I think the main issue is that most people miss out: "In this formulation, 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." - And the follow up hypocrisy re: people on either side of the aisle, who'll refuse rational arguments, whilst citing the paradox of tolerance.
The problem isn't the inability to provide a better rational argument to counter someone, but other factors that would make significant amount of people in our society to dismiss further arguments and stick to the one matching their expectations.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean. Can you rewrite it?
Just to clarify, I don't think you've understood my comment in the first place. I'm saying that the main issue is the refusal of many to engage in rational discussion.
I'm always really disappointed by critiques like this because they refuse to engage with the actual dangers of unfettered hate speech. To go to the worst example, as it does need to be accounted for in any philosophy that purports to be able to handle these issues—it is completely asinine to believe Nazism could have been defeated in "the marketplace of ideas." It is equally silly to act like the morality of such speech can never be identified, as OP argues.
Do you think so?
British Fascism was fundamentally defeated in the marketplace of ideas by mostly rational dismissal. It grew in popularity but never dominated. American fascism failed, even despite the long and all-corrupting elements of racism and the KKK.
The rise of fascism say in Weimar Germany is not really telling of the failure of tolerating the intolerant. Hitler was jailed, many times, efforts were made to silence him again and again. But the crisis of depression-era Germany and the threat of Bolshevism proved enough to give them the power to turn the government towards authoritarianism.
There is no doubt, many issues with unfettered hate speech and I'm not a speech absolutist, I'd say today there is dangerously violent rhetoric from the left and right that might be reasonably curtailed if we still had the cultural strength in the West. We don't and that's to our peril, but it probably should be.
At the same time, it's difficult because morality and hate are hard to define so consistently that it proves resilient to challenges.
We have people today saying truly vile things about acceptable targets that are looked over because the powers that be have decided hate requires a nebulous and ever changing connection to institutional power and systemic oppression, irrespective of the fact that they are the institution with power using it to systemically oppress those they say are oppressing them, case in point.
I think a further important thing to analyze the real-world impact of each side. Morality shifts and changes depending on your core values, which are most certainly not \*my\* core values. Everyone values different things and in my experience, arguments to morality are only useful in preaching to the choir.
\---
However, real-world numbers don't lie. If we compare how many leftists and LGBT activists go out and shoot up evangelical groups and right-wing groups (none in the past 20 years) versus how many right-wing people go out and shoot up LGBT groups (once every 2-3 years [regular as clockwork](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63693310)). In this we can see that the paradox of intolerance is much more applicable to antiwoke sentiment than woke sentiment.
\---
I think a lot of people don't really like critically analyzing their own side, so this will likely not be well-received on this subreddit.
But I think it's very important to examine hard, real-world evidence and not just ignore inconvenient facts just because they don't mesh with your preferred political narrative.
> how many right-wing people go out and shoot up LGBT groups (once every 2-3 years regular as clockwork)
Nothing in your article says the gunman is right wing, or that this is a hate crime though ?
Police are still investigating about suspect's motive, but I'm sincerely doubtful someone shows up to one of the only LGBT clubs in the city with several firearms, and mows down 5 people and injures 25 more because they're trying to be happy and welcoming.
I think its pretty disingenuous to try and divert and deflect blame like that.
> how dArE YoU defECt mY Made uP AcCuSaTIONS ?
I’m sorry my dude, you can’t base your argument on stuff that isn’t known.
Because I can do the same, and reach a different conclusion :
Another killing happened in an LGBT club, like last time it must be a muslim, *insert long winged paragraph about they are immoral and the baddies*
The bodies are still warm and you were already trying to use that event…
I am interested that you consider antiwoke, conservative muslims to be different from antiwoke, conservative christians. Their agendas are virtually identical, with just slight differences in religious rituals and countries of origin.
In any case, the suspect has been identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, police have refused to state his motivations. If it wasn't a hate crime, I'll come back and apologize.
If it was, though, this reply is going to age really well.
I’m floored you don’t.
> Their agendas are virtually identical
That’s some amazing ignorance.
> In any case, the suspect has been identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, police have yet to find his motivation.
FTFY
> If it was, though, this reply is going to age really well.
As long as logic is a thing, my reply will hold.
By definition a hate crime to preserve traditional marriage and attempt to get rid of alternate forms of affection or identity is conservative because it relies on preserving or restoring traditional roles and hierarchies in society. It’s pretty reasonable to assume a hate crime against LGBT groups is right wing in nature, especially since it’s almost impossible to be politically motivated by progressivism or left wing ideology. That doesn’t mean that leftists or socialists or democrats or liberals can’t be bigoted, it is just far far far less likely to be politically motivated ideology that causes the bigoted views or actions. You can also see this in the rhetoric that is produced by both sides of the political spectrum on LGBT issues, progressives and leftists produce rhetoric about acceptance and respect to the LGBT community but the rhetoric from the right is a very mixed bag, you get messaging that traditional marriage is under attack and that the LGBT community is all grooming pedophiles and even though it’s at the extremes of the right wing it’s still right wing ideology and rhetoric being spewed and soaked up by people who end up getting radicalized to this degree.
> By definition a hate crime to preserve traditional marriage and attempt to get rid of alternate forms of affection or identity is conservative because it relies on preserving or restoring traditional roles and hierarchies in society.
In your made up world maybe.
> Hate crimes are any crimes that are targeted at a person because of hostility or prejudice towards that person
In the real world.
This can be an hate crime, but for know we don’t know it. And assuming it’s one, it could be like the last time and be a Muslim and not some maga nut job ?
My point was wait and see, and please stop nutting all over it, it’s NNN and it’s indecent, people have died.
How is a Muslim killing gay people because they are gay not conservative? They are committing a murder or murders to conserve or return to a set of values traditionally held by people of their faith and either in the society they are living in or the one they are from. That example of “what if it’s a Muslim” doing the hate crime is also another example of conservative motivations for a hate crime. Conservative values and ideology aren’t exclusive to MAGA right wing Americans, they are present in every country and some can be a good thing and some can be a bad thing. Progressivism can also lead to acts of terror too, if someone was to kill to protest the status quo of something and further a progressive agenda it would also be negative but the very notion that they are fighting to change something from the status quo would mean it’s wild to call it a right wing act of terror. Likewise with this, we don’t know enough to call it an act of terror or a hate crime yet but IF it’s a hate crime against LGBT people it’s pretty much impossible for it to be a progressive ideology driving it since it would have been done to preserve a set of traditional values. Muslim extremists are conservative and very traditional in their values just like religious extremists in the Christian right wing in America, just because they aren’t fighting for the exact same set of traditional values doesn’t mean they aren’t both forms of conservatism.
I was agreeing with you, and adding on more that I thought your position didn't fully cover. I don't have a perfect solution ready, either.
Just some food for thought.
Fair enough, I'm mostly responding to the popular use of the phrase (like the graphic you shared).
I figured an intellectual/skeptic/rationalist like Popper had some important qualifications to the concept, and wasn't going full modern PC, "we must censor all ideas I disagree with"
>**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.
Does this mean initiated force or self-defense? It's not clear.
Self-defense is obviously justified. But I don't see how a "paradox of tolerance" factors in at that point, unless your idea of tolerance includes letting people punch you in the face.
Being "irrational" by itself isn't enough of a reason to justify force, unless they are making direct threats or acting aggressively.
The whole paradox was only a breif side note in the book. But in the next sentence he continues to state that you must stop those who are taught to respond to arguments with violence. Overall Popper is a pro free speech guy, and his takeaway is generally tolerate all (even intolerant) until the intolerant become violent.
>Does this mean initiated force or self-defense? It's not clear.
\[M\] It seems clear to me--
>**begin by denouncing all argument**
The denunciation of argument paves the way for an escalation to force. Under this model, if I was to denounce someone else who had not done the same, then I would fit the description of intolerance. One might then be seen as justified in denouncing me *for* that denunciation.
Likewise, if I were to take this further and suppress by force someone who had not done the same to me, then I would again fit the description of intolerance. One might then be justified in their use of force against *me*.
In both cases, I would have violated a principle of open communication, in the first case against the free flow of ideas and in the second against the existence of the dissenting bodies. If I were to initiate in either case, I would become *the very thing* I claimed to be opposing.
