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This essay falls into the same trap I see among a lot of my liberal (as opposed to socialist) peers: it assumes tolerance is something admirable, desirable, or

This essay falls into the same trap I see among a lot of my liberal (as opposed to socialist) peers: it assumes tolerance is something admirable, desirable, or fundamentally good. That's how you fall into the "tolerance of intolerance" paradoxical rabbit hole, and IMO, it's largely performative. My stance on the subject, in contrast, is that tolerance isn't good enough. I'm not "tolerant" of gay people, as that suggests that their sexual orientation should disqualify them from my in-group, but that I would tolerate them anyway. No, I just don't see sexual orientation as a qualification for my peer group. Same goes for any other immutable characteristic of someone's existence. People, tabula rasa, are people, and that qualifies them for my respect. But of course, people by the time I'm interacting with them are not blank slates. They have opinions, stances, and world views that they have acquired and incorporated into their identities, which they then act on to form histories. These perfectly mutable facets of their existence are entirely open to judgement. I'm tolerant of the merely tolerant, not because it's some unqualified good, but because it's just not bad enough to warrant exclusion from my inclusive-by-default in-group. People willing to openly state their bigotry towards people I consider my peers disqualify themselves from my respect. People willing to act on those bigoted beliefs cross the line into "evil". In my opinion, this forms a far more consistent world view compared to the "tolerance is an unqualified good" stance.

fallingknife 3y ago
You could have saved a lot of words by just writing "there are good people and bad people, and I, of course, am one of the good people." Have you really never considered the implications of the fact that your bad people also think they are the good people?
- erulabs 3y ago
  I think the point being made is that there is a limit to tolerance and what might be called multicultural or post modernism. I took the original comments point to be: all humans deserve respect intrinsically, but evil does exist and should not be tolerated. Yes, evil doers think they’re good. Is there a way to objectively judge this? No. This is the classical liberal dilemma re military action. Let’s be tolerant of everyone except those who belong to groups explicitly making the world worse. Is that a subjective measure? Yes. Does that mean we shouldn’t, to use a modern phrase, “punch Nazis”? No, punch away. Everyone has the moral authority and responsibility to act to reduce suffering.
  - fallingknife 3y ago
    If everyone has the moral authority, then you realize that your enemies think the same way, right? And you realize that you have just given them license to punch you too, right? How can you believe that other people can err in their judgement of themselves and others and at the same time assume that you are immune to the same error? It's completely ridiculous.
    - erulabs 3y ago
      Oh but that's the entire point! I do not assume I'm immune to the same error - in fact introspecting on this continuously is absolutely vital. What I'm arguing against is inaction in the face of uncertainty. The phrase "punch nazis" polluted my point. Violence against the violent is justifiable. Yes, my enemies can think the same way; this is why armed conflict exists in our world, and why being blanket "anti-war" or "anti-violence" for that matter is unfortunately naive. It's not idealism, its pragmatism.
      - at_a_remove 3y ago
        Alright. Imagine a non-violent Nazi. They're not punching anyone. Your natural move is to claim (their) speech as harmful. This inevitably descends into "My violence is merely political speech, but their political speech is violence," inverting the meaning of things.
        neaden 3y ago
        You can't be a non-violent Nazi, violence and the idea that racial groups are constantly at war with each other is an inherent part of the ideology. There is at best a Nazi who due to the circumstances around them is not choosing to engage in violence yet.
        at_a_remove 3y ago
        Ah, but look around at people pointed at and referred to as Nazis. That's the rub, isn't it? And if you're advocating punching them, then violence is an inherent part of your ideology. That's why they call it horseshoe theory.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Other people believing in different ethical frameworks only matters if you think other people can't be wrong. I fully acknowledge that just about everybody says that they aren't evil. Yet there are still plenty of people doing evil things. That leaves three possibilities: Either people are lying about thinking their actions are good (I like to think this is rare, as I have a generally positive view of people), I'm wrong about what is good and what is evil, or they're wrong about what is good and what is evil. I like to think that the fact that my beliefs are based on an axiomatic framework of suffering bad, free will good, and innocence by default makes them more likely to be correct than a knee-jerk disgust response of "gay people are icky", but maybe I'm biased. Regardless, between the latter two possibilities, in terms of praxis there is little difference. When two people hold fundamentally contradictory axiomatic beliefs, I fully expect both the fight to protect them and theirs. I don't fault them for choosing to fight. I fault them for the beliefs they're fighting for.
