I found it on lemmy, and it must metastasize!
gorbinos_quest@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
What the flip is this, looks rad!
Gullible@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 1d
https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/kill-six-billion-demons-chapter-1/
Kill 6 billion demons. It’s a vast, well crafted universe with intricately personed characters who are never forgotten or discounted. It’s a deconstruction of the hero’s journey that doesn’t ever overstay its welcome. It’s an allegory for modern and ancient and interminable and spiritual and human woes. It’s pretty good.
gorbinos_quest@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Thank you so much, just added it to my reading list!
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1d
Who's in charge of what is and is not "intolerant"?
that's the problem
For example, Christianity, Islam, Judaism are ALL intolerant faiths by their own admission.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 1d
Shhh Redditors really like this idea.
whereitsat@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 15h
i'd say it's relative to your culture. if you're a liberal woman growing up in iran or saudi arabia you're gonna hate your life.
but this opens up genuine discussions about right/wrong and whatever else.
the fact of the matter is that we just make up everything about humans and their relations as we go along. there is no real right or wrong, there's just perspective in any given moment in time and context.
if there are 34738434739473 iranian women who support their lifestyle and 40000 who don't then who's right?
according to americans the minority is right, but we pretend that they aren't in america when it comes to domestic concerns.
whoa.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Anyone who says they don't like anything about anything anyone in the civilized and enlightened English speaking countries does or says is intolerant and so it's righteous and just to hate them and scream that they should die. And anyone who disagrees is an evil bigot who should also die. Duh.
IndustryStandard@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 1d
I know of a guy with a funny mustache who solves this problem by being intolerant of the... Hey wait a minute..
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 15h
They've been murdering each other over their religious disagreements for more than a thousand years, long before he ever came along. He just used them, like a tool, to reach his own ends.
He gave those who believe in such tripe the opportunity to exercise their beliefs "legally". They are waiting for another opportunity to do their holy work, always. Something something "chosen people", there can be only one.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 1d
I have conflicting thoughts about this.
More often than not this explanation is just used as a excuse to hate whatever group you want while labeling yourself as the good one. But applied to the ultimate consequences most people would still be intolerant.
The classical example of not tolerating nazis because they are intolerant to others, is used because it's a flawless example. The definition of a nazi is a person who wants to eliminate other groups from society just because what they are. A tolerant society cannot exist with them, so they have to go. Perfect.
But we have real life problems when we move from the perfect example to practical cases.
1The "everyone I don't like is a nazi" problem. Someone who wants to be a good intolerant just have to label their opponents as nazis, no matter if they are or not. Just the label is good enough.
While Nazis are used as a classical example. The more pure definition is, that tolerant society should not tolerate people who are intolerant. Thus, only allowed intolerance is the intolerance to the intolerant, any other type of intolerance should then make you a valid target for intolerance.
And here is when I see the biggest problem. That society doesn't usually fit most people values. I would give you several examples. Take billionaires, take robbers, take whatever kind of person you don't like, not only don't like but you don't want anyone like that in your society, for reasons different to them being intolerant. There are other undesirable values in a person that sometimes are worse than intolerance. The lack of tolerance to those people really puts you in the same spot as the Nazi in the paradox of intolerance. As you are hating on people for reasons different than they not being tolerant.
I see two honest solutions and one dishonest one.
The first honest solution is to strictly adhere to the idea of being tolerant everyone but the intolerant idea. Which will imply a higher effort to accept people in the society that you currently don't want to accept. Embrace that tolerance is the ultimate goal and just reject the intolerant, accepting everyone else, no matter what.
The second honest solution is to reject complete unconditional tolerance to everyone but the intolerant. Create a more strict set of values of what the society should tolerate. And embrace the idea that complete unconditional tolerance is a not the goal.
The dishonest solution is just lie about it. Seek excuses, loopholes or overcomplicated cherry picking reasonings on why the people you don't want to tolerate are actually intolerants and then covered by the paradox of intolerance and be happy with it.