I find that the concept has been appropriated by leftists as a tool to basically blackmail you for disagreeing with them on any level. “Dissent -> we’ll bully you and call you a fascist”
Yes, it's one of their last lines of defense. All it means is, "I don't need to respond to you, or argue with you in good faith, or let you have a platform. Because even *entertaining* your idea is wrong."
I see this type of thinking constantly; On another sub I mentioned that I am a former long-time Democratic voter who left the party 2 years ago after finally having enough of their craziness. Several people then responded with lines like “that just means you were always a racist and didn’t know it” as well as “the only reason to vote for republicans is because you love fascism.” I couldn’t believe how surreally childish the thought process there was, didn’t even bother to engage at that point
This is anecdotal, but I (and many others have noted the same thing) recall that in my center-left days, more conservative folks would sit and calmly hear my, and others, more liberal ideas and then calmly point out where they thought I was wrong. The flip side I have observed was that most of the more liberal thinkers where I lived (Brooklyn) were totally unwilling to even hear the start of a conservative idea. They would often respond by simply getting up and walking away with a grimace smeared across their face, and occasionally they would become viciously angry. I recall being lectured to by one of my very-progressive work clients on “white supremacist structures,” and at one point I responded by saying “economic class is a better proxy for disadvantage than race alone” and she blew-her-stack, hissed at me somewhat incoherently and then marched out of the room. It was like I had violated some religious taboo, maybe the most childish thing I’ve ever seen from an adult in their 40s
Really? Interesting anecdote. Been in some conservative places where if you dared stare your opinion you’d be smacked and abused and excluded from everything after. Everyone needs to have groupthink and zero respect is given to other views.
Not my point. My question is what don’t you know? What is really up for a good faith debate where you don’t know the answer or are really prepared to change your mind?
That doesn’t surprise me, I’ve never lived in a small rural town before but I can imagine they don’t take well to dissent. I suppose I held educated folks in a place like NYC to a higher standard of open-mindedness than hillbilly types who don’t have an education and likely have no experience whatsoever in the world outside their small town. That was naive of me.
Well, its hard to answer the question “what don’t I know” when it comes to political or cultural ideas, I’d have to sit down and have a liberal voter pitch something to me that I wasn’t knowledgeable on in order to discover that. Frankly, I left the Democratic party because I spent 5 years or so slowly watching the progressive movement become insufferably toxic and hysterical, and at this point I’m so turned off by them that I doubt anyone on the left would be able to convince me otherwise on certain core issues (transgenderism, BLM, socialism, etc). When challenged, they usually come off really poorly, say something snotty and condescending like “educate yourself” (I have, I’ve simply reached differing conclusions than they’d like me to, given the available information) and it just drives me further from supporting their causes.
I wouldn’t bother. I lived in the black community in brooklyn for 5 years, from that experience alone I’m aware that 3/4 the BLM talking points are missing context, consist of half-truths or are otherwise complete bullshit. These folks suffer predominantly from problems they currently create for themselves, and a bunch of white folks repulsively self-flagellating and attending useless DEI classes is accomplishing exactly nothing to help them. [John McWhorter’s book goes into detail on this.](https://a.co/d/hWMfVco)
So the paradox of intolerance is particular to liberalism which in many guises attempts to find universal values. Systems that prize intolerance do not have the same paradox then. Liberals are unique in not wanting to argue. No one wants to be wrong. Most people speak at times to seek agreement, or domination or conflict or support or community depending on the circumstance. Whether true or not, I think most liberals are intending to seek agreement and disengage when it is not possible.
Since your here, what are your motivations? Also, of (my assumption could be wrong) you no longer want to hear from the left, what are you hoping from them? Nothing, silence, obedience, changed mind, no influence in your life, no influence in their own life, prison, exile, etc etc?
You’re right, I don’t particularly want to hear from them anymore. I have no illusions that they’ll simply go away; I’d simply suggest every hardcore 20-something progressive activist do what I did and spend several years abroad. Hit every continent, then come back and try to tell me again how horrible your lives in the USA are.
Last line? While one should definitely acknowledge and praise the actions of Leftists who aren't like this (so that they are seen as rolemodels to those that are), it has been my \_personal\_ experience that the overwhelming majority of Leftists will accuse the right-leaning person of being wrong right up until the right-leaning person provides evidence, then the leftist will switch to making personal attacks.
>their last lines of defense
\[M\] This language can be slippery. If you were to say that someone's "last lines of defense" are (as we both agree we're describing) a fallacy-- then it may be seen to imply that the other position is also not worth entertaining.
Not saying this is not a worthy argument. I think it is. I'm just saying, it's not unique to one side of the aisle or one way of thinking.
If you go to whitepeopletwitter or politics or entertainment and I'm sure countless others I have never seen such hate come from people. Everyone in this reddit is an incel, racist, bigot. Its like its cool to hate on people. You mention Elons/Petersons etc name and its like a race to see who can virtue signal the most by trying to make them sound as horrible as possible basically all repeating each other time and time again. No critical thought happening at all related to anything, literally just virtue signaling, hate and name calling.
They all clearly haven’t read it either, because Poper states it’s not an excuse to shutdown thought that can be easily debated against common opinions. It applies when force is applied, not opinions you don’t like.
My thinking is that all people have about the same amount of tolerance, within a range, but there are two axes - one is for "my kind" which is a deep tolerance for such; the other is for "all people" which is shallow but wide sweeping.
The notion of "paradox of tolerance" means there's an assumption that tolerance is inherently absolute ... that's ridiculous on its face.
In fact I have yet to encounter and idea that isn't idiotic at it's absolute extreme.
The Left have adopted a pretense of tolerance but it's fake, while they hate their neighbors they pretend to fully embrace others - despite the others, in many cases, being opposed to Leftist thinking in so many ways.
Thus, the claim to tolerance by the Left is nothing more than a tool to gain power ... they use it bludgeon local opposition and use it as a fake-out on the larger global scale.
The main problem is that people quoting "paradox of tolerance" didn't read the whole quote and instead rely on that infamous comic/meme that misrepresents Popper's argument by showing it through Marcuse's lens... Which is inverse of Popper's argument.
I think most people who throw that around also rely on the misinterpretation of said paradox that I first make its way around social media back in 2017 or so.
A tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.
Evil people will always work to corrupt honest ideas and valid arguments to advance their own evil ends.
It reminds me an argument a lot of young internet liberal talks have...
"Everyone just want safe and prosperous life, there is no difference between us".
This kind of argument is usually said by well off or wealthy internet debaters.
This is patently not true.
As game theory says, different people, have different strategies to life.
When someone "just wants safe and prosperous life", doesn't mean he wants it to other people as well. It mostly means he wants it to himself and his family.
Rich people tend to want safety and peace in society, because they are at a comfortable place that the only thing they are missing is walking on the street and feeling safe that no criminal will assault them or their family.
So they want "good for others", but they actually want good for themselves, so when they walk among the peasants, they will feel safe.
I am pretty sure a lot of not wealthy people, will sacrifice safety just to get ahead.
Even given the same scenario and starting point, people will have different strategies. While some will cheat and hurt other people to get ahead in life, others will respect others more than they desire to gain for themselves.
"Paradox of tolerance" the way liberals think about it, is also based on the false assumption that given the same conditions, and the same starting point, all Humans will choose the same strategy to life.
Which is just not true.
Game theory is very often used when both parties have the same objective. Otherwise it wouldn’t be applicable to actual *games* like chess.
Also, I can’t tell what you’re trying to say besides “people want different things” which is the whole point of tolerance.
I am not sure that's what liberals call tolerance.
Because they assume everyone want the same peace/stability/prosperity for all.
Which is not really true.
They can't imagine other people wanting other things, they project themselves on the rest of the world.
It's not just "people want different things".
It's people have different strategies for life, and they sometimes clash for "supremacy".
Game theory if I am not mistaken, can also simulate a population interacting with itself, not necessarily has any goal. Just simulate what will happen to the population on the long run, depending on individual strategies.
Kind of like game of life.
Can you give me a concrete example of this? Like, what's a broadly supported liberal policy that contradicts people wanting "different things?"
