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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.
Fully agree. Being tolerant is part of the social contract. If you break the rules then why should we play the same game.
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?
Choose to fit your audience:
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Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
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If you deny my right to exist, you forfeit yours
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Fuck around and find out
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Talk shit, get hit
You forgot one:
- Act only according to maxims which you would have be universal
In other words, don’t do something that you would be upset if someone else did.
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
nah, it’s more than arrogant to assume you know what others want, and ignorant to assume others want the same a you.
I never said you would assume you know what others want. It’s precisely because you can’t know that, that you can’t base your personal morality on it. Unless of course you want to live by a moral code that requires you to guess more than half the time?
That’s why you do what you think is right. And if you end up being wrong, learn from it. But you’ll never please 8 billion people so don’t even try.
and ignorant to assume others want the same a you.
Okay now that’s just a strawman, I never said nor implied anything of the sort.
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.
This. I’m not sure why others are arguing your point. I guess they don’t actually understand what you’re saying?
Happens all the time to be honest
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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.
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.
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.
It’s not a paradox, it’s a social contract.
I am tolerant of everyone except those who are intolerant of people doing things that hurt no one and/or those who hurt others.
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.
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?
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
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.”
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.
Wouldn’t that mean that e.g. trans people have to live with being deadnamed and mis-gendered?
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.
yes, and the legal framework can (and should) differ from the social contract
This is why they are trying to make “establishment” a slur
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)
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.
therefore this meme says I should destroy you
Not even destroy, per say. Just kinda be snotty to online (or in person).
They’re on the wrong side of the problem
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.
They’re effectively causing a lot of headaches and exasperation.
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
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.
I assume your referring to the Liberal Right and not the Conservative Right
I would guess that is why. We should push for greater ideals, as you say, but I will begrudgingly accept tolerance as the minimum.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I will try to address your statements in turn as I don’t think I am doing a good job of articulating my thoughts. That said, I think we are closer than I originally believed.
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 section justifies when it may be reasonable to suppress incitement to violence. The “and” operator requires the incitement to violence in the premise: “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 did not write “or.” Both incitement to violence and rejection of rational argument is the [non-exhaustive] example Popper uses to justify the right of suppression.
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.
I agree. As above, the example he used it not explicitly exhaustive. There may be other reasons to claim the right of suppression. However, Popper never used any other examples as valid cause to suppress speech, and in the immediately prior statement, cautioned that suppressing democratic speech is “most unwise.”
Given this, the implied claim that Popper and/or the Paradox of Tolerance supports the categorical suppression of “intolerant” speech (as the comic does) are inaccurate.
I guess my view on that section is still that it’s just an example of what can happen and why to reserve the right to suppression, but not a threshold or reasonable scenario for when to apply suppression.
for it may easily turn out that…
To me, this really isn’t saying: “this is one case where it’s reasonable to apply suppression”, but rather more simply: “because the following may easily occur with intolerant philosophies”.
Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to reply and expand more on your take. I think let’s just say we understand it differently and leave it at that?
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 decided 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.
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.
Read it again. He’s using incitement to violence as a consequence to to be avoided, not as a driving factor.
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.
He goes on:
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.
He was writing at the end of WW2. He was saying it would have been fine to stop the Nazis at the start, before they were inciting violence because they couldn’t be reasoned with.
It’s clear you don’t agree with his position , and that’s okay. You can just disagree with him.It’s clear you don’t agree with his position , and that’s okay. You can just disagree with him.
This is absolutely disingenuous bullshit. You’re not having actual conversation, you’re being a snarky little twit. “you can just disagree with him, lol.”
It’s more than clear JasSmith actually has a relevant education. As do I. You’re twisting words to try to win imaginary internet points and satisfy your own… whatever it is. Desire to troll? Bigotry and hate of opinions and philosophies you don’t like? Whatever it is, I hope you talk to a therapist and grow out of it. This is pathetic.
Don’t bother to get your AI to explain how you’re hinging all of this on your own bad interpretation of the word “may” in the time period and context in which it’s being used. I’m simply blocking you now. You’ve shown very clearly that your words are not worth the time to read and respond.
What are you even talking about? Walk me through how what I said was “disingenuous”? I very earnestly believe there are different views on this topic than poppers that are perfectly valid.
Bigotry and hate of opinions and philosophies you don’t like?
I’m honestly confused where that’s coming from, considering you rage quoted me saying it’s okay to have a different opinion. I never even said I disagree with you on tolerance.
Whelp, I missed the blocking statement on first read.
Read it again. He’s using incitement to violence as a consequence to to be avoided, not as a driving factor.
He’s explaining the why. That statement is there for a reason, and your reading implies it’s superfluous.
He was writing at the end of WW2. He was saying it would have been fine to stop the Nazis at the start, before they were inciting violence because they couldn’t be reasoned with.
The National Socialist German Workers’ Party employed violence well before they achieved power. Popper’s warnings are obviously an allusion to the Brownshirts.
It’s clear you don’t agree with his position , and that’s okay. You can just disagree with him.
This is catty. Like a little girl. I’ve extended you courtesy and I would appreciate reciprocity.
Catty? “Like a little girl”? The hell is wrong with you people that you’re looking so hard for insult where none is intended? I apologize for being too casual in my assertion that I think you’re bending the work to fit your views instead of explaining why you think his views on tolerance aren’t correct.
Yes, I’m saying he included that statement because it’s the “why”. Suppression of intolerant speech can be justified because it can lead to violence. The violence or incitement thereto isn’t a precondition that justifies suppression in his view, but the end state to be avoided.
