Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says progressive politicians need to tone down their rhetoric following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. As Sean Amato reports, Smith’s comments are also under the microscope. #ableg #cdnpoli
The immorality that it seeks to avoid is the elimination of tolerance. You can achieve that through strong laws without stooping to the level of fascists themselves. I’m not saying it’s a legal point, but that it has a legal solution.
You made a wild assertion defining the thing as something it’s absolutely not about while implying I misunderstood it in the same breath, and now I should be charitable in how I interpret you?
Point being: paradox of intolerance is absolutely agnostic to what’s legal and sometimes it can mean punching nazis
The paradox of tolerance says that if you tolerate everything, you will tolerate the intolerant when they take over, which will lead to intolerance.
The solution to the paradox of tolerance is simply to not tolerate the intolerant taking over and instituting an intolerant society. There are many examples of un-punched Nazis who have not managed to manifest their intolerance (because the law protects people), as well as punched Nazis who remain unrepentant and go on to commit intolerant crimes. Famously, the actual Nazi party was engaged in street battles with the Communists in inter-war Germany, and this didn’t prevent their rise to power. Their rise was enabled by a complicit populace voting for them, as well as a weak constitution which allowed dictatorial rule (and of course other factors).
You brought up the paradox of tolerance in response to someone denouncing violent rhetoric. But you have never explained - and can’t explain because it’s not true - how violent rhetoric is necessary to prevent the erosion of tolerance in society.
Ok then I think you’re saying the paradox of tolerance doesn’t necessitate extra-legal action, maybe instead of “misunderstood” you meant “interpreted in ways I disagree with” and that’s fine.
It’s a classic liberal position, one that liberals often hold as they sleepwalk towards fascism, but I can forgive you for being a liberal.
However, there are many that won’t let laws (which are again morally apathetic and can and often are unjust or fascist in nature themselves) stop us from resisting fascism in every possible way as the situation calls for it. I’m thankful for those people.
There’s a debate to be had about the extent to which society should pre-emptively resist fascism, be that extra-judicially or within the law. But there is simply no paradox.
Calling it a paradox implies that there’s some contradiction between being tolerant in the sense of freedom of religion and expression - allowing people to peacefully exist whatever their background or identity - and the necessity (in order to main those freedoms) of resisting fascism. There isn’t; there is no fundamental reason why you need to restrict individual freedoms in order to prevent fascism.
It would be much more productive if, instead of using the “paradox of tolerance” as a bit of a thought-terminating cliche, people declared what kind of actions they thought were justified and why. Is violent rhetoric which, for example, calls for the death of Trump justified? I have no idea if you think it is because you switched from the specific to the general so quickly. There’s such a vast breadth of actions which people allude to when talking about the so-called paradox that some are bound to find broad appeal while some are bound to be extremist fringe stuff.
I disagree with some of that. Individual freedoms do sometimes need to be limited, for example “freedom” to oppress or “freedom” to deny hiring certain races.
It’s considered a paradox because by tolerating intolerance you allow intolerance to occur. And by being intolerant of intolerance you are allowing intolerance to occur.
The point of it is to highlight that intolerance is enabled by being too tolerant. We must not tolerate intolerance, paradoxically, in order to have a tolerant society.
The nuance being in what things are not being tolerated. Anarchist ideology is about abolishing hierarchy and building a completely egalitarian society, part of the work to do that means taking unjustly hoarded wealth away from the wealthy.
That’s another example of how egalitarian and tolerant goals require some intolerant actions.
It’s considered a paradox because by tolerating intolerance you allow intolerance to occur. And by being intolerant of intolerance you are allowing intolerance to occur.
If your principles of tolerance are, “everyone should be allowed to express their identity, religion and opinions peacefully and calmly, as long as their views do not call for violence” then that allows people to express their view that a certain race is inferior. But it does not result in the end of tolerance (as this popular but wrong summary express).
It’s only a paradox if you can only think of tolerance as being absolute, where any level of restriction on what people are allowed to do or express is “intolerant”.
Individual freedoms do sometimes need to be limited, for example “freedom” to oppress or “freedom” to deny hiring certain races.
But these “freedoms” are not freedoms any liberal or advocate of tolerance means by “freedoms.”
I’d go further than saying this is “the nuance”; this is the whole thing. Mentioning the paradox doesn’t give any guidance in what to do; just directly saying “we shouldn’t allow people to display swastikas” or " we should allow people to call for the assassination of presidential candidates" will result in a useful discussion.