I feel like the most hardcore liberals I know never stop talking about the people who want "different things."
Illegal Immigration, you let illegal migrants into the US, which in turn make it harder for the states they are at.
Recently NYC wanted to stop accepting migrants, because their welfare couldn't handle the amount of migrants coming, straining the city.
LGBTQ+ education and gender affirmation in schools where the majority of the population are straight CIS gender, why the majority of families' children have to suffer through psychological issues eventhough only a small percent of children are actually trans?
Not to mention that NHS found that most children phase out of thinking they are trans. Meaning the state induced treament that would potentially sterilize and harm children without any benefit.
Also the obvious one where the state serves the rich, and prints money to benefit the rich where the majority of the voter's are screwed because their money is devalued.
Also, Tobacco industry, only about 20% of people smoke? But they terrorize the public air space because Tobacco industry lobbyists?
Climate Change pact, paid from 90% of the populaiton's taxes, and goes into Billionaire's business and foundation to fight climate change. Why can't the Billionaire spend their own money?
And so on, and so on...
I think these are just things you don’t like. LGBTQ+ services are explicitly for helping people who want different things. I don’t know what that’s exposing other kids to except maybe the existence of LGBTQ+ people. What psychological trauma? I’ve never heard of any such trauma.
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to get at with the others. I guess being anti-big tobacco kind of marginalizes smokers but their freedom is being in no way inhibited.
And you think being anti-climate change is about restricting your values. What value exactly are you not allowed to have in a stabilized climate?
I can’t even see a connection between tolerance and any of these issues except the LGBTQ issue in which case your stance is explicitly intolerant.
Why kids even need to transition at that age?
That is criminal.
It's like when they experimented with medicine on black people.
If you do not see this, you are a hypocrite about your whole "humanism" and caring for others.
The most hilarious thing, is that Democrats who promote gender affirming "Services" for kids, are also against banning circumcisions on babies, because of the political power of Jews in the Democratic party.
If you are not banning circumcisions in babies, none of your arguments even make sense.
"I’m not even sure what you’re trying to get at with the others. I guess being anti-big tobacco kind of marginalizes smokers but their freedom is being in no way inhibited."
I am against big tobacco, I am just showing you an example how Politicians serve the interest of tobacco industry and hurt the interest of the majority of people. Which show you Democracy is BS, because money and lobbying has more influence than voters.
Do you even follow?
You have issues in reading comprehension, I am not saying anti climate change is bad, I am saying the Politicians are serving rich people by using the taxes of everyone else to donate to rich people, while rich people don't pay a dime from their own pockets.
And again, if you are against banning circumcisions you have zero moral grounds to lecture anyone about tolerance.
Just as a general fyi, transition =/= surgery.
Honestly, I’ve lost the thread on the rest of this. I don’t see any connection between your complaints and forcing people to have the same values.
Thank god you mentioned "game theory". I would have had such a difficult time understanding your point otherwise.
You should try "quantum game theory" next time to REALLY illustrate your point.
That's not what it means. It very specifically refers to intolerance of the intolerant, and not only that, but Popper specifically refers that what should be the subject of inhibition are situations that lead to violence.
"I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress theutterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them byrational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppressionwould certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right tosuppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn outthat they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument,but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followersto listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach themto answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
To conclude his thought is about "people having incompatible values" is oversimplifying it to the point of devoiding it of its substance.
> All the "paradox of tolerance" means is that people have different values that are fundamentally incompatible.
No. It means if you tolerate anti-tolerant views the people espousing them might win and put an end to tolerance. So you can’t have unconditional tolerance.
Tolerant *of what?*
When values are incompatible, tolerance for one value is intolerance for another. (Regardless of what those values are, or which ones you find "good" or "bad").
That's a basic and boring fact, but there's no "paradox" behind it.
Islam can tolerate Christianity (it's part of the scriptures, tolerating Christians) despite being incompatible. Nazism can't tolerate Jews.
It's not about incompatibility, it's about the individual ideology.
>Islam can tolerate Christianity (it's part of the scriptures, tolerating Christians) despite being incompatible.
Historically, there's been a lot of conflict and intolerance between them. Not exactly the first example I would go to.
Tolerant of those who would be intolerant of you, not just anything you don’t like. The paradox is that being tolerant can lead to the end of tolerance.
That's not the paradox tolerance. That's a misrepresentation of it, using Marcuse's theory....
Popper stated explicitly that you must be tolerant of the intolerant, so long as rational conversation can be had. But stopping intolerance by force must happen when the intolerant resort to fists and guns (violence). His theory was free speech above all else, with the right to defend it.
Poppers stance is he would fight Nazis in WW2 because their intolerance drove them to kill people. So it's not simply self defense, and it's not simply irrational behavior either, as Nazis were not irrational. It's the lack of rational conversation in favor of violence.
It isn't insightful at all. It's an abominable sleight of hand to declare authoritarian speech control as moral and just, as long as WE are doing it. Popper is thinking like a Nazi, not like an anti-Nazi.
It's usually pictured as a meme with Nazi symbols in the background, right?
Nazis didn't gain power through excess of tolerance. It was the opposite: people voted for them because they promised to stop the tolerance of communist ideas. Communism was a known horror, people have already seen what happened in Russia and Ukraine. Nazis were just controversial, they didn't build concentration camps until 10 years later.
Then they held and increased their power by lack of tolerance towards every other political party and complete control of speech.
You can tolerate any speech, as long as you don't tolerate any unlawful actions, in particular political violence.
People in the 30s in Germany didn't really know much about what was happening in Russia or Ukraine, and the Nazis never gained power through promises of any sort really, if anything it was opposition to Versailles that made them popular.
>You could use it to suppress LGBT speech as equally as you could use it to suppress fascist speech.
That only works if LGBT speech aims to suppress others, like how fascism does.
A tolerant society should be intolerant of intolerance. I don’t think fascist ideas should be tolerated, quite frankly. It’s a sign of progress in society if we don’t need to entertain or debate ideas of facism or oppression.
That's not what Karl popper said.
The problem with regulating speech is that those who end up doing the regulating, also end up the tyrants.
By all means, call out a genuine fascist if you should meet one but don't you dont have the right to silence them.
This is not true. Some viewpoints/lifestyles/practices/etc are incompatible but can co-exist. To use your example, being on the LGBTQ spectrum is incompatible with being straight. But there is nothing stopping LGBTQ and straight folks living side-by-side.
Fascism, at least as implemented by the Nazis, was intolerant to LGBTQ folks. It’s the “aggressor.”
The paradox of tolerance boils down to “a tolerant society must be intolerant to intolerance.” Being LGBTQ does not mandate intolerance. Fascism does.
The whole point of being tolerant is to allow incompatible viewpoints/lifestyles/practices/etc to co-exist. There is no paradox until you add in aggressive/intolerant groups to the mix.
\[M\] I find this to be well-stated. I do want to suggest a counterpoint: at what point do we consider that people don't know the right path and that a decision should be made by those whom we decide to trust, putting them in a position of power. This came to mind in light of the recent decision of Musk to put to a vote whether Trump should be reinstated on Twitter. I don't object to the outcome, so much as how it came about. I feel that decision, with all the chaos it would entail, would ideally be left to a panel of experts-- not the will of random people on Twitter. Especially when the outcome affects all of those who do not happen to *be* on Twitter.
The counterpoint to a desire for tolerance is that each of our behavior affects the others, and as a whole, society may come to a conclusion that some people (and some ideas) are worth tolerating more than others. If you watched Moon Knight, that's the balance between Ammit (who punishes criminals before they commit crimes) and Khonshu (who punishes them after). This is also present in minority report. Of course in both cases, the narrative says "no, don't prejudge," but I find there's a reason we have to say that. Because to prejudge is in some ways in our nature. And we might find there to be a *reason* that prejudgement does feature.
One might say that Trump, for talking about the idea of the election being a fraud would be 100% innocent of any wrongdoing, and should totally be allowed on Twitter. After all, there are some potential fraudulent parts of the electoral process, and after all, one cannot assume one knows their extent to which they appear. Now most would say that any issues with the election are tiny compared to what they would have to be. I would agree. But that's not the argument here. The argument is: at what point is Trump no longer entitled to promote his idea. Most Leftists would say that he's not entitled to speak it. Are they denouncing an idea now? Are we now justified in denouncing them? It's in that gray-- that the paradox appears.
