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An interesting bit: Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of

An interesting bit: Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?” To which he later concludes: We can answer these points using the minority rule. Yes, an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy. Actually, as we saw, it will eventually destroy our world. So, we need to be more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities. It is not permissible to use “American values” or “Western principles” in treating intolerant Salafism (which denies other peoples’ right to have their own religion). The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.

adjkant 9y ago
> “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?” This is something philosophy has actually done well to detail. It's the paradox of tolerance, and I think the answer absolutely has to be yes. For those looking for easy surface level gotcha's, that seems like a problem. Dig deeper, and it's logically consistent with the belief of tolerance, for if one allows intolerance, their tolerance loses all value.
- whatshisface 9y ago
  The problem that opens up is the definition of intolerance. Are direct claims against the rights of others to believe something intolerant? Yes, they probably are. What about speaking against groups of people (in a broad sense, calling out some perceived problem with their behavior)? Well, sometimes that's intolerant, sometimes something needs to be said (maybe that group is the Inner Party and they're taking too much). What about speech that doesn't directly disparage anybody, but that makes certain people feel incredibly uncomfortable and unwelcome? Well, that can be exclusionary, but everything makes someone uncomfortable. (some Christians might not want you bringing evolution in to schools (which they perceive as just another competing ideology), and some trans people might not enjoy being picked apart in critical gender discussions everywhere they go. The reader might agree with one of those two but probably not both.) So, as you can see, it's really a microcosm of the idea that "we should support good and ban evil."
  - adjkant 9y ago
    Agreed. I think the solution is to really pluck at those grey areas, as of course it's easy to work in black and white. To generalize, I think the general best course is to first understand why the intolerance exists, its validity, and then address it from there in ways still consistent with tolerance. Easier said than done of course, but I'm not intending to write a philosophical dissertation here fully. As a reminder that many who likely support this view need, you should be intolerant of intolerance, not people who hold intolerant beliefs or practice intolerance.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      > ...not people who hold intolerant beliefs or practice intolerance. The problem is that we've done a splendid job blurring the lines between identities, beliefs, speech, and behavior. We have no ground rules for how to be intolerant of some things without seeming intolerant of the people that care deeply about those things.
  - plainOldText 9y ago
    But we now we need a framework for defining what good and evil are. Some people defer this to their religion, while others take other philosophical avenues. Nietzsche’s perspectivism comes to mind here.
- stale2002 9y ago
  Ehh, I have found that people who argue in favor of this idea are generally the MOST intolerant of the bunch, and just want a righteous excuse to engage in their intolerance. People who are tolerant generally don't go looking around for excuses to be horrible to other people. An apt quote comes to mind: "The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
  - adjkant 9y ago
    Not tolerating intolerance is not a license to be horrible to other people. I suspect this is a bad application of the philosophical idea, as with just about every other idea once it hits practical use. The challenge is synthesizing the idea into something consistent with the original idea yet simple enough to be effective in practice. My guess is that many people in favor aren't actually consistent themselves.
    - stale2002 9y ago
