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>Please explain your reasoning. I think this is getting to your fundamental misunderstanding about what tolerating speech and opinions you disagree with means.

by slg 4y ago

>Please explain your reasoning. I think this is getting to your fundamental misunderstanding about what tolerating speech and opinions you disagree with means. Levine and USA Today (I mistakenly said WaPo before) are using a definition of women that includes trans women. The Babylon Bee disagree with them. There are a few different ways the BB could react. The most tolerant way would be to not say anything because Levine and USA Today's definitions don't impact them. A less tolerant way would be to denote their disagreement through a related article that doesn't directly address Levine or USA Today. They could have had a cat winning at the Westminster Dog Show or whatever. That gets their point across without confrontation. They chose an even less tolerant response. They directly mocked Levine and USA Today with derision and indirectly made Levine a target for future harassment. That behavior isn't tolerant. Compare this to a scenario in which the tolerance debate is about a more discreet moral/immoral issue. Imagine I am anti-Semitic and hated when Bernie Sanders ran for President. The most tolerant response would be to keep that hate to myself and just vote for someone else. The less tolerant response would be to maybe write some webcomic in which the Happy Merchant meme disastrously runs for President to indirectly mock Sanders. The most intolerant response would be to name that webcomic character Bernie Sanders and reply to all his tweets with a link to the comic. That is what the Babylon Bee effectively did by directly promoting Levine as a target for ridicule to an audience that they had to know would harass her. >This is not a correct use of the meaning of tolerance. You could say they didn't tolerate twitter's terms of service or moderation demands, but not that they didn't tolerate twitter's "definitions", so it's just muddying the waters here I think because of the asymmetric positions of the two parties when we're talking about speech on twitter's platform. So we should focus on how BB is not tolerating Levine or WaPo first. Twitter's ToS on this issue use a definition of women that includes trans women. Otherwise, misgendering someone wouldn't be against Twitter's rules.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
> Levine and USA Today (I mistakenly said WaPo before) are using a definition of women that includes trans women. The Babylon Bee disagree with them. There are a few different ways the BB could react. > The most tolerant way would be to not say anything because Levine and USA Today's definitions don't impact them. > A less tolerant way would be to denote their disagreement through a related article that doesn't directly address Levine or USA Today. They could have had a cat winning at the Westminster Dog Show or whatever. That gets their point across without confrontation. > They chose an even less tolerant response. They directly mocked Levine and USA Today with derision That's simply not what tolerating the words and opinions of others means though. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree, you can't voice your disagreement, or you can't mock or satirize. > and indirectly made Levine a target for future harassment. That behavior isn't tolerant. Satirizing that USA Today award is not intolerant of their speech, because it is not calling for or taking action against an individual or group and their right or ability to speak. And everybody's opinions and disagreements and speech can have good and bad intended and unintended consequences. People who believe sex and gender are the same and trans is a mental illness can be made subject to harassment by people who argue against them or mock them in public too. You can argue that's not that's a good thing and whether or not tolerance of speech and opinions promotes that (more than intolerance would), but you can't just call it intolerance just because you don't like it.
- slg 4y ago
  >That's simply not what tolerating the words and opinions of others means though. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree, you can't voice your disagreement, or you can't mock or satirize. >Satirizing that USA Today award is not intolerant of their speech, because it is not calling for or taking action against an individual or group and their right or ability to speak. Does that mean that you would consider mocking Jewish beliefs and calling them lies to be tolerant because it isn't calling for action against Jewish people? If not, how is it different from mocking Levine's identity? > People who believe sex and gender are the same and trans is a mental illness can be made subject to harassment by people who argue against them or mock them in public too. True, but that is the paradox of tolerance. No one cares what your personal definition is if you keep it to yourself. Those people will only get met with intolerance when they voice their own intolerance.
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    > Does that mean that you would consider mocking Jewish beliefs and calling them lies to be tolerant because it isn't calling for action against Jewish people? If not, how is it different from mocking Levine's identity? No, I would not call any kind of speaking being tolerant, because that's not what tolerance means. You seem to be struggling badly with this simple concept, or at least pretending to be. It could be intolerant, if you were calling for some action against a person, but it doesn't make sense to call it tolerant just because it's not intolerant. Tolerance does not mean anybody's ideas or opinions or beliefs are sacred and protected from disagreement or mockery. It's almost implied in the word really, I don't see why this is such a struggle - tolerance [for opinions I don't agree with]. Should Christians or Muslims or Atheists have protection from criticism or mockery? No, so I'm definitely about equality when it comes to Jews. How about you? > True, but that is the paradox of tolerance. Tolerance is not a magical silver bullet that has no problems. > No one cares what your personal definition is if you keep it to yourself. Those people will only get met with intolerance when they voice their own intolerance. That's still not what intolerance means, but sure censoring or banning or threatening people who voice opinions you disagree with is an alternative to tolerance, which you seemed to be talking about in the original comment I replied to. It goes both ways, right?

