5 ms·

Popper is literally talking about Soviets and Nazis marching into your country and killing dissidents. It's ridiculous to extend his thinking to our modern and

Popper is literally talking about Soviets and Nazis marching into your country and killing dissidents. It's ridiculous to extend his thinking to our modern and relatively mild transgressions.

vkou 4y ago
I don't think Popper was so daft as to believe that only Soviets and Nazis are capable of the kind of intolerance that should not be tolerated. I'd daresay that democracies happily carrying out repressions, summary executions, lynchings, concentration camps, institutionalized slavery, etc, etc would meet that bar as well. You don't need to drape a swastika around you to be a fascist, you can get by just as well with any other flag.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  The point is that he wasn't talking about people saying dumb shit on twitter. He's talking about people using intolerance to justify physical violence against people.
  - vkou 4y ago
    You are wrong. That's exactly the point he is making. That we have to take action against intolerance before it gets to the point of physical violence. > 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. The thing he wants suppressed here is the act of 'denouncing all argument' and of 'forbidding their followers to listen to rational argument' and of 'teaching them to answer arguments by the use of (force)'. Any of these Quips remind you of anything in modern discourse? They should. Because he's not interested in seeing if their grab for power is actually going to work or not, before suppressing it. To continue quoting Popper: > We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. And a lot of the shit on Twitter today is ranges from skirting those lines to stepping right over them. He views this behavior on a spectrum of borderline-to-actual criminal. If what he was preaching was 'wait for fascists to start beating people/doing the Beer Hall Putsch/invading Poland before doing anything about them', it wouldn't be called The Paradox of Tolerance. There's nothing paradoxical about stopping intolerant violent action after it starts. What's paradoxical is that you have to stop intolerant violent action before it starts, by stopping intolerant non-violent action.
    - dleslie 4y ago
      I've often considered that his paradox lays in the fact that he advocates for intolerance towards those who advocate intolerance. But in practice it needn't be a paradox, in practice, would it? In the same way that we grant the state a monopoly on violence, we could grant the state a monopoly on intolerance. And we do, here in Canada, by way of hate speech laws and charter protections for various protected aspects of persons. The state is intolerant of intolerance, and it works pretty ok.
  - immibis 4y ago
    When the dumb shit on twitter is justifying physical violence, does it count? Even *that* line is blurry. If you forbid people from directly inciting violence, they'll jump to "Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and then someone will, in fact, rid them of the meddlesome priest. Did they incite it? Who can say?
cycomanic 4y ago
I'd like to point out that the US had people with literally Nazi flags walking through the streets attacking people who looked different, supported by a significant portion of the establishment (including a president). I would not call that minor transgressions. How do you think Hitler got into power?
- nostromo 4y ago
  This endless catastrophizing, something you're taking part in, is a big part of the problem. Trump isn't Hitler and Antifa burning down police stations is not the Warsaw Uprising.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    I never said that Trump was Hitler. That's a completely irrelevant statement. Obviously no leader in a western country is going to say I will become the next Hitler, even Putin does not glorify him. That doesn't take away from the fact that he had/has extremely strong totalitarian tendencies, is continuing to undermine the democratic processes and sympathises with open white supremacists. I as someone from a country who knows a big deal about how the dangers of fascism am certainly worried if the world's most powerful man talks like that.

Popper is literally talking about Soviets and Nazis marching into your country and killing dissidents. It's ridiculous to extend his thinking to our modern and relatively mild transgressions.

vkou 4y ago

I don't think Popper was so daft as to believe that only Soviets and Nazis are capable of the kind of intolerance that should not be tolerated. I'd daresay that democracies happily carrying out repressions, summary executions, lynchings, concentration camps, institutionalized slavery, etc, etc would meet that bar as well. You don't need to drape a swastika around you to be a fascist, you can get by just as well with any other flag.

bcrosby95 4y ago
The point is that he wasn't talking about people saying dumb shit on twitter. He's talking about people using intolerance to justify physical violence against people.
- vkou 4y ago
  You are wrong. That's exactly the point he is making. That we have to take action against intolerance before it gets to the point of physical violence. > 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. The thing he wants suppressed here is the act of 'denouncing all argument' and of 'forbidding their followers to listen to rational argument' and of 'teaching them to answer arguments by the use of (force)'. Any of these Quips remind you of anything in modern discourse? They should. Because he's not interested in seeing if their grab for power is actually going to work or not, before suppressing it. To continue quoting Popper: > We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. And a lot of the shit on Twitter today is ranges from skirting those lines to stepping right over them. He views this behavior on a spectrum of borderline-to-actual criminal. If what he was preaching was 'wait for fascists to start beating people/doing the Beer Hall Putsch/invading Poland before doing anything about them', it wouldn't be called The Paradox of Tolerance. There's nothing paradoxical about stopping intolerant violent action after it starts. What's paradoxical is that you have to stop intolerant violent action before it starts, by stopping intolerant non-violent action.
  - dleslie 4y ago
    I've often considered that his paradox lays in the fact that he advocates for intolerance towards those who advocate intolerance. But in practice it needn't be a paradox, in practice, would it? In the same way that we grant the state a monopoly on violence, we could grant the state a monopoly on intolerance. And we do, here in Canada, by way of hate speech laws and charter protections for various protected aspects of persons. The state is intolerant of intolerance, and it works pretty ok.
- immibis 4y ago
  When the dumb shit on twitter is justifying physical violence, does it count? Even *that* line is blurry. If you forbid people from directly inciting violence, they'll jump to "Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and then someone will, in fact, rid them of the meddlesome priest. Did they incite it? Who can say?

cycomanic 4y ago

I'd like to point out that the US had people with literally Nazi flags walking through the streets attacking people who looked different, supported by a significant portion of the establishment (including a president). I would not call that minor transgressions. How do you think Hitler got into power?

nostromo 4y ago
This endless catastrophizing, something you're taking part in, is a big part of the problem. Trump isn't Hitler and Antifa burning down police stations is not the Warsaw Uprising.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  I never said that Trump was Hitler. That's a completely irrelevant statement. Obviously no leader in a western country is going to say I will become the next Hitler, even Putin does not glorify him. That doesn't take away from the fact that he had/has extremely strong totalitarian tendencies, is continuing to undermine the democratic processes and sympathises with open white supremacists. I as someone from a country who knows a big deal about how the dangers of fascism am certainly worried if the world's most powerful man talks like that.