      > Not tolerating intolerance is not a license to be horrible to other people. And yet thats usually what people mean. People arguing in favor of this idea generally use it to justify whatever their anti-human rights opinion of the day is. Whether that is sending people to jail for speech, or banning certain political parties, or vigilante style assaults of people at protests, it is just simplified down to "an excuse to not feel back about being horrible to the 'enemy'", whoever that 'enemy' is, while ignoring all previously agreed upon rules of engagement in society (otherwise known as human rights). Whenever any of this stuff happens, and it is targeted against a sufficiently unpopular 'enemy', I always seem a mass of people linking to that paradox of tolerance wikipedia page.
      - adjkant 9y ago
        Again, improper use of an idea for justification of other ideas does not invalidate the original idea. I'm not siding with those cases, which, pending details, all seem like improper ways of dealing with intolerance.
- DanAndersen 9y ago
  It definitely makes sense -- any worldview (such as one that elevates tolerance as a virtue) has to build in safeguards that protect it against existential threats, or else it won't be a worldview that persists into the future for very long. The issue I'm grappling with that the solution to the "paradox of tolerance" (that it is OK to be intolerant of intolerance) is that it is good at defending against erosion of tolerance from external forces, but opens it up to erosion from internal forces. If the societal rules are "we choose to be tolerant except in the case of existential threats, in which case we nuke it from orbit", then the incentive becomes to paint mild disagreements into existential threats. Allowing Muslims to immigrate becomes "threat of sharia-law caliphate in 25 years." Allowing a traditional Christian prayer in schools becomes "establishing a repressive theocracy." Advocating right-wing policies becomes "normalizing fascism" and advocating left-wing policies becomes "bringing us one step closer to gulags." Is there any escape from the polarization? Can a society with tolerance as a base-level goal remain stable against this sort of internal pressure to shred it?
  - Jare 9y ago
    You hit the nail on the head regarding the poisoned incentives. The most effective weapon against militant intolerance is education, not silence. Education to differentiate facts from lies, discourse from dialectics, logic from fallacy, etc.
golemiprague 9y ago
I am not sure banning their freedom of speech will solve any problem. I am pretty sure not letting them into christian countries will be much more useful policy and will not even go against the principles of western countries since they are not part of the country to start with and there is no obligation to let them in.
pjc50 9y ago
> The West is currently in the process of committing suicide. This one of those lines that, when it appears in an article, you know there's an error somewhere in the preceding thousand lines of argument, as surely as if it were a proof that 1 == 0. > an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy I'm more worried about intolerant minorities of privileged people who are currently in power destroying democracy, not least because they actually have the power.
- aparks517 9y ago
  The argument might be junk, but if you reject it solely because it points toward a conclusion that contradicts your pre-existing biases... I think you've left the path of wisdom.
  - rspeer 9y ago
    I don't think it's wisdom to spend your time on seriously considering every bad take you ever hear.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      True, but nobody said it was wise.
psyc 9y ago
It isn't necessary or desirable to prohibit the ban-speech party from speaking. This is my primary objection to political philosophies that favor minmaxing statistics with policy, over principles. I object in the extreme to the idea that if A->B->C->D->E->F->G->Hitler, then society has a duty to prohibit A at the expense of liberal principles. Start with banning G, if you absolutely must. Speech doesn't directly cause victory. It only seems that way if you're very afraid of something.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > Speech doesn't directly cause victory. It only seems that way if you're very afraid of something. People are afraid of democracy. They suspect that people on the whole are easy enough to manipulate that catastrophe is possible. They can't say that without seeming, well, undemocratic. So they try to ban dangerous speech instead.