I’m not sure what you’re saying by drawing a distinction between the Nazis and the brown shirts or spelling out the party name. I know the Nazis were violent before they had political power.
That doesn’t really have anything to do with what I said.
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.
Goodness, if someone quotes that part of his work again I’m going to lose it. He literally says the line is rational discussion because if they won’t do that it might lead to violence.
I already said I’m not interested in debating the nature or role of tolerance at the moment.
He literally says the line is rational discussion because if they won’t do that it might lead to violence.
No, he does not. You’re misinterpreting the word “may” used in this context and time period.
I can see very clearly why you’re not interested in having an actual conversation about tolerance… while you are literally in a thread about tolerance.
Your last reply you tried to call me disingenuous and say that I was projecting my beliefs. Instead of bastardizing Poppers works chatting with AI to try to make yourself look as if you have an education on the topic, I suggest signing up for a few classes.
If nothing else, at least get the AI to explain your misunderstanding of the word “may” in that single little snippet of text you are so in love with before you bother replying again.
I can see very clearly why you’re not interested in having an actual conversation about tolerance… while you are literally in a thread about tolerance
I thought we were in a thread about a popper quote? Because I’m pretty sure I replied to someone saying it was misinterpreted.
I said your phrasing was disingenuous because you characterized the position of people you disagree with in a dismissive fashion. I said you were projecting your opinion because instead of saying “I disagree with this person” you chose to say “they are actually saying what I think and are just generally misunderstood”.
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.
I understand why you rarely visit Lemmy. I’m relatively new, this is the first time the topic has come up, and I’ve had to block half a dozen people. It’s insane. I feel like I’ve been taking crazy pills having apparently fake “bait” conversations on what I’d thought was a relatively simple topic.
It’s surreal that so many of them like to scream that others are bigots when they’re rabidly intolerant to ideas and opinions that don’t perfectly match their own world view. I think many of them believe the word means “a bad person who says things I don’t like to hear.”
They don’t understand bigotry or it’s forms, they don’t understand tolerance and it’s meaning… I’ve had people say I seem to have tolerance only for bigots. It’s not really a thing you need with people you agree on everything important with.
The constant twisting of Popper’s single word “may” in “for it may easily turn out that” to try to read it as saying that you should suppress anyone who doesn’t perfectly align with your world view on all major issues and if they won’t just stop speaking and go to your conversion camp willingly to kill them for being unrepentant baddies.
I don’t even understand how a person could find that to be a sane view in anyone, much less the one so many seem to hold and feel to be just and righteous. My background is Sociology and Ethics, and I keep looking around wondering what the hell has gone wrong.
I sincerely hope this is just a sheltered community of the most extreme and not representative of a large portion of people I’d been lucky enough to avoid out in the world.
I think it has been self-selecting itself into a pretty extreme echo-chamber. I really like the idea of Lemmy but the community demands ideological compliance to a very extreme ideology. People like you and I usually bounce off, while left wing authoritarians appear to enjoy it.
I just had a horrific epiphany that should have been obvious. They’re all the same people. It isn’t just the masses of the far right who see nuanced thought as the enemy and insist people stick to the accepted script.
Post a video of ICE abducting people and everyone will yell “Nazis bad!” and say that these people are clearly evil and get off on beating and abducting strangers or are trying to lick boots hoping they won’t be lumped in with the other brown folks.
Try to explain that in general the sad truth is that they’re just desperate, poor people who need a way to cover exploding rent, utility, and grocery costs and make sure their kids are taken care of… that most parents would rather put on a mask and assault a stranger than tell their kids to grab their favorite toy because it’s time to go be homeless and hopefully within a day or so they’ll be able to find a charity meal… and they start screaming that you’re evil and trying to excuse evil.
I made the thread. I tried to understand and explain the sad, simple, human reasons people sign up to do these things. I even very bluntly said that they can’t try to use that they were only following orders as an excuse for the things they’re doing. I never once tried to excuse any of it. Only to understand and explain.
If you care that a roof collapsed and want to keep that tragedy from reoccurring, you study the schematics and the local environment and weather and capacity and try to understand what caused it so you can design things better in the future. If you want to keep genocidal regimes from growing and try to do the same thing, people now call you a monster and say you’re trying to defend their actions.
It’s not just the far right that sees thinking and education as the enemy. While the left tends to be better educated, they have that same tribalism where those who try to put thought into a thing instead of reciting the approved chant are the outsiders and the outsiders are bad and must be shunned.
But in Denmark it is illegal to preach intolerance, like racism and nazism.
Yes, we don’t protect free speech in Denmark. However we do not ban people who subscribe to intolerant ideologies, like Islam.
Karl Popper is also the guy who wrote about falsifiability
Big brain right there.
Edit: fixed the link.
I see so many people fall into the trap of spouting unfalsifiable statements when talking about AI.
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).
I thought it was an ironic insult used to fool their base that the other side was irrational.
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.
There’s a large hole in your logic there.
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.
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.
Absolutes are absolute bullshit.
…all of them
Absolutely.
Indubitably
Absolutely paradoxical
Absolute Zero?
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.
Only the Sith deals in absolutes wise sounding bong O.o
Sounds kinda absolute, ngl.
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.
Because its a bad faith argument.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
Shhh Redditors really like this idea.
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.
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.
For example, Christianity, Islam, Judaism are ALL intolerant faiths by their own admission.
I know of a guy with a funny mustache who solves this problem by being intolerant of the… Hey wait a minute…
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.
Oh shit, another reader of the best long running webcomic!
I found it on lemmy, and it must metastasize!
What the flip is this, looks rad!
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.
Thank you so much, just added it to my reading list!