To each their own. In the later years I'm feeling myself leaning more for the second honest solution. Unconditional tolerance is not a goal per se. I try to create a developed moral system that could actually be universal and that everyone and anyone could and should follow. And think that maybe I should not tolerate anyone that breaks this ethical rules. Basically instead of saying that the "golden rule" is to be tolerant and that's the only rule that people is not allowed to break. My golden rule is more on the lines of "be a good person", which is harder to define but I think it's more solid, and that's the only rule that should not be broken.
And here ends my TED talk.
AstralPath@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 1d
Being a billionaire is a choice, a choice to hoard money to the detriment of everyone and everything around you. One could easily choose to not be a billionaire by paying taxes and funding their local social support services and donating to charity. Intolerance of greed on the scale of billions of dollars should be the norm as it is actively detrimental to society.
Robbery is a violation of personal safety and social boundaries and is also actively detrimental to society. It is also a choice.
Intolerance of the choices of others that violate the social contract of "don't be greedy, don't steal, don't hurt others, etc..." is valid intolerance in my opinion.
Nazis are intolerable because they are intolerant of the vast majority of humanity itself and for reasons outside of most people's control. Sure, you can make it a choice and convert to Judaism, but the vast majority of Jews are born into Judaism; It's not a choice like greed on the scale of billions or breaking and entering.
For that reason alone, Nazis are worth disposing of. The myriad additional reasons to hate Nazis just makes the job easier.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 1d
Nobody says "everyone I don't like is a Nazi". But a lot of Nazis, who are rightly disliked by most people for being Nazis seem the see things that way.
Never heard "they call anyone with a different opinion a Nazi!" where the opinion in question didn't turn out to be some real Nazi shit.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
That seems to be implying the person you're responding to is a Nazi, which would ironically be providing an example for what they said.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1d
See my comment in response to their reply unde yours. This person absolutely is a Nazi. Not because I disagree with them, but because they are arguing for tolerance for Nazis.
Gaslov@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
There are no Nazis.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1d
^ Things nobody but Nazis would say...
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 20h
everyone says that the people thry don't like are nazis
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com · -1 pts · 1d
Example: "Unless you’re a republican or other type of nazi. Then you can absolutely go all the way to hell.
Tolerance got us here."
this person, comment copy on lemmy, is actually implying that every republican is a nazi. Their use of the world "tolerance" makes me think that they are actually an example of what I say that people use the paradox of intolerance as an excuse to feel vindicated about their thoughts rather than as a moral theory to follow. It's the first example I found, but I think is hard to deny that a non negligible number of people think that one of the two major parties in the US country is a nazi party. Giving that the US is a two party system saying that the only other side are all nazis, is almost equivalent to saying that everyone that doesn't think like me are nazis.
I've also seen a lot of the time the argument "if you have a table of 10 people sitting with 1 nazi, you have 10 nazis". It's a common argument, that's not even related to those other 9 people ideologies, just that they shared a space with a nazi they automatically get counted as nazis.
As an exercise to these people I would like to ask what "constitutes a nazi" by their thoughts. And afterwards calculate what many people in their country falls under that definition. If the number is high enough I think is more likely that the person is calling nazi to every person who doesn't think like them rather than such a big chunk of the population actually beliefs and follows the national-socialism ideology of Adolf Hitler.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1d
The Republican party is currently openly supporting the idea of masked secret police disappearing people off the streets and sending them to concentration camps based on their race.
Yes, Republicans are Nazis. Yes, that includes the ones you're friendly with.
I have beef with both parties, so if that's what I were doing, I'd be saying it about a lot more than the third of the country that's openly decided to support Nazism. As far as everyone else, your argument still fails to persuade, because the statement "Republicans are a subtype of Nazi" is factually correct by any reasonable analysis. So no, even at that scale it isn't "everyone who doesn't think like me" it's "everyone supporting this plainly Nazi shit we're seeing daily in real time".
That's the crux of the paradox of tolerance. People who are tolerant of Nazis have the same net effect on society as Nazis themselves. Making no distinction between someone who openly supports throwing people into camps based only on their race and people who don't actually support it but are fine enough with it to have a friendly dinner with someone who does is again, the objectively correct position.