The immorality that it seeks to avoid is the elimination of tolerance. You can achieve that through strong laws without stooping to the level of fascists themselves. I’m not saying it’s a legal point, but that it has a legal solution.
Well you certainly proved that it’s misunderstood
Why engage someone on a discussion board if you’re not actually willing to discuss the subject…
At least you understand now that I wasn’t saying the paradox of tolerance is “about laws.”
You made a wild assertion defining the thing as something it’s absolutely not about while implying I misunderstood it in the same breath, and now I should be charitable in how I interpret you?
Point being: paradox of intolerance is absolutely agnostic to what’s legal and sometimes it can mean punching nazis
The paradox of tolerance says that if you tolerate everything, you will tolerate the intolerant when they take over, which will lead to intolerance.
The solution to the paradox of tolerance is simply to not tolerate the intolerant taking over and instituting an intolerant society. There are many examples of un-punched Nazis who have not managed to manifest their intolerance (because the law protects people), as well as punched Nazis who remain unrepentant and go on to commit intolerant crimes. Famously, the actual Nazi party was engaged in street battles with the Communists in inter-war Germany, and this didn’t prevent their rise to power. Their rise was enabled by a complicit populace voting for them, as well as a weak constitution which allowed dictatorial rule (and of course other factors).
You brought up the paradox of tolerance in response to someone denouncing violent rhetoric. But you have never explained - and can’t explain because it’s not true - how violent rhetoric is necessary to prevent the erosion of tolerance in society.
Ok then I think you’re saying the paradox of tolerance doesn’t necessitate extra-legal action, maybe instead of “misunderstood” you meant “interpreted in ways I disagree with” and that’s fine.
It’s a classic liberal position, one that liberals often hold as they sleepwalk towards fascism, but I can forgive you for being a liberal.
However, there are many that won’t let laws (which are again morally apathetic and can and often are unjust or fascist in nature themselves) stop us from resisting fascism in every possible way as the situation calls for it. I’m thankful for those people.
There’s a debate to be had about the extent to which society should pre-emptively resist fascism, be that extra-judicially or within the law. But there is simply no paradox.
Calling it a paradox implies that there’s some contradiction between being tolerant in the sense of freedom of religion and expression - allowing people to peacefully exist whatever their background or identity - and the necessity (in order to main those freedoms) of resisting fascism. There isn’t; there is no fundamental reason why you need to restrict individual freedoms in order to prevent fascism.
It would be much more productive if, instead of using the “paradox of tolerance” as a bit of a thought-terminating cliche, people declared what kind of actions they thought were justified and why. Is violent rhetoric which, for example, calls for the death of Trump justified? I have no idea if you think it is because you switched from the specific to the general so quickly. There’s such a vast breadth of actions which people allude to when talking about the so-called paradox that some are bound to find broad appeal while some are bound to be extremist fringe stuff.
Thanks for taking the time to discuss.
I disagree with some of that. Individual freedoms do sometimes need to be limited, for example “freedom” to oppress or “freedom” to deny hiring certain races.
It’s considered a paradox because by tolerating intolerance you allow intolerance to occur. And by being intolerant of intolerance you are allowing intolerance to occur.
The point of it is to highlight that intolerance is enabled by being too tolerant. We must not tolerate intolerance, paradoxically, in order to have a tolerant society.
The nuance being in what things are not being tolerated. Anarchist ideology is about abolishing hierarchy and building a completely egalitarian society, part of the work to do that means taking unjustly hoarded wealth away from the wealthy.
That’s another example of how egalitarian and tolerant goals require some intolerant actions.
If your principles of tolerance are, “everyone should be allowed to express their identity, religion and opinions peacefully and calmly, as long as their views do not call for violence” then that allows people to express their view that a certain race is inferior. But it does not result in the end of tolerance (as this popular but wrong summary express).
It’s only a paradox if you can only think of tolerance as being absolute, where any level of restriction on what people are allowed to do or express is “intolerant”.
But these “freedoms” are not freedoms any liberal or advocate of tolerance means by “freedoms.”
I’d go further than saying this is “the nuance”; this is the whole thing. Mentioning the paradox doesn’t give any guidance in what to do; just directly saying “we shouldn’t allow people to display swastikas” or " we should allow people to call for the assassination of presidential candidates" will result in a useful discussion.