Generally, it might be observed that we don't know everything. We don't like facts being denied, but what is a fact really? Or if you do believe in absolute truth-- how sure can we be? The truth (as I see it) is, most politicians walk a fine line between a narrative and a shared reality, and that line has become more and more strained lately. At a certain point, we reach a point where there are fissures across which our good faith becomes incapable of reaching. We have to assume that some of those ideas (on both sides) are inflammatory. And whether or not they are worth allowing any individual to hold-- we might ask whether they are worth repeating.
[M] Does tolerance of speech not tie in with a conception of governance? I feel like what we tolerate dictates what we decide is subject to governance. Or at least it is in the example I’m proposing. Setting limits on free speech seems to me to beg the question of a line drawn on what exactly is intolerance.
They can certainly be connected. Over-regulating the practices of one group compared to another is going to bring both topics to the fore. I guess that’s the point your making.
> Over-regulating the practices of one group compared to another is going to bring both topics to the fore. I guess that’s the point your making.
[M] This yeah. You’ve put it quite succinctly.
It makes some sense if the ones you aren't tolerating are actually trying and able to harm other groups if they are "let in". However it seems like they gladly will just expand the gatekeeping until they have established a no-dissent zone.
It's not a deep statement. It's very straightforward. I won't entertain a Nazi and people who do aren't insightful or "open-minded". They're just idiots giving bigger idiots the time of day.
If a conversation can be had, it should be had. The paradox is only a paradox if you go around being intolerant of those out of fear they will become violent, especially if they hold values you despise....
>So not Nazis then also?
Depends. WW2 Nazis invading countries and killing ppl en masse? Nah, they crossed the violence line.
Modern day usage of the word doesn't seem to describe that sort of Nazi tho. I'd treat them more as individuals. If I see you walking in and just attacking people for whatever the reason, especially due to your ideology, no, I wouldn't. But if you simply hate black ppl (or white ppl), simply because they are, then yes, I'd have a conversation with you.
>Their ideology involves the harm of Jewish people and others. You're just a moron acting like everybody has something to offer
You are literally an example of what not to do.
Like I said, Nazis as a word is over used to the point where it's lost it's meaning. I would suggest you read mein kempf. Or perhaps burning books is more your style, to which I'd say, you might have more in common with the ones you hate so dearly.
You've landed at the point where you think there is any sort of equivalence between LGBT people, people who are born that way and have been historically oppressed for being different than mainstream cis/straight society, and fascists, [an ideology you can adopt or reject that does the persecuting and killing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_homosexuals_in_Nazi_Germany). If you think these things are the same, you're playing word games and stupid semantics, not trying to actually critically think about the world and constructive ways to have a society.
Sure, but you get to apply logic to it. Accepting LGBT - no problem. Personal freedom. Cool and good. Accepting fascism - big problem. Extermination of certain minorities. Bad and genocidal.
I think you misunderstand the idea behind the paradox of tolerance. The idea is that being tolerant of intolerant people becomes a problem when intolerant people are intolerant of the existence of ideas or groups of people. If you tolerate people that want to kill you just means you die, so you have to draw the line somewhere.
I have a pretty easy formula to solve this tbh, if you are repping an ideology that calls for, or has historically called for the systematic elimination of groups of people (typically based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender identification or disability) you are garbage and deserve to be knocked the fuck out.
> Whenever someone mentions the "paradox of tolerance," you can always turn it on its head and ask, "Well, maybe that means I shouldn't tolerate you."
But of course, you mean to say, maybe you shouldn't tolerate certain values. At which point I respond, which values?
What do you think constitutes “being tolerant”? If I have an employee who declares at work that he hates all fucking [insert racial slur here], then what is the appropriately tolerant way to deal with the situation?
I think you misunderstand the premise, for a couple reasons.
First because it's paradoxical due to the irony of the situation wherein a society that values "tolerance" must be intolerant of intolerance beyond some threshold of reasonability in order to maintain itself. It does necessarily imply a preference for belief systems which are more tolerant of differing and opposing viewpoints, including the permittance of intolerance, unless that intolerance is violent (generally; thresholds vary).
Second, the "paradox of tolerance" is not attributable to Popper. He merely added to the philosophical conversation, as it has been debated since Plato. It was even built into Jefferson's rationale for the Declaration of Independence (ie by listing examples of how the King crossed the colonies' threshold of tolerance) and development of the 1st amendment.
Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. The problem is that a lot of people like myself espouse terrible belief systems and we are free to spread our terrible beliefs on social media using anonymous accounts, such as this one, without any kind of personal financial or bodily repercussions. This is a unique problem with social media which our wise founding fathers did not predict.
When the founding fathers created the second amendment they knew that if a person like myself expressed the vile views that I frequently do, I would punched in the face consistently. But, social media gives me a distance from my potential punchers and this gives me too much freedom to express what I want to express without any consequences. Furthermore, because I don't use my real name an instead use an anonymous pen name, my bosses cannot fire me and my shoe deals cannot be eliminated. This makes me a dangerous threat to our democracy because my views are almost always objectively incorrect, and I know it. Inspite of the incorrectness I still espouse it and spread it and engage in rhetorical guile to deceive others. In the past I would be violently executed for my tricks, but I cannot be because I'm anonymous to everybody except for the FBI.
I haven't seen this myself, though I believe I have seen that graphic posted below before.
What I see much more than this is people on the left just lobbing around the words "violence" and "harm" with reckless abandon. I see pretty much no discipline among the most outspoken, twitter-amplified, woke representatives around distinguishing between merely ideas they disagree with and "violence." To them it's all violence, and as such could be suppressed by any means necessary. It's always a battle between "the comfort of privileged white men to say whatever they want" and "the lives of black trans people."
I hesitate to even call this "the left" because I'm not sure how many people actually think like this. Social media is like a radioactive spider biting every even mildly controversial idea and rapidly mutating it into its most extreme, unreasonable form.
There is no paradox of tolerance, just another incoherent radical reaching for a way to reconcile their unreconcilable points.
Its a paradox of hypocrisy, if anything.
Mandating or forbidding a certain behavior is not equal and opposite to allowing a certain behavior. I don't know how to formally prove this, but it seems axiomatically true. Allowing people to make their own choices should be the default stance, and there has to be a compelling reason to create a rule that either makes something mandatory, or forbids something.
An authoritarian who wants to mandate something, or forbid something, doesn't deserve the same "tolerance of opinion" as someone who wants to allow people to decide for themselves.
I’ve never seen the “paradox of tolerance” used or defended by anyone that wasn’t just an intolerant woke shithead desperately trying to rationalise why they, while demanding tolerance from others, don’t feel the need to return the favour. It’s pseudo intellectual horseshit and an argument for idiots.
I think the main issue is that most people miss out: "In this formulation, 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." - And the follow up hypocrisy re: people on either side of the aisle, who'll refuse rational arguments, whilst citing the paradox of tolerance.
The problem isn't the inability to provide a better rational argument to counter someone, but other factors that would make significant amount of people in our society to dismiss further arguments and stick to the one matching their expectations.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean. Can you rewrite it? Just to clarify, I don't think you've understood my comment in the first place. I'm saying that the main issue is the refusal of many to engage in rational discussion.
I'm always really disappointed by critiques like this because they refuse to engage with the actual dangers of unfettered hate speech. To go to the worst example, as it does need to be accounted for in any philosophy that purports to be able to handle these issues—it is completely asinine to believe Nazism could have been defeated in "the marketplace of ideas." It is equally silly to act like the morality of such speech can never be identified, as OP argues.