It sounds to me like you're either the Republican variety of Nazi or the "apolitical go-along-with-it" style of Nazi and you're looking for validation that you aren't a Nazi. You won't find that here. It's not because I disagree with you, it's because you're openly arguing for tolerance of Nazis.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Using your example, that means the Democrats are also Nazis; they've also used ICE (with masks) to deport millions of people at gunpoint for concentration camps and/or deportment.
Exact same organization. Same masks. Same camps. Millions of times.
So... if you're a Democrat, per your own example you are a variety of Nazi... in which case I agree with you.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
No argument here, but that wasn't the point under discussion.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 1d
You are kind of proving my point by wildly missing my point.
First here we are with the "you are a nazi" argument. You disagree with me, I'm automatically a nazi.
Second of all. If you read my comment again you'll clearly read that I advocate that tolerance is not the goal. I'm not saying we should "tolerate" nazis. I'm actually advocating for not tolerating not only nazis but a whole bunch of other people as well (I just don't feel the need to call them nazis for not tolerating them), because I think tolerance by itself is not the supreme golden rule that will make the society we live into the utopia we deserve.
But the point is that once you are true about this you should construct a more robust moral code that "nazis bad and everyone I don't like is a nazi", because that's just not going to get us anywhere. We need good people in our society. Not just thugs flying your favourite flag. And for that the definition of who stays and who don't shouldn't be a political tag. But the adherence to a robust moral code.
But obviously bad people who think they are good only because their political tag doesn't find this a very pleasant idea.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
No, I disagree with almost everyone.
You argue that people supporting masked secret police disappearing people based on race doesn't necessarily make them a Nazi, and that argument makes you a Nazi. It really is that simple.
You want to define "Nazi" as meaning only people following the exact political philosophy of the 1930s NSDAP, which is exactly how neonazis and other Nazi subtypes want it defined, as it keeps them from being banned for being Nazis.
"Nazi" to most people means anyone supporting a militarized ethnonationalism, and especially anyone supporting the use of state violence against designated out groups. For the most part that means Republicans and their supporters, along with Zionists and their supporters, plus assorted independent neonazi factions that don't have those kinds of numbers. But yes, it also includes anyone looking at what those groups are doing and arguing they aren't Nazis, or ignoring that they're Nazis for social or business reasons.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
My definition of Nazi in the modern sense of the world, (a neonazi we could say). Is that of a person who wants the state to have absolute power to enforce a reactionary society that will embrace a glorious past, exterminating every group of population that doesn't fit into this objective.
By that definition, no not all republicans are nazis, some are, of course, many even, but not all, not by far. And obviously, not all people who deny your arguments about who is a nazi automatically becomes a nazi.
It doesn't mean they are good people. But here is the thing, not every bad person is a nazi.
You might be a very bad person, and still not a nazi.
A problem with you way of seeing things, is that, is conveniently arbitrary. You can actually call absolutely anyone you like a nazi. That's a fast route for authoritarianism. Tou want to kill anyone? Easy, you say they are a nazi and their death is justified in your eyes.
That's just bad. You can have a system that defines who is good and who is not by such an arbitrary system.
Look at it this way. By your definition you are yourself a nazi. Because if I'm a nazi and I'm here you are sharing this space with a nazi, making yourself a nazi... See how easy is to label someone as a nazi by those definitions?
No. Our moral system should be stronger, should be able to accurately determine if a person is a good person or not based on their actions, without any chance of arbitrary labeling any person as bad by the convenience of an authoritarian figure.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1d
Your inability (or more likely refusal) to understand simple concepts doesn't invalidate those concepts.
There is nothing arbitrary about "people who support a militarized ethnostate" nor about "people who support state violence against a designated out group".
No part of the "ten Nazis at the table is about sharing space, it's about it ignoring their atrocities and being friendly with monsters.
If you want people not to say you're a Nazi, why don't you try just saying without any prevarication "masked secret police snatching people off the street because of their race is wrong, that's Nazi behavior and people who support it shouldn't be tolerated".
You won't. Because you clearly do support that kind of behavior.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
There are also a plurality of underlying issues not explored by this, because it's treated as first order only problem. Like... why is it that people become intolerant and why they blame certain groups for things.
