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The thing is that there are some things you shouldn't tolerate. Ideas like racism or homophobia are deeper than just a difference in worldview, they actually hu

The thing is that there are some things you shouldn't tolerate. Ideas like racism or homophobia are deeper than just a difference in worldview, they actually hurt real people. For me personally I won't tolerate homophobia for public figures because I have multiple people in my family who are LGBTQ and I've seen that sort of rhetoric hurt the people I care about. That being said I always believe people can grow so if they've apologized for it in the past I'm willing to give them a second chance. Edit: the whole point of what people generally term tolerance is to lessen pain for people who have been marginalized. "Tolerating" the people who cause that pain is running counter to that movement. Edit2: tolerance has not and should not be unconditional, to point out an extreme case no one has ever asked me to tolerate an unprepentant rapist or murderer, lack of tolerance for people who are actively causing harm is fairly well established.

rayiner 7y ago
I also won’t support racism or homophobia in public figures. But I’d also add (big-S) socialism to the list. In terms of deaths caused and prosperity foregone, socialism is right up there in terms of “actually hurting real people.” How many fewer babies would be dead in India or China had those countries embraced market mechanisms decades earlier? That’s a quantifiable harm, and it's massive. But I suspect many people would agree with two of mine, but not the third. So that brings me to the question: how do you decide what’s intolerable? Harm can’t be the only criteria because many genuinely held positions are so held because people believe that other approaches will hurt real people. And who gets to decide what falls into the category of “intolerable ideas?” People don’t usually express comic book villain versions of those ideas. Who is racist--Harvard, or the asians suing it over its admission policies? In response to your edit: defining tolerance in terms of effect on marginalized groups is admirable, but it leads to somewhat paradoxical results. Ideas that hurt a broad segment of society are tolerable, while ideas that affect fewer people are intolerable?
- tdb7893 7y ago
  We never will all agree on what is intolerable and that's overall healthy for society, it's how we allow ourselves to grow. I don't want to argue for what is tolerable or not, just that for me I'm comfortable not tolerating certain things.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Tolerating certain things, or tolerating certain people? OP is about kicking people out of society for single past errors.
lonelappde 7y ago
EVERYONE is racist. So what do we do? Cancel humanity? "Intolerance of intolerance" is just the latest nickname for tribal battles, that relies on insane acrobatics like computing who has the most intersectional victimhood in order to determine who has to be #cancelled and who is a hero "punching up".

rayiner 7y ago

I also won’t support racism or homophobia in public figures. But I’d also add (big-S) socialism to the list. In terms of deaths caused and prosperity foregone, socialism is right up there in terms of “actually hurting real people.” How many fewer babies would be dead in India or China had those countries embraced market mechanisms decades earlier? That’s a quantifiable harm, and it's massive. But I suspect many people would agree with two of mine, but not the third. So that brings me to the question: how do you decide what’s intolerable? Harm can’t be the only criteria because many genuinely held positions are so held because people believe that other approaches will hurt real people. And who gets to decide what falls into the category of “intolerable ideas?” People don’t usually express comic book villain versions of those ideas. Who is racist--Harvard, or the asians suing it over its admission policies? In response to your edit: defining tolerance in terms of effect on marginalized groups is admirable, but it leads to somewhat paradoxical results. Ideas that hurt a broad segment of society are tolerable, while ideas that affect fewer people are intolerable?

tdb7893 7y ago
We never will all agree on what is intolerable and that's overall healthy for society, it's how we allow ourselves to grow. I don't want to argue for what is tolerable or not, just that for me I'm comfortable not tolerating certain things.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Tolerating certain things, or tolerating certain people? OP is about kicking people out of society for single past errors.

lonelappde 7y ago

EVERYONE is racist. So what do we do? Cancel humanity? "Intolerance of intolerance" is just the latest nickname for tribal battles, that relies on insane acrobatics like computing who has the most intersectional victimhood in order to determine who has to be #cancelled and who is a hero "punching up".