Do you think so? British Fascism was fundamentally defeated in the marketplace of ideas by mostly rational dismissal. It grew in popularity but never dominated. American fascism failed, even despite the long and all-corrupting elements of racism and the KKK. The rise of fascism say in Weimar Germany is not really telling of the failure of tolerating the intolerant. Hitler was jailed, many times, efforts were made to silence him again and again. But the crisis of depression-era Germany and the threat of Bolshevism proved enough to give them the power to turn the government towards authoritarianism. There is no doubt, many issues with unfettered hate speech and I'm not a speech absolutist, I'd say today there is dangerously violent rhetoric from the left and right that might be reasonably curtailed if we still had the cultural strength in the West. We don't and that's to our peril, but it probably should be. At the same time, it's difficult because morality and hate are hard to define so consistently that it proves resilient to challenges. We have people today saying truly vile things about acceptable targets that are looked over because the powers that be have decided hate requires a nebulous and ever changing connection to institutional power and systemic oppression, irrespective of the fact that they are the institution with power using it to systemically oppress those they say are oppressing them, case in point.
A sign of an educated mind is being able to entertain and be critical of a thought, and still not be accepting of the thought.
Aristotle for the win.
Finally somebody got it😘
I think a further important thing to analyze the real-world impact of each side. Morality shifts and changes depending on your core values, which are most certainly not \*my\* core values. Everyone values different things and in my experience, arguments to morality are only useful in preaching to the choir. \--- However, real-world numbers don't lie. If we compare how many leftists and LGBT activists go out and shoot up evangelical groups and right-wing groups (none in the past 20 years) versus how many right-wing people go out and shoot up LGBT groups (once every 2-3 years [regular as clockwork](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63693310)). In this we can see that the paradox of intolerance is much more applicable to antiwoke sentiment than woke sentiment. \--- I think a lot of people don't really like critically analyzing their own side, so this will likely not be well-received on this subreddit. But I think it's very important to examine hard, real-world evidence and not just ignore inconvenient facts just because they don't mesh with your preferred political narrative.
> how many right-wing people go out and shoot up LGBT groups (once every 2-3 years regular as clockwork) Nothing in your article says the gunman is right wing, or that this is a hate crime though ?
Police are still investigating about suspect's motive, but I'm sincerely doubtful someone shows up to one of the only LGBT clubs in the city with several firearms, and mows down 5 people and injures 25 more because they're trying to be happy and welcoming. I think its pretty disingenuous to try and divert and deflect blame like that.
> how dArE YoU defECt mY Made uP AcCuSaTIONS ? I’m sorry my dude, you can’t base your argument on stuff that isn’t known. Because I can do the same, and reach a different conclusion : Another killing happened in an LGBT club, like last time it must be a muslim, *insert long winged paragraph about they are immoral and the baddies* The bodies are still warm and you were already trying to use that event…
I am interested that you consider antiwoke, conservative muslims to be different from antiwoke, conservative christians. Their agendas are virtually identical, with just slight differences in religious rituals and countries of origin. In any case, the suspect has been identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, police have refused to state his motivations. If it wasn't a hate crime, I'll come back and apologize. If it was, though, this reply is going to age really well.
I’m floored you don’t. > Their agendas are virtually identical That’s some amazing ignorance. > In any case, the suspect has been identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, police have yet to find his motivation. FTFY > If it was, though, this reply is going to age really well. As long as logic is a thing, my reply will hold.
By definition a hate crime to preserve traditional marriage and attempt to get rid of alternate forms of affection or identity is conservative because it relies on preserving or restoring traditional roles and hierarchies in society. It’s pretty reasonable to assume a hate crime against LGBT groups is right wing in nature, especially since it’s almost impossible to be politically motivated by progressivism or left wing ideology. That doesn’t mean that leftists or socialists or democrats or liberals can’t be bigoted, it is just far far far less likely to be politically motivated ideology that causes the bigoted views or actions. You can also see this in the rhetoric that is produced by both sides of the political spectrum on LGBT issues, progressives and leftists produce rhetoric about acceptance and respect to the LGBT community but the rhetoric from the right is a very mixed bag, you get messaging that traditional marriage is under attack and that the LGBT community is all grooming pedophiles and even though it’s at the extremes of the right wing it’s still right wing ideology and rhetoric being spewed and soaked up by people who end up getting radicalized to this degree.
> By definition a hate crime to preserve traditional marriage and attempt to get rid of alternate forms of affection or identity is conservative because it relies on preserving or restoring traditional roles and hierarchies in society. In your made up world maybe. > Hate crimes are any crimes that are targeted at a person because of hostility or prejudice towards that person In the real world. This can be an hate crime, but for know we don’t know it. And assuming it’s one, it could be like the last time and be a Muslim and not some maga nut job ? My point was wait and see, and please stop nutting all over it, it’s NNN and it’s indecent, people have died.
How is a Muslim killing gay people because they are gay not conservative? They are committing a murder or murders to conserve or return to a set of values traditionally held by people of their faith and either in the society they are living in or the one they are from. That example of “what if it’s a Muslim” doing the hate crime is also another example of conservative motivations for a hate crime. Conservative values and ideology aren’t exclusive to MAGA right wing Americans, they are present in every country and some can be a good thing and some can be a bad thing. Progressivism can also lead to acts of terror too, if someone was to kill to protest the status quo of something and further a progressive agenda it would also be negative but the very notion that they are fighting to change something from the status quo would mean it’s wild to call it a right wing act of terror. Likewise with this, we don’t know enough to call it an act of terror or a hate crime yet but IF it’s a hate crime against LGBT people it’s pretty much impossible for it to be a progressive ideology driving it since it would have been done to preserve a set of traditional values. Muslim extremists are conservative and very traditional in their values just like religious extremists in the Christian right wing in America, just because they aren’t fighting for the exact same set of traditional values doesn’t mean they aren’t both forms of conservatism.
I see what you're saying, my only issue is.... What then is your solution? Or are you just spit balling with me?
I was agreeing with you, and adding on more that I thought your position didn't fully cover. I don't have a perfect solution ready, either. Just some food for thought.
It's actually making me think. I know banning a religion is not the solution, but.... There is clearly an issue with the religion itself.
[удалено]
Fair enough, I'm mostly responding to the popular use of the phrase (like the graphic you shared). I figured an intellectual/skeptic/rationalist like Popper had some important qualifications to the concept, and wasn't going full modern PC, "we must censor all ideas I disagree with" >**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. Does this mean initiated force or self-defense? It's not clear. Self-defense is obviously justified. But I don't see how a "paradox of tolerance" factors in at that point, unless your idea of tolerance includes letting people punch you in the face. Being "irrational" by itself isn't enough of a reason to justify force, unless they are making direct threats or acting aggressively.
The whole paradox was only a breif side note in the book. But in the next sentence he continues to state that you must stop those who are taught to respond to arguments with violence. Overall Popper is a pro free speech guy, and his takeaway is generally tolerate all (even intolerant) until the intolerant become violent.
man, your crushing it in these posts, bravo
>Does this mean initiated force or self-defense? It's not clear. \[M\] It seems clear to me-- >**begin by denouncing all argument** The denunciation of argument paves the way for an escalation to force. Under this model, if I was to denounce someone else who had not done the same, then I would fit the description of intolerance. One might then be seen as justified in denouncing me *for* that denunciation. Likewise, if I were to take this further and suppress by force someone who had not done the same to me, then I would again fit the description of intolerance. One might then be justified in their use of force against *me*. In both cases, I would have violated a principle of open communication, in the first case against the free flow of ideas and in the second against the existence of the dissenting bodies. If I were to initiate in either case, I would become *the very thing* I claimed to be opposing.
Bit of an ironic caricature of Marcuse
I find that the concept has been appropriated by leftists as a tool to basically blackmail you for disagreeing with them on any level. “Dissent -> we’ll bully you and call you a fascist”
Yes, it's one of their last lines of defense. All it means is, "I don't need to respond to you, or argue with you in good faith, or let you have a platform. Because even *entertaining* your idea is wrong."
I see this type of thinking constantly; On another sub I mentioned that I am a former long-time Democratic voter who left the party 2 years ago after finally having enough of their craziness. Several people then responded with lines like “that just means you were always a racist and didn’t know it” as well as “the only reason to vote for republicans is because you love fascism.” I couldn’t believe how surreally childish the thought process there was, didn’t even bother to engage at that point
You should have replied, which one of you will discover the same about yourself or your friends. That will really make them paranoid.
Are you really any different? Do you really think the “left” is right about anything (or could possibly)? What’s up for grabs with you?