And usually that's underlying economic or inequality conditions in the society or other forms of social upheaval.... which people generally don't want to address so much as they want to focus on the social sorting of hating and being hateful as the 'solution'. It's much easier to be tolerant when you are in an environment where members are all roughly of equal status, harder when there are perceived or real inequalities and abuses of power.
Real world is more complicated because people don't hate for no reason. They may, have very legit reasons, and you likely may have the same reasons directed towards a different group.
Everyone does vastly over simplify this, because well, they want to use is as a litmus test to prove they are good and other people are bad, and that's the only 'use' of this principle. Which is what folks do with a lot of moral/social guidelines... they want to reduce them to sorting mechanisms with themselves on the 'right' side of the sort... and if you challenge that notion maybe it's not that simple... you must be one of the 'bad' people.
Further, everyone is intolerant of something. Even if they won't admit it. Nor will they admit... that they and everyone else make mistakes. People's mind and behaviors change... a whole other second order factor also totally outside the scope of this 'paradox'. and for a lot of folks on lemmy... you can't ever change or be reformed from your previous views... etc.
We also have the wonderful case of social movements that seek to turn innocuous behaviors into intolerable assaults on themselves, like the 'manspreading' nonsense from Tumblr.
I think it's better understood as a phenomena, not a principle or a rule or any of that. You don't have to 'accept' or 'reject' it. You should think about it though, about the implications of where you draw the line, because in real life it is never as clean as 'nazis bad, everyone non-nazi good', and there are so many legal and other examples that get into murkey waters.
Natanael@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 1d
But that's just people exploiting ambiguity, not a real problem with the principle. It's an implementation problem. And since every other alternative will be dependent on a similar definition with a threshold up define bad, this one can't be substantially worse.
You're counting wrong when you're talking about "most". If most people hated society you would not see cities larger than a few thousand people. People are annoyed by it, but they accept it because they know what they get in return (conservative propaganda is essentially about lying about what makes society good)
We already do partial tolerance. It's called fines instead of deportation, it's called reputation instead of tarring. What you're really looking for here is stronger cultural enforcement.
58008@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 2d
There are different types and expressions of tolerance, so I think getting tied up in knots about a mythical all-encompassing tolerance that no cunt on Earth preaches (not even Jesus or the Buddha) is probably a side quest that doesn't need completing. It's like two linguists who've read a class of philosophy having a grammar nazi stand-off. You may as well include being abused and conned by criminals in that kind of tolerance, which is obviously stupid, but it's no more stupid than thinking your personal philosophy is threatened when faced with a nazi whose goals you wanna prevent coming to fruition.
Tolerating people who have characteristics that are not necessarily of their own choosing is not in the same ballpark as tolerating those who want to eradicate that first group. "Leave people alone" is better, it includes preventing the non-leaving alone of people by cunts, e.g. nazis, with no paradoxes involved. "But leave me alone to be a nazi!" ok, what does being a nazi involve? "The sterilisation and extermination of..." lemme just stop you there. Done!
im_fine_sandy@nord.pub · 9 pts · 2d
Paradoxically, the paradox of tolerance is most often cited in the course of branding someone as "intolerant" and thereby excusing your intolerance of them.
Its a problem of semantics. Who really is sufficiently intolerant to be intolerable?
Natanael@infosec.pub · 0 pts · 1d
It's a question of what they're intolerant of. Innocent people, or malignant people?
There may still be ambiguous points, but they're much smaller and fewer.
untorquer@quokk.au · 8 pts · 2d
Legalizing tolerance is a method co-opt a liberal regime into fascism.
Take anti-semitism laws in germany and protesting the Israeli genocide of palestinians for example.
Or the UK...
A counter example, Ireland.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 20h
that is legally forcing intolerance though, not tolerance. Legally forced tolerance is like the first amendment to the constitution that legally protects all political beliefs including those that all women should be shot
untorquer@quokk.au · 2 pts · 4h
"Any movement (of intolerance)... ... must be outside the law." Is what I'm getting at.
When you create legal structure around that idea, you create a cudgel for the state to use on its citizens.
Protesting genocide in palestine isn't antiemetic, yet people are getting locked away as terrorists on the basis of "anti-discrimination" law.