sqeaky 3y ago
You just described yourself as tolerant. Tolerance in this context isn't the casual use, rather it means that you don't treat people differently for those immutable characteristics, however you get there. I don't think I agree with tolerance being performative. I currently live in the Midwest and deal with many people who do foul things because of their intolerance. People here disown gay sons and daughters, then try to commiserate with me about how hard their life is when they fucked someone's life who wasn't hurting anyone. These people are clearly intolerant in the way these "performative" liberals want to end societally. Signaling to others, via things like pride flags, indicates that in some context, they will be "tolerated". For being black or gay, at PayPal offices you won't be attacked, fired, denied financial services, but at Farm Credit you very will might be. Simply waving flags is imperfect, but some signal is better than none, I had to work at farm credit to see the racism first hand (and quit because of it). While my peers at PayPal have mechanisms to defend themselves and their peers from issues around this even thought it is imperfect.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  The essay above was all about how there's no virtue in tolerating those that you have no issue with. That requires that a given individuals belief system includes two overlapping sets of people, between those that you have no issue with, and those that you treat with basic dignity. The difference between those two sets are the people you merely tolerate.
jstanley 3y ago
From the essay: > The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: “Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Virtue Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?” > Bodhidharma answers: “None at all”. > The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why. > Bodhidharma asks: “Well, what do you think of gay people?” > The Emperor answers: “What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!” > And Bodhidharma answers: “Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!”
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  My point was that you gain no merit for tolerating them even if you did have something against them. Tolerance is not a virtue. There is virtue in having nothing against as many people as you can.
  - jstanley 3y ago
    Sorry to keep quoting parts of the essay in here, but I think the essay puts it better than I would: > To borrow Chesterton’s example, if you think divorce is a-ok, then you don’t get to “forgive” people their divorces, you merely ignore them. Someone who thinks divorce is abhorrent can “forgive” divorce. You can forgive theft, or murder, or tax evasion, or something you find abhorrent. > I mean, from a utilitarian point of view, you are still doing the correct action of not giving people grief because they’re a divorcee. You can have all the Utility Points you want. All I’m saying is that if you “forgive” something you don’t care about, you don’t earn any Virtue Points.
JackFr 3y ago
> People willing to openly state their bigotry towards people I consider my peers disqualify themselves from my respect. That is to say, people with whom you disagree.
- bittercynic 3y ago
  Openly expressed bigotry seems like a special type of disagreement to me.
  - zogrodea 3y ago
    Some will argue that "bigotry" has suffered from concept creep though. People will readily call me one for saying I believe gender is immutable or that I believe intercourse with the same gender is a sin, but I'm not wishing any harm to those who disagree.
    - sixstringtheory 3y ago
      > I'm not wishing any harm I just wanted to note the progression from "disqualify themselves from my respect" to "wishing harm". What is your definition of bigotry?
      - zogrodea 3y ago
        (Clarifying, because you brought up disrespect, that I don’t believe in disrespecting them for their beliefs; they are just humans like you and me with their own struggles.) I don’t use the word “bigot” because of the flimsy usage I’ve observed from others. Enough people use it to mean express anger/dislike (like how someone uses “ouch” to express pain) that I don’t associate it with semantic content.
        sixstringtheory 3y ago
        I didn’t bring it up, it was a quote from the article that was being discussed upthread. I don’t believe in disrespecting anyone because of their beliefs prima facie. It’s how they react to those beliefs being challenged that I find myself losing respect for them over. It’s like the difference between “suffer the little children, for they know not what they do” and “ whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble”. Now I can’t speak for the article’s author or the other replies above us, but to me that is the kind of bigotry I have problems with. In my experience, people who hold beliefs like “black people innately are more criminal” react more immaturely to discussion than people discussing the underpinnings of astrophysics do. Also note that my spectrum for respect is orthogonal to my spectrum for love/hate. Just because I don’t respect someone due to their beliefs doesn’t necessarily mean I hate them or think they are evil. But I’m less likely to be influenced by their opinions in the future, or to even give them the time to listen to what their opinions are on other things.
