Paradox of tolerance
Paradox of tolerance
Wiki - The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually ceased or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
Except if you view tolerance as what it is, a social contract. I'll tolerate you as long as you tolerate me.
Thus I get along great with the religious person that just wishes to practise their religion in peace, and respects my existence as a connoisseur of cock outside of it, but we don't have to put up with the neo-nazis calling for both of our heads.
And so the paradox dissolves.
Its not a paradox.
Tolerance is a social contract.
If you refuse to be part of the social contract, then you do not receive its protection.
it is not paradoxical to be intolerant to those who want to destroy the contract to harm individuals or society. Being violently intolerant against them is nothing but acting in the defense of our own personhood, the personhood of our fellows, and the good of our society.
I've always disliked how this is described as a paradox. It only highlights a broader point found in many systems, a just system is never about "the good" outnumbering "the bad". It's about a balanced equilibrium, as are most relationships. Besides, allowing intolerance is not a tolerant act, that's not the way we define that term. To make such a claim would be as ridiculous as a racist person saying they are practicing tolerance by not challenging or question any of their bigoted thoughts and instead just letting them play out.
Fully agree. The only catch with this is it can be distorted with propaganda to point to anyone as being intolerant, with enough saturation. The bar for recognizing intolerance needs to be fairly high.
Why?
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We don't want to risk further radicalizing those still within reach and not completely indoctrinated.
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We don't want to risk a false accusation and provoke witch-hunts.
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We don't want the intolerant to use this against the tolerant.
It's why I'm always a bit leery of the knee-jerk punch-a-nazi movements.
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It's only a paradox because the creator of the infographic has oversimplified what intolerance is.
When nazis are intolerant of a minority group, or whatever their target is, are violent towards them.
When the general society is intolerant of nazis, they are not usually calling for nazis to be killed or harmed.
And the creator does not differentiate between how a government deals with nazi versus the people. A government may "tolerate" nazis when it comes to free speech, and then be "intolerant" of nazis when they commit violence, and arrest or prosecute them. The general populace, unlike the government, cannot prosecute nazis (legally), they can only shun them. The creator clumsily does not differentiate between legal consequences and social consequences.
Basically, the infographic creator is trying to both-sides this shit, when one side want ppl dead, while other side just want nazis to go away. They are not the same. Moronic, sophomoric, low IQ. Too bad this may actually work on some people. That's the sad part.
It happened with the UK.
Our political landscape went to shit when mainstream platforms started giving highly right wing and racist parties like UKIP and the BNP platforms.
It's not the paradox, it's the common sense.
Same with multiculturalism, it can't exist by accepting cultures that won't accept other cultures, for pretty much the exact same reasons. Yet every time I've mentioned it someone sees it as a "dog whistle" for something, usually islamophobia, which is just such a non-sequitur - there are branches of Islam that have no problem being part of a multicultural society, just like there are branches of Christianity that are intolerant and shouldn't be part of a multicultural society.
The problem is that people label everything and everyone "Nazi" or "fascist" these days and with that they justify not tolerating any type of experience or opinion they find uncomfortable.
This leads to basically ignoring a whole bunch of people. But their problems won't stop simply because you ignore them. Instead you now have people who were on the verge to vote right wing, now definitely voting right wing because they feel the left ignores their problems (which is true).
If twelve people sit at a table with a Nazi, you have thirteen Nazis
For those that haven't seen it, the speech in Team America discusses adjacent nuances of this in the most eloquent and poetic way possible.
I sometimes make fun of reactionaries by saying "Anti-Racists are intolerant of Racists. They're the true racists!". Didn't know there was a point to be made in that joke!
An Italian left-wing comic author once said that neo-fascism has been normalized so much that Nazi is the only term left, but perhaps that applies only to his country.
I like that this most important point is at the top. It reduces the chances someone will skim and only ready the way to not do it.
https://youtu.be/goePYJ74Ydg?si=sunG6ESBoNsEsxNC i feel like everyone should watch this video
The "tolerant" can also be intolerant. They don't recognize their own intolerance.
Let’s put it plainly.
If you tolerate something, it is implicit you disapprove of, or disagree with, the subject requiring tolerance.
People exhibiting behavior necessitating said tolerance know this. And they don’t like any reminders that just maybe they might be really, really wrong and there are people willing challenge their behavior but are holding back.
So instead of changing their behavior, they eliminate the challenge to their behavior.
I understeand the whole idea and im always up to point and laugh at cringe wanna be fascist, the problem is that the term intollerance is not used with nuance, as soon as people receive critiscism ( be it constructive or not) is easy to just shout biggot or intolerance, whereas in that wouldnt really be the case.
Another problem would be what the stablishment considers intollerance or bigotry, like as easelly as there are protected groups that cant be criticed without coming of hatefull thowards that group, that could be applied the same way to the elite class, gobernment and rich people, and at least in my country it was like that untill relatively recently, (about 2 decades ago), and that is just straight up censorship and if the gobernment wanted they could jaill you (if they didnt assasinate you privately), and i understeand its simmilar in some countries to this day, without pointing at the most obvious ones or failed nations that are in constant internal violent conflicts, one example would be India for what i heard.
My point is that this type of rethoric shouldnt be thrown around as lightly as it is, since it sounds to me as more of a justification for censorship rather than a genuenly interesting thought experiment, specially since the ones that are normally used as an easy to tear down argument are the nazis, which i mean fuck them and everything they say but is this paradox really only aplicable to them?
The paradox of the paradox: there wouldn't be a paradox if the philosopher wouldn't be stuck in the logic of a limited model and a distorted assumption about growth.
Only because there exists the possibility that a movement can grow doesn't mean that it will grow.
Intolerance is also not real, like the war on hunger. There is no enemy, but instead there are people to feed.
This leads all to a simple answer that hides that 'let' s give them a chance' was driven by intolerance for socialists and communists, which should ring a bell.
People are so proud that they are allowed to hate the right enemy that they don't ask what those humans actually need to become friends. (Which doesn't mean apeacement!)
*edit: could the downvoters please leave a note and state where they disagree, please?