The first amendment is in direct opposition to the argument of this comic, if for no other reason than that single line of text.
mHtt@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 1d
I've got one for you:
If you wish to be tolerated, you must yourself be tolerant.
Balldowern@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 11h
"Tolerance has a limit. Beyond that limit, intolerance becomes duty."
Abyssian@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 11h
Oh goodie, another quote for people to misuse to feel they're justified in saying people who don't share their opinions and views should die.
Balldowern@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 10h
No it's just another way of saying 'Live & let live'. Even that proverb starts with 'Live'. Don't lay down your beliefs when tolerating others'.
lmdnw@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
Counter bigots with violent intolerance. The best way to deal with a Nazi, Zionist, Klansman, etc. is with a bullet.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 9h
Never argue with someone that John Brown would have shot.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
As long as someone is only stating their dislike they have every right to be an idiot and tell me they don't like me because of my skin color. They don't have the right to try to whip up a mob to hang me or advocate that be done.
There are far to many cultural, ethnic, religious, and regional historic backgrounds that lead to people having far too many points of view, values, morals, and norms for us all to ever agree on anything. There will always be people in the world who think the things I do are wrong by their personal values and morals. That's alright. They're allowed to be honest about that. They're not allowed to try to kill me or force me into some lower class state because of that.
Holding a sign that says "We hate blacks"? Assholes, but okay.
Throwing rocks to bash in black folks heads? Not okay.
Saying "I just don't like black people, they don't seem right"? Asshole, but okay.
Saying "Black people should all be put to death"? Not okay.
Advocating killing people because you see them as a bigot from your own narrow and individual world view is literally the thing that people shouldn't be tolerant of.
Juice@midwest.social · 4 pts · 1d
The only intolerance that the tolerant won't tolerate are those who won't tolerate injustice
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
That's hilarious. It's a perfect description of some of the insanity here on Lemmy.
hobata@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 2d
i see the paradox of tolerance not as a defense of tolerance, but as its demolition. it shows that tolerance is not a coherent principle: taken absolutely, it destroys itself; limited, it depends on some higher principle that is not tolerance.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 2d
It's kind of hard to read this particular footnote as a rejection of tolerance because of how violently it opposes anti-tolerance.
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 2d
Redfash spouting GOP drivel. Astounding.
AusatKeyboardPremi@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I am tolerant of intolerance. But I am intolerant of intelorance.
33550336@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 16h
Intolerance to not tolerant - just use the double negation and the paradox disappears.
bilb@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 16h
It never really seemed like a paradox to me to begin with. To suggest that it is is just a rhetorical game used by the intolerant in bad faith.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 11h
The person who put forward the idea, or gave it a name, was a pretty notable philosopher who was notably in favor of a discourse driven liberal democracy, and against fascism.
He didn't mean paradox in the sense of "self contradictory and unresolvable" like the liars paradox. He meant it in the sense of "seemingly contradictory".
In order to have the most tolerant, rational discourse driven society possible there are some things you cannot tolerate, nor engage in discussion with , because if you cannot be persuaded there cannot be rational discussion.
So the paradox was named by a person explaining why you don't have to listen to Nazis just because you want to be open to new ideas and perspectives.
Coming to the conclusion that it's not contradictory is agreeing with the argument that it's okay to just tell Nazis to fuck off.
bilb@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 11h
I see, well said. I'm not well informed on the absolute origin of the phrase. It wasn't clear to me if the philosopher was responding to people saying that being intolerant of Nazis/other types of bigots in the pursuit of tolerance of diverse types of people was contradictory and therefore not morally or ethically sound, or just spontaneous hand-wringing.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 7h
Not a direct response, but a response as part of a larger philosophical narrative.
He was a true believer in a society driven by rational discussion and the free exchange of ideas, which was the main point of his work.
As part of describing how he thought society should be run (tldr: we should discuss things, change institutions peacefully, and make small changes that we can actually tell if they worked instead of upending society in the name of an untested ideology) he spent some time describing the edge cases and weaknesses, which is where the quote comes from.
He wrote the work during WW2 after fleeing Germany, so there's more than a little implied context that people would have at the time of publication. Basically a general vibe of "what the fuck! Let's not do that again!"