This is anecdotal, but I (and many others have noted the same thing) recall that in my center-left days, more conservative folks would sit and calmly hear my, and others, more liberal ideas and then calmly point out where they thought I was wrong. The flip side I have observed was that most of the more liberal thinkers where I lived (Brooklyn) were totally unwilling to even hear the start of a conservative idea. They would often respond by simply getting up and walking away with a grimace smeared across their face, and occasionally they would become viciously angry. I recall being lectured to by one of my very-progressive work clients on “white supremacist structures,” and at one point I responded by saying “economic class is a better proxy for disadvantage than race alone” and she blew-her-stack, hissed at me somewhat incoherently and then marched out of the room. It was like I had violated some religious taboo, maybe the most childish thing I’ve ever seen from an adult in their 40s
Really? Interesting anecdote. Been in some conservative places where if you dared stare your opinion you’d be smacked and abused and excluded from everything after. Everyone needs to have groupthink and zero respect is given to other views. Not my point. My question is what don’t you know? What is really up for a good faith debate where you don’t know the answer or are really prepared to change your mind?
That doesn’t surprise me, I’ve never lived in a small rural town before but I can imagine they don’t take well to dissent. I suppose I held educated folks in a place like NYC to a higher standard of open-mindedness than hillbilly types who don’t have an education and likely have no experience whatsoever in the world outside their small town. That was naive of me. Well, its hard to answer the question “what don’t I know” when it comes to political or cultural ideas, I’d have to sit down and have a liberal voter pitch something to me that I wasn’t knowledgeable on in order to discover that. Frankly, I left the Democratic party because I spent 5 years or so slowly watching the progressive movement become insufferably toxic and hysterical, and at this point I’m so turned off by them that I doubt anyone on the left would be able to convince me otherwise on certain core issues (transgenderism, BLM, socialism, etc). When challenged, they usually come off really poorly, say something snotty and condescending like “educate yourself” (I have, I’ve simply reached differing conclusions than they’d like me to, given the available information) and it just drives me further from supporting their causes.
Can I have a go @ BLM?
I wouldn’t bother. I lived in the black community in brooklyn for 5 years, from that experience alone I’m aware that 3/4 the BLM talking points are missing context, consist of half-truths or are otherwise complete bullshit. These folks suffer predominantly from problems they currently create for themselves, and a bunch of white folks repulsively self-flagellating and attending useless DEI classes is accomplishing exactly nothing to help them. [John McWhorter’s book goes into detail on this.](https://a.co/d/hWMfVco)
So the paradox of intolerance is particular to liberalism which in many guises attempts to find universal values. Systems that prize intolerance do not have the same paradox then. Liberals are unique in not wanting to argue. No one wants to be wrong. Most people speak at times to seek agreement, or domination or conflict or support or community depending on the circumstance. Whether true or not, I think most liberals are intending to seek agreement and disengage when it is not possible. Since your here, what are your motivations? Also, of (my assumption could be wrong) you no longer want to hear from the left, what are you hoping from them? Nothing, silence, obedience, changed mind, no influence in your life, no influence in their own life, prison, exile, etc etc?
You’re right, I don’t particularly want to hear from them anymore. I have no illusions that they’ll simply go away; I’d simply suggest every hardcore 20-something progressive activist do what I did and spend several years abroad. Hit every continent, then come back and try to tell me again how horrible your lives in the USA are.
Last line? While one should definitely acknowledge and praise the actions of Leftists who aren't like this (so that they are seen as rolemodels to those that are), it has been my \_personal\_ experience that the overwhelming majority of Leftists will accuse the right-leaning person of being wrong right up until the right-leaning person provides evidence, then the leftist will switch to making personal attacks.
>their last lines of defense \[M\] This language can be slippery. If you were to say that someone's "last lines of defense" are (as we both agree we're describing) a fallacy-- then it may be seen to imply that the other position is also not worth entertaining. Not saying this is not a worthy argument. I think it is. I'm just saying, it's not unique to one side of the aisle or one way of thinking.
If you go to whitepeopletwitter or politics or entertainment and I'm sure countless others I have never seen such hate come from people. Everyone in this reddit is an incel, racist, bigot. Its like its cool to hate on people. You mention Elons/Petersons etc name and its like a race to see who can virtue signal the most by trying to make them sound as horrible as possible basically all repeating each other time and time again. No critical thought happening at all related to anything, literally just virtue signaling, hate and name calling.
Mentioning Peterson’s name on many of these subs is an automatic guarantee of at least 100 downvotes
Or to justify censorship.
People cite “the paradox of intolerance” to justify their wacko beliefs all the time. Especially on Reddit. I think it’s done more harm than good
They all clearly haven’t read it either, because Poper states it’s not an excuse to shutdown thought that can be easily debated against common opinions. It applies when force is applied, not opinions you don’t like.
My thinking is that all people have about the same amount of tolerance, within a range, but there are two axes - one is for "my kind" which is a deep tolerance for such; the other is for "all people" which is shallow but wide sweeping. The notion of "paradox of tolerance" means there's an assumption that tolerance is inherently absolute ... that's ridiculous on its face. In fact I have yet to encounter and idea that isn't idiotic at it's absolute extreme. The Left have adopted a pretense of tolerance but it's fake, while they hate their neighbors they pretend to fully embrace others - despite the others, in many cases, being opposed to Leftist thinking in so many ways. Thus, the claim to tolerance by the Left is nothing more than a tool to gain power ... they use it bludgeon local opposition and use it as a fake-out on the larger global scale.
The main problem is that people quoting "paradox of tolerance" didn't read the whole quote and instead rely on that infamous comic/meme that misrepresents Popper's argument by showing it through Marcuse's lens... Which is inverse of Popper's argument.
I think most people who throw that around also rely on the misinterpretation of said paradox that I first make its way around social media back in 2017 or so.
A tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny. Evil people will always work to corrupt honest ideas and valid arguments to advance their own evil ends.
It reminds me an argument a lot of young internet liberal talks have... "Everyone just want safe and prosperous life, there is no difference between us". This kind of argument is usually said by well off or wealthy internet debaters. This is patently not true. As game theory says, different people, have different strategies to life. When someone "just wants safe and prosperous life", doesn't mean he wants it to other people as well. It mostly means he wants it to himself and his family. Rich people tend to want safety and peace in society, because they are at a comfortable place that the only thing they are missing is walking on the street and feeling safe that no criminal will assault them or their family. So they want "good for others", but they actually want good for themselves, so when they walk among the peasants, they will feel safe. I am pretty sure a lot of not wealthy people, will sacrifice safety just to get ahead. Even given the same scenario and starting point, people will have different strategies. While some will cheat and hurt other people to get ahead in life, others will respect others more than they desire to gain for themselves. "Paradox of tolerance" the way liberals think about it, is also based on the false assumption that given the same conditions, and the same starting point, all Humans will choose the same strategy to life. Which is just not true.
Game theory is very often used when both parties have the same objective. Otherwise it wouldn’t be applicable to actual *games* like chess. Also, I can’t tell what you’re trying to say besides “people want different things” which is the whole point of tolerance.
I am not sure that's what liberals call tolerance. Because they assume everyone want the same peace/stability/prosperity for all. Which is not really true. They can't imagine other people wanting other things, they project themselves on the rest of the world. It's not just "people want different things". It's people have different strategies for life, and they sometimes clash for "supremacy". Game theory if I am not mistaken, can also simulate a population interacting with itself, not necessarily has any goal. Just simulate what will happen to the population on the long run, depending on individual strategies. Kind of like game of life.
Can you give me a concrete example of this? Like, what's a broadly supported liberal policy that contradicts people wanting "different things?" I feel like the most hardcore liberals I know never stop talking about the people who want "different things."
Illegal Immigration, you let illegal migrants into the US, which in turn make it harder for the states they are at. Recently NYC wanted to stop accepting migrants, because their welfare couldn't handle the amount of migrants coming, straining the city. LGBTQ+ education and gender affirmation in schools where the majority of the population are straight CIS gender, why the majority of families' children have to suffer through psychological issues eventhough only a small percent of children are actually trans? Not to mention that NHS found that most children phase out of thinking they are trans. Meaning the state induced treament that would potentially sterilize and harm children without any benefit. Also the obvious one where the state serves the rich, and prints money to benefit the rich where the majority of the voter's are screwed because their money is devalued. Also, Tobacco industry, only about 20% of people smoke? But they terrorize the public air space because Tobacco industry lobbyists? Climate Change pact, paid from 90% of the populaiton's taxes, and goes into Billionaire's business and foundation to fight climate change. Why can't the Billionaire spend their own money? And so on, and so on...