adjkant 9y ago

> “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?” This is something philosophy has actually done well to detail. It's the paradox of tolerance, and I think the answer absolutely has to be yes. For those looking for easy surface level gotcha's, that seems like a problem. Dig deeper, and it's logically consistent with the belief of tolerance, for if one allows intolerance, their tolerance loses all value.

whatshisface 9y ago
The problem that opens up is the definition of intolerance. Are direct claims against the rights of others to believe something intolerant? Yes, they probably are. What about speaking against groups of people (in a broad sense, calling out some perceived problem with their behavior)? Well, sometimes that's intolerant, sometimes something needs to be said (maybe that group is the Inner Party and they're taking too much). What about speech that doesn't directly disparage anybody, but that makes certain people feel incredibly uncomfortable and unwelcome? Well, that can be exclusionary, but everything makes someone uncomfortable. (some Christians might not want you bringing evolution in to schools (which they perceive as just another competing ideology), and some trans people might not enjoy being picked apart in critical gender discussions everywhere they go. The reader might agree with one of those two but probably not both.) So, as you can see, it's really a microcosm of the idea that "we should support good and ban evil."
- adjkant 9y ago
  Agreed. I think the solution is to really pluck at those grey areas, as of course it's easy to work in black and white. To generalize, I think the general best course is to first understand why the intolerance exists, its validity, and then address it from there in ways still consistent with tolerance. Easier said than done of course, but I'm not intending to write a philosophical dissertation here fully. As a reminder that many who likely support this view need, you should be intolerant of intolerance, not people who hold intolerant beliefs or practice intolerance.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > ...not people who hold intolerant beliefs or practice intolerance. The problem is that we've done a splendid job blurring the lines between identities, beliefs, speech, and behavior. We have no ground rules for how to be intolerant of some things without seeming intolerant of the people that care deeply about those things.
- plainOldText 9y ago
  But we now we need a framework for defining what good and evil are. Some people defer this to their religion, while others take other philosophical avenues. Nietzsche’s perspectivism comes to mind here.
stale2002 9y ago
Ehh, I have found that people who argue in favor of this idea are generally the MOST intolerant of the bunch, and just want a righteous excuse to engage in their intolerance. People who are tolerant generally don't go looking around for excuses to be horrible to other people. An apt quote comes to mind: "The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
- adjkant 9y ago
  Not tolerating intolerance is not a license to be horrible to other people. I suspect this is a bad application of the philosophical idea, as with just about every other idea once it hits practical use. The challenge is synthesizing the idea into something consistent with the original idea yet simple enough to be effective in practice. My guess is that many people in favor aren't actually consistent themselves.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    > Not tolerating intolerance is not a license to be horrible to other people. And yet thats usually what people mean. People arguing in favor of this idea generally use it to justify whatever their anti-human rights opinion of the day is. Whether that is sending people to jail for speech, or banning certain political parties, or vigilante style assaults of people at protests, it is just simplified down to "an excuse to not feel back about being horrible to the 'enemy'", whoever that 'enemy' is, while ignoring all previously agreed upon rules of engagement in society (otherwise known as human rights). Whenever any of this stuff happens, and it is targeted against a sufficiently unpopular 'enemy', I always seem a mass of people linking to that paradox of tolerance wikipedia page.
    - adjkant 9y ago
      Again, improper use of an idea for justification of other ideas does not invalidate the original idea. I'm not siding with those cases, which, pending details, all seem like improper ways of dealing with intolerance.
DanAndersen 9y ago
It definitely makes sense -- any worldview (such as one that elevates tolerance as a virtue) has to build in safeguards that protect it against existential threats, or else it won't be a worldview that persists into the future for very long. The issue I'm grappling with that the solution to the "paradox of tolerance" (that it is OK to be intolerant of intolerance) is that it is good at defending against erosion of tolerance from external forces, but opens it up to erosion from internal forces. If the societal rules are "we choose to be tolerant except in the case of existential threats, in which case we nuke it from orbit", then the incentive becomes to paint mild disagreements into existential threats. Allowing Muslims to immigrate becomes "threat of sharia-law caliphate in 25 years." Allowing a traditional Christian prayer in schools becomes "establishing a repressive theocracy." Advocating right-wing policies becomes "normalizing fascism" and advocating left-wing policies becomes "bringing us one step closer to gulags." Is there any escape from the polarization? Can a society with tolerance as a base-level goal remain stable against this sort of internal pressure to shred it?
- Jare 9y ago
  You hit the nail on the head regarding the poisoned incentives. The most effective weapon against militant intolerance is education, not silence. Education to differentiate facts from lies, discourse from dialectics, logic from fallacy, etc.

golemiprague 9y ago

I am not sure banning their freedom of speech will solve any problem. I am pretty sure not letting them into christian countries will be much more useful policy and will not even go against the principles of western countries since they are not part of the country to start with and there is no obligation to let them in.

pjc50 9y ago

> The West is currently in the process of committing suicide. This one of those lines that, when it appears in an article, you know there's an error somewhere in the preceding thousand lines of argument, as surely as if it were a proof that 1 == 0. > an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy I'm more worried about intolerant minorities of privileged people who are currently in power destroying democracy, not least because they actually have the power.

aparks517 9y ago
The argument might be junk, but if you reject it solely because it points toward a conclusion that contradicts your pre-existing biases... I think you've left the path of wisdom.
- rspeer 9y ago
  I don't think it's wisdom to spend your time on seriously considering every bad take you ever hear.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    True, but nobody said it was wise.

psyc 9y ago

It isn't necessary or desirable to prohibit the ban-speech party from speaking. This is my primary objection to political philosophies that favor minmaxing statistics with policy, over principles. I object in the extreme to the idea that if A->B->C->D->E->F->G->Hitler, then society has a duty to prohibit A at the expense of liberal principles. Start with banning G, if you absolutely must. Speech doesn't directly cause victory. It only seems that way if you're very afraid of something.

humanrebar 9y ago
> Speech doesn't directly cause victory. It only seems that way if you're very afraid of something. People are afraid of democracy. They suspect that people on the whole are easy enough to manipulate that catastrophe is possible. They can't say that without seeming, well, undemocratic. So they try to ban dangerous speech instead.