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 10h
It's very simple. People will never all agree with one another on all things. People will have differences in their values, morals, and beliefs.
Tolerance is accepting that even if you and another person have a near impossible time speaking to one another because you both feel completely opposed on the morality of a thing, you still both have the same basic right to live.
Intolerance is physically attacking others, stalking them to drive them insane, calling for them to be killed, etc.
bluesheep@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 12h
I've posted about this exact fucking thing before and I completely agree. There is no paradox, it's just a bullshit argument easily dismantled
luciferofastora@feddit.org · 3 pts · 12h
Well, it kinda is, if you take the terms at face value: To defend tolerance by being intolerant.
The fact that it can be simply resolved by requiring tolerance to be mutual doesn't make the original less of a paradox.
bilb@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 11h
I see what you're saying, but to me it's not a paradox that needs addressing because to most people it's obvious that these are qualitatively different kinds of tolerance. To me it feels like a technical gotcha divorced from the obvious intent. I might be assuming too much there.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 15h
The paradox is in wondering how so many people completely miss the point and don't realize that saying people who say words you don't like or don't hold your personal values and morals should die is them being the intolerance this is warning about, not the other people.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
If intolerance is outlawed though, the terms must be very clear, lest the intolerant use those law against those who would use them against them. Intolerance of ideas is different than intolerance of people.
lyralycan@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
I mean that's a long-winded explanation of a simple concept. "Intolerant of intolerance". It's very simple but the bigoted twats try to weasel through loopholes in wordplay.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1d
So if they want me to tolerate their intolerance of folks like me, they should also be willing to tolerate my intolerance of folks like them.
tetris11@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 2d
In the immortal words of Karl Poppa:
La jiggy jar-jar do, duhduhduhreduh
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Intolerance adapts. Usually when that is the basis, they will be the one throwing the "you are intolerant, ergo we do not support you so we can sustain our tolerance" claims. Tolerance has to be able to at least identify what type of intolerance is being sanctioned, and to accept that it will always have some form of bias that will tag or not tag as intolerance that which different tolerance groups on the same "side" might.
bigmamoth@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
mb your tolerance doesnt expand and cover the same stuff than the person next to you. mb the call to tolerance is always a manipulation mb tolerance in istelf isnt even a good principle
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 11h
all things in moderation
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Intelorance
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
This is a slippery slope. Preaching that people should be killed is a far cry from saying you don't view someone's actions as being moral.
With 8 billion people in the world and tens of thousands of different cultures, ethnicities, religions, and regional histories that often feel in direct conflict about things both sides find to be important to who they are everyone is never going to see everything in the same light.
Telling everyone that they can't share opinions or truths that any other might find offensive would effectively silence all speech and communication. Worse it would push those dislikes into dark corners where they're shared only with those who agree and they can feather and become rabid.
Society needs to find a balance where all people are free to express themselves openly as long as they're not trying to physically harm others.
It means that we all need to understand and accept that not everyone will like us or support the things we see as a normal part of our lives, and that's alright. They don't need to. They can say they don't. They should be allowed that freedom of expressing their honest views.
It's the preaching and condoning of actual harm is the problem and the line. People online will be very displeased to hear that because many like to equate speaking out about a thing to trying to kill any people who do it are that thing.
They are not the same thing. You have every right to not like me or be honest that my life doesn't match up with your own personal values and mores. You do not have the right to say that means I should be persecuted or killed. There is a distinction between those things, and we all need to know it and keep it in mind.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · -1 pts · 1d
I don't understand why this fucking thing keeps getting posted. Of course a tolerant society wouldn't allow intolereance. If they did they wouldn't be a tolerant society.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
Where do you live that this is obvious?
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 1d
It's obvious to anyone that puts two seconds of thought into the subject. That's not saying that we live in a tolerant society.
x0x7@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 9h
Hilter was initially intolerant to those who were intolerant of the rich. National Socialism was universally unpopular for an entire generation. But it flipped and gained massive universal appeal in the shadow of a bloody communist initiated civil war.