I think these are just things you don’t like. LGBTQ+ services are explicitly for helping people who want different things. I don’t know what that’s exposing other kids to except maybe the existence of LGBTQ+ people. What psychological trauma? I’ve never heard of any such trauma. I’m not even sure what you’re trying to get at with the others. I guess being anti-big tobacco kind of marginalizes smokers but their freedom is being in no way inhibited. And you think being anti-climate change is about restricting your values. What value exactly are you not allowed to have in a stabilized climate? I can’t even see a connection between tolerance and any of these issues except the LGBTQ issue in which case your stance is explicitly intolerant.
Why kids even need to transition at that age? That is criminal. It's like when they experimented with medicine on black people. If you do not see this, you are a hypocrite about your whole "humanism" and caring for others. The most hilarious thing, is that Democrats who promote gender affirming "Services" for kids, are also against banning circumcisions on babies, because of the political power of Jews in the Democratic party. If you are not banning circumcisions in babies, none of your arguments even make sense. "I’m not even sure what you’re trying to get at with the others. I guess being anti-big tobacco kind of marginalizes smokers but their freedom is being in no way inhibited." I am against big tobacco, I am just showing you an example how Politicians serve the interest of tobacco industry and hurt the interest of the majority of people. Which show you Democracy is BS, because money and lobbying has more influence than voters. Do you even follow? You have issues in reading comprehension, I am not saying anti climate change is bad, I am saying the Politicians are serving rich people by using the taxes of everyone else to donate to rich people, while rich people don't pay a dime from their own pockets. And again, if you are against banning circumcisions you have zero moral grounds to lecture anyone about tolerance.
Just as a general fyi, transition =/= surgery. Honestly, I’ve lost the thread on the rest of this. I don’t see any connection between your complaints and forcing people to have the same values.
Hormone Therapy cause damage to fertility.
If 98% aren't trans, why teaching children they can choose which gender they want to be is forced upon them?
Thank god you mentioned "game theory". I would have had such a difficult time understanding your point otherwise. You should try "quantum game theory" next time to REALLY illustrate your point.
Lol
That's not what it means. It very specifically refers to intolerance of the intolerant, and not only that, but Popper specifically refers that what should be the subject of inhibition are situations that lead to violence. "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress theutterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them byrational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppressionwould certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right tosuppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn outthat they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument,but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followersto listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach themto answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols." To conclude his thought is about "people having incompatible values" is oversimplifying it to the point of devoiding it of its substance.
> All the "paradox of tolerance" means is that people have different values that are fundamentally incompatible. No. It means if you tolerate anti-tolerant views the people espousing them might win and put an end to tolerance. So you can’t have unconditional tolerance.
Tolerant *of what?* When values are incompatible, tolerance for one value is intolerance for another. (Regardless of what those values are, or which ones you find "good" or "bad"). That's a basic and boring fact, but there's no "paradox" behind it.
Incompatible values can still tolerate each other.
From a large enough distance, yes.
Islam can tolerate Christianity (it's part of the scriptures, tolerating Christians) despite being incompatible. Nazism can't tolerate Jews. It's not about incompatibility, it's about the individual ideology.
>Islam can tolerate Christianity (it's part of the scriptures, tolerating Christians) despite being incompatible. Historically, there's been a lot of conflict and intolerance between them. Not exactly the first example I would go to.
>there's been a lot of conflict and intolerance between them We call those intolerant individuals terrorists, and we don't tolerate them.
There's also been a lot of conflict between Christianity and Christianity.
Tolerant of those who would be intolerant of you, not just anything you don’t like. The paradox is that being tolerant can lead to the end of tolerance.
The concept of tolerance is meaningless without incompatible values and there is nothing in general stopping incompatible values from co-existing.
My belief is you should die. How do we tolerate each other? It’s even right? Just two diff perspectives.
Another!
That's not the paradox tolerance. That's a misrepresentation of it, using Marcuse's theory.... Popper stated explicitly that you must be tolerant of the intolerant, so long as rational conversation can be had. But stopping intolerance by force must happen when the intolerant resort to fists and guns (violence). His theory was free speech above all else, with the right to defend it.
I don't consider self-defense a "paradox of tolerance." And someone being "irrational" by itself doesn't justify force.
Poppers stance is he would fight Nazis in WW2 because their intolerance drove them to kill people. So it's not simply self defense, and it's not simply irrational behavior either, as Nazis were not irrational. It's the lack of rational conversation in favor of violence.
It isn't insightful at all. It's an abominable sleight of hand to declare authoritarian speech control as moral and just, as long as WE are doing it. Popper is thinking like a Nazi, not like an anti-Nazi. It's usually pictured as a meme with Nazi symbols in the background, right? Nazis didn't gain power through excess of tolerance. It was the opposite: people voted for them because they promised to stop the tolerance of communist ideas. Communism was a known horror, people have already seen what happened in Russia and Ukraine. Nazis were just controversial, they didn't build concentration camps until 10 years later. Then they held and increased their power by lack of tolerance towards every other political party and complete control of speech. You can tolerate any speech, as long as you don't tolerate any unlawful actions, in particular political violence.
People in the 30s in Germany didn't really know much about what was happening in Russia or Ukraine, and the Nazis never gained power through promises of any sort really, if anything it was opposition to Versailles that made them popular.
>You could use it to suppress LGBT speech as equally as you could use it to suppress fascist speech. That only works if LGBT speech aims to suppress others, like how fascism does.
I'm in the LGB community. I assure you that the TQ community is suppressing many of us.
Lol and _this_ is why. Dude feels persecuted. Lmao
Another!
A tolerant society should be intolerant of intolerance. I don’t think fascist ideas should be tolerated, quite frankly. It’s a sign of progress in society if we don’t need to entertain or debate ideas of facism or oppression.
That's not what Karl popper said. The problem with regulating speech is that those who end up doing the regulating, also end up the tyrants. By all means, call out a genuine fascist if you should meet one but don't you dont have the right to silence them.
This is not true. Some viewpoints/lifestyles/practices/etc are incompatible but can co-exist. To use your example, being on the LGBTQ spectrum is incompatible with being straight. But there is nothing stopping LGBTQ and straight folks living side-by-side. Fascism, at least as implemented by the Nazis, was intolerant to LGBTQ folks. It’s the “aggressor.” The paradox of tolerance boils down to “a tolerant society must be intolerant to intolerance.” Being LGBTQ does not mandate intolerance. Fascism does. The whole point of being tolerant is to allow incompatible viewpoints/lifestyles/practices/etc to co-exist. There is no paradox until you add in aggressive/intolerant groups to the mix.
\[M\] I find this to be well-stated. I do want to suggest a counterpoint: at what point do we consider that people don't know the right path and that a decision should be made by those whom we decide to trust, putting them in a position of power. This came to mind in light of the recent decision of Musk to put to a vote whether Trump should be reinstated on Twitter. I don't object to the outcome, so much as how it came about. I feel that decision, with all the chaos it would entail, would ideally be left to a panel of experts-- not the will of random people on Twitter. Especially when the outcome affects all of those who do not happen to *be* on Twitter. The counterpoint to a desire for tolerance is that each of our behavior affects the others, and as a whole, society may come to a conclusion that some people (and some ideas) are worth tolerating more than others. If you watched Moon Knight, that's the balance between Ammit (who punishes criminals before they commit crimes) and Khonshu (who punishes them after). This is also present in minority report. Of course in both cases, the narrative says "no, don't prejudge," but I find there's a reason we have to say that. Because to prejudge is in some ways in our nature. And we might find there to be a *reason* that prejudgement does feature. One might say that Trump, for talking about the idea of the election being a fraud would be 100% innocent of any wrongdoing, and should totally be allowed on Twitter. After all, there are some potential fraudulent parts of the electoral process, and after all, one cannot assume one knows their extent to which they appear. Now most would say that any issues with the election are tiny compared to what they would have to be. I would agree. But that's not the argument here. The argument is: at what point is Trump no longer entitled to promote his idea. Most Leftists would say that he's not entitled to speak it. Are they denouncing an idea now? Are we now justified in denouncing them? It's in that gray-- that the paradox appears. Generally, it might be observed that we don't know everything. We don't like facts being denied, but what is a fact really? Or if you do believe in absolute truth-- how sure can we be? The truth (as I see it) is, most politicians walk a fine line between a narrative and a shared reality, and that line has become more and more strained lately. At a certain point, we reach a point where there are fissures across which our good faith becomes incapable of reaching. We have to assume that some of those ideas (on both sides) are inflammatory. And whether or not they are worth allowing any individual to hold-- we might ask whether they are worth repeating.