by slg 4y ago

throwawaylinux 4y ago

> Levine and USA Today (I mistakenly said WaPo before) are using a definition of women that includes trans women. The Babylon Bee disagree with them. There are a few different ways the BB could react. > The most tolerant way would be to not say anything because Levine and USA Today's definitions don't impact them. > A less tolerant way would be to denote their disagreement through a related article that doesn't directly address Levine or USA Today. They could have had a cat winning at the Westminster Dog Show or whatever. That gets their point across without confrontation. > They chose an even less tolerant response. They directly mocked Levine and USA Today with derision That's simply not what tolerating the words and opinions of others means though. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree, you can't voice your disagreement, or you can't mock or satirize. > and indirectly made Levine a target for future harassment. That behavior isn't tolerant. Satirizing that USA Today award is not intolerant of their speech, because it is not calling for or taking action against an individual or group and their right or ability to speak. And everybody's opinions and disagreements and speech can have good and bad intended and unintended consequences. People who believe sex and gender are the same and trans is a mental illness can be made subject to harassment by people who argue against them or mock them in public too. You can argue that's not that's a good thing and whether or not tolerance of speech and opinions promotes that (more than intolerance would), but you can't just call it intolerance just because you don't like it.

slg 4y ago
>That's simply not what tolerating the words and opinions of others means though. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree, you can't voice your disagreement, or you can't mock or satirize. >Satirizing that USA Today award is not intolerant of their speech, because it is not calling for or taking action against an individual or group and their right or ability to speak. Does that mean that you would consider mocking Jewish beliefs and calling them lies to be tolerant because it isn't calling for action against Jewish people? If not, how is it different from mocking Levine's identity? > People who believe sex and gender are the same and trans is a mental illness can be made subject to harassment by people who argue against them or mock them in public too. True, but that is the paradox of tolerance. No one cares what your personal definition is if you keep it to yourself. Those people will only get met with intolerance when they voice their own intolerance.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  > Does that mean that you would consider mocking Jewish beliefs and calling them lies to be tolerant because it isn't calling for action against Jewish people? If not, how is it different from mocking Levine's identity? No, I would not call any kind of speaking being tolerant, because that's not what tolerance means. You seem to be struggling badly with this simple concept, or at least pretending to be. It could be intolerant, if you were calling for some action against a person, but it doesn't make sense to call it tolerant just because it's not intolerant. Tolerance does not mean anybody's ideas or opinions or beliefs are sacred and protected from disagreement or mockery. It's almost implied in the word really, I don't see why this is such a struggle - tolerance [for opinions I don't agree with]. Should Christians or Muslims or Atheists have protection from criticism or mockery? No, so I'm definitely about equality when it comes to Jews. How about you? > True, but that is the paradox of tolerance. Tolerance is not a magical silver bullet that has no problems. > No one cares what your personal definition is if you keep it to yourself. Those people will only get met with intolerance when they voice their own intolerance. That's still not what intolerance means, but sure censoring or banning or threatening people who voice opinions you disagree with is an alternative to tolerance, which you seemed to be talking about in the original comment I replied to. It goes both ways, right?