You can't preach tolerance while being intolerant of people who happen to have more money than you, just like you can't claim to be tolerant while being intolerant of those with more melanin than you. It's all relative. No one has zero money and very few have zero melanin. But anyone who has more than me is a bad guy is not a very tolerant position.
Anyone reading this is in the 10 percentile globally. It's like light blacks being racist to dark blacks (which is a real thing).
cabillaud@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 8h
What's that? It's strange how this post seems to attract all kind of rubbish and brainfarts.
FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6h
Damn, you're kinda dumb
And not afraid of announce it
That's... brave..?
whereitsat@lemmy.zip · -3 pts · 14h
this line of thinking has narrowed way too much.
people used 're****' as a general slur for years and nobody was rounding up the mentally challenged for extermination. in fact, nobody ever used this word in front of the mentally challenged other than the socially awkward.
nazi's shouldn't be tolerated. but the modern world acts like people who make mistakes or are mildly offensive are the same thing as nazis.
Sazruk@lemmy.wtf · 6 pts · 11h
Maybe that was the case during woke 1 but we have a lot more visible, vehement Nazis and general fascism now to bring that term back to its roots
Abyssian@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 13h
God, I hate the insanity over that. It's actually ironic that so many people online now freak out at the word retarded. It's gone through the same endless cycle as stupid, moron, idiot, dumb, imbecile, blind, crazy, cripple, dim, slow, gimp, invalid, mad, psycho, and many others.
People on Lemmy will freak out about retard, while using many of those other words regularly without even noticing them. They were all words used as clinical terms for issues in the past, that then began to be misused to insult people who didn't have those issues, then became considered "bad" words and were replaced with new clinical terms.
There's nothing special about the word, it's just the latest one to go through the cycle. It's no more or less offensive than many of the others. It's a way to virtue signal without actually doing anything.
The people who get upset at hearing "retard" aren't likely dedicating their lives to do anything at all to make the lives of people with severe developmental disabilities any better. They're not making it easier for them to be in society. They're still calling others things like dumb and stupid that have the exact same impact.
It's not the word that causes people to feel like shit. It's the awful truth that many people with severe developmental deficiencies understand that to varying extents. Hearing someone mocked with a word that means they're not smart is shit when you know it could be an accurate description of you.
Before people get upset about words they see as signaling others as being bad people they're permitted to judge and spit hate one they should spend a few years changing the diapers of adults who can't control that several times a day, every day. Meet a woman in her 50s who has a Master's degree and used to have a great career and fancy things who was thrown from a horse and is now seemingly around 10 mentally. And who knows that and remembers how smart she used to be and all the things she used to have and be able to do on her own while needing someone to clean her ass several times a day because she can't control her bowels any more.
I'm sure all the lovely people here down voting are doing it because they actually have experience working with and caring for people with IDDs, and not just because they want to signal how virtuous and good they are. Blah.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 11h
You sound like the type of person who would call things 'gay'.
Jfc, how do you refer to black people?
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 11h
Strangers, or my family?
Brilliant casual racism while being too lazy to even look at my last few comments before you wrote it. Amazing.
That woman's name was Lisa. I took care of her for 2 years while working on my degree. My dad kept working with her from then until she passed. Want to tell me your experience caring for people with IDDs beyond embarrassing yourself on the internet?
jdr@lemmy.ml · -5 pts · 2d
Not a cool guide, nor a coherent argument, nor a good representation of Popper's idea.
dubyakay@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1d
Can you provide a better one?
jdr@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
I'm not sure which, so I'll give all three:
Cool guide: https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/disp/f059d619951639.562e313fcec6b.jpg
Argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ
What Popper meant: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration
IndustryStandard@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 1d
Im14andthisisdeep
deft@lemmy.wtf · -5 pts · 1d
Horseshoe theory in action
Danika7@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 21h
I don't like the idea of tolerating anyone. Tolerance, to me, feels like I have to make an effort of sorts to withstand someone else's existence. I definitely don't like everybody, so I don't make friends with everyone, but I do treat all people politely, and accept and respect that they exist.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 16h
That's not understanding the meaning of the word tolerance. It doesn't mean making friends with everyone, is simply accepting that others who don't share your world views and beliefs have the same right to exist that you have.