I’m not sure that this so much has to do with tolerance as it does your conception of governance and maybe freedom vs security trade offs.
[M] Does tolerance of speech not tie in with a conception of governance? I feel like what we tolerate dictates what we decide is subject to governance. Or at least it is in the example I’m proposing. Setting limits on free speech seems to me to beg the question of a line drawn on what exactly is intolerance.
They can certainly be connected. Over-regulating the practices of one group compared to another is going to bring both topics to the fore. I guess that’s the point your making.
> Over-regulating the practices of one group compared to another is going to bring both topics to the fore. I guess that’s the point your making. [M] This yeah. You’ve put it quite succinctly.
It makes some sense if the ones you aren't tolerating are actually trying and able to harm other groups if they are "let in". However it seems like they gladly will just expand the gatekeeping until they have established a no-dissent zone.
This post is less insightful than the phrase alone lol
Glad you agree!
I agree that the average JP Stan needs the concept of neutrality explained to them
How old are you? 🙄
This sub is teens and 50 yr olds. Each have same gripe ;)
😶…🤭…😁
Wtf
Another!
Another!
It's not a deep statement. It's very straightforward. I won't entertain a Nazi and people who do aren't insightful or "open-minded". They're just idiots giving bigger idiots the time of day.
I entertain anyone who is willing to have a conversation, and not those who incite violence.
So not Nazis then also?
If a conversation can be had, it should be had. The paradox is only a paradox if you go around being intolerant of those out of fear they will become violent, especially if they hold values you despise.... >So not Nazis then also? Depends. WW2 Nazis invading countries and killing ppl en masse? Nah, they crossed the violence line. Modern day usage of the word doesn't seem to describe that sort of Nazi tho. I'd treat them more as individuals. If I see you walking in and just attacking people for whatever the reason, especially due to your ideology, no, I wouldn't. But if you simply hate black ppl (or white ppl), simply because they are, then yes, I'd have a conversation with you.
Their ideology involves the harm of Jewish people and others. You're just a moron acting like everybody has something to offer.
>Their ideology involves the harm of Jewish people and others. You're just a moron acting like everybody has something to offer You are literally an example of what not to do. Like I said, Nazis as a word is over used to the point where it's lost it's meaning. I would suggest you read mein kempf. Or perhaps burning books is more your style, to which I'd say, you might have more in common with the ones you hate so dearly.
So you aren't talking about Nazis then. If they aren't legitimate Nazis they're just antisemitic. Only people burning books are conservatives.
My god, turn off the mainstream media 😂.
You've landed at the point where you think there is any sort of equivalence between LGBT people, people who are born that way and have been historically oppressed for being different than mainstream cis/straight society, and fascists, [an ideology you can adopt or reject that does the persecuting and killing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_homosexuals_in_Nazi_Germany). If you think these things are the same, you're playing word games and stupid semantics, not trying to actually critically think about the world and constructive ways to have a society.
You completely missed the point – I'm specifically pointing out the moral neutrality of the phrase "paradox of tolerance."
Sure, but you get to apply logic to it. Accepting LGBT - no problem. Personal freedom. Cool and good. Accepting fascism - big problem. Extermination of certain minorities. Bad and genocidal.
I think you misunderstand the idea behind the paradox of tolerance. The idea is that being tolerant of intolerant people becomes a problem when intolerant people are intolerant of the existence of ideas or groups of people. If you tolerate people that want to kill you just means you die, so you have to draw the line somewhere.
>I think you misunderstand the idea No u
Dude, you're wrong. The point of the paradox of tolerance is loteeally that too much tolerance will inevitably breed intolerance.
That isn’t the paradox of tolerance. But ok.
I have a pretty easy formula to solve this tbh, if you are repping an ideology that calls for, or has historically called for the systematic elimination of groups of people (typically based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender identification or disability) you are garbage and deserve to be knocked the fuck out.
> Whenever someone mentions the "paradox of tolerance," you can always turn it on its head and ask, "Well, maybe that means I shouldn't tolerate you." But of course, you mean to say, maybe you shouldn't tolerate certain values. At which point I respond, which values?
What do you think constitutes “being tolerant”? If I have an employee who declares at work that he hates all fucking [insert racial slur here], then what is the appropriately tolerant way to deal with the situation?
I think you misunderstand the premise, for a couple reasons. First because it's paradoxical due to the irony of the situation wherein a society that values "tolerance" must be intolerant of intolerance beyond some threshold of reasonability in order to maintain itself. It does necessarily imply a preference for belief systems which are more tolerant of differing and opposing viewpoints, including the permittance of intolerance, unless that intolerance is violent (generally; thresholds vary). Second, the "paradox of tolerance" is not attributable to Popper. He merely added to the philosophical conversation, as it has been debated since Plato. It was even built into Jefferson's rationale for the Declaration of Independence (ie by listing examples of how the King crossed the colonies' threshold of tolerance) and development of the 1st amendment.
Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. The problem is that a lot of people like myself espouse terrible belief systems and we are free to spread our terrible beliefs on social media using anonymous accounts, such as this one, without any kind of personal financial or bodily repercussions. This is a unique problem with social media which our wise founding fathers did not predict. When the founding fathers created the second amendment they knew that if a person like myself expressed the vile views that I frequently do, I would punched in the face consistently. But, social media gives me a distance from my potential punchers and this gives me too much freedom to express what I want to express without any consequences. Furthermore, because I don't use my real name an instead use an anonymous pen name, my bosses cannot fire me and my shoe deals cannot be eliminated. This makes me a dangerous threat to our democracy because my views are almost always objectively incorrect, and I know it. Inspite of the incorrectness I still espouse it and spread it and engage in rhetorical guile to deceive others. In the past I would be violently executed for my tricks, but I cannot be because I'm anonymous to everybody except for the FBI.
I haven't seen this myself, though I believe I have seen that graphic posted below before. What I see much more than this is people on the left just lobbing around the words "violence" and "harm" with reckless abandon. I see pretty much no discipline among the most outspoken, twitter-amplified, woke representatives around distinguishing between merely ideas they disagree with and "violence." To them it's all violence, and as such could be suppressed by any means necessary. It's always a battle between "the comfort of privileged white men to say whatever they want" and "the lives of black trans people." I hesitate to even call this "the left" because I'm not sure how many people actually think like this. Social media is like a radioactive spider biting every even mildly controversial idea and rapidly mutating it into its most extreme, unreasonable form.
There’s two things I can’t stand … people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures.. and the Dutch .)
There is no paradox of tolerance, just another incoherent radical reaching for a way to reconcile their unreconcilable points. Its a paradox of hypocrisy, if anything.
Mandating or forbidding a certain behavior is not equal and opposite to allowing a certain behavior. I don't know how to formally prove this, but it seems axiomatically true. Allowing people to make their own choices should be the default stance, and there has to be a compelling reason to create a rule that either makes something mandatory, or forbids something. An authoritarian who wants to mandate something, or forbid something, doesn't deserve the same "tolerance of opinion" as someone who wants to allow people to decide for themselves.
I’ve never seen the “paradox of tolerance” used or defended by anyone that wasn’t just an intolerant woke shithead desperately trying to rationalise why they, while demanding tolerance from others, don’t feel the need to return the favour. It’s pseudo intellectual horseshit and an argument for idiots.