galangalalgol 3y ago
While I get the rest of it, I don't follow on using immutability as the test of what you are non-judgmental towards. People can have immutable qualities that are completely incompatible with any form of social contract. I'm thinking violent behavior attributed to various mental disorders. Disorder being applied not as a judgment, but simply to indicate it doesn't allow them to have what they consider a fulfilling life, what with the rest of us commiting them involuntarily. There may or may not be medications or treatments that might modify those situations. If there are, then we are asking them to modify their natural state to be accepted. I think in that specific case and perhaps others it is reasonable of me to demand that of my in-group. I don't want to get stabbed because they were instructed by a command delusion. I know the medicine and treatments are not ideal. And if they fail to comply with treatment, or it doesn't work, I reserve the right to judge them for their nature. The parallels for orientation are clearly there, and given enough clockwork orange type abuse, I'm sure you could make me attracted or repelled by just about anything, but I don't choose to judge people with sexual orientations that differ from mine, not because it is their immutable state, but because there are no valid arguments for it harming me or society at large. Population seems to be managing itself. If it was runaway, I might judge people who engaged in behavior that might add to the population, and if there was barely a breeding population of us left, I might judge those who didn't.
at_a_remove 3y ago
There's a few holes in that. First, you've got sexual orientation as an immutable characteristic. From some queer people I know saying that they had experiences which changed their mind or that there was some choice (that "lived experience" people go on about, as well as some of my own) to the quite obvious political stratagem of saying someone was "born that way" as a way to deflect blame (which never really held much water; a group willing to accept Original Sin as a concept would find Born That Way to be little more than a speedbump). And then you bring in tabula rasa, which itself contradicts "born that way." But sure, let's just ignore that paradox. Can we think of other born characteristics we might not find appealing? Quite a lot of personality disorders appear to arise from genetics, and yet you might find someone with Borderline Personality Disorder less than optimal company. Must you tolerate that? Consistency, if anything, is a poor metric when it comes to anything as complex as people. "Destroy anyone not of my ethnic group" is consistent and simple. Do not fall in love with either. If anything, the concept of tolerance itself is a trap, creating dividing lines everywhere. Worse yet, it allows someone to feel "just." This is perhaps one of the more dangerous emotions one can experience and consider as moral. A person who thinks of themselves as just is "justfied." Examine the words associated with "justified," even the television show. Consider the history of those who thought of themselves as justified. I feel just, I may then relent on my self-examination. It's a way to sidestep the endless labor of wondering, "Am I doing something right?" Observing, thinking, considering: these are all weights that humans quite naturally want to put down. How easy, how self-satisfying it is to say "Punch that Nazi!" And of course you first must judge that person to be a Nazi, but even before that you're twiddling your definitions, making them expansive enough to pin that label on someone, all for the simple joy of feeling like it is okay to hit someone, that they are evil and deserving. The ecstasy of self-righteousness ought to be Schedule I. Give me uncertainty and doubt. Dispel that self-assurance. Going around deciding whom to tolerate invites judgment, as if one were all-knowing and infallible. We are not.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Sexual orientation being immutable or not really isn't that big a deal. Not hating people because of their immutable characteristics was chosen as relatively uncontroversial manifestation of my axiomatic belief of innocence by default. People are good, unless they do something bad. Probably should have phrased it as the more accurate "non-harmful" characteristics, in hindsight. Once your philosophy is consistent, there's little room for philosophical debate. Faced with someone with the philosophy of "Destroy anyone not of my ethnic group", the course of action isn't to debate philosophy with them. It's to shoot them. That's why it's important to have a consistent ideology: So you know when the time for words has ended. At that point, "Punch that Nazi" is a good start.

fallingknife 3y ago

You could have saved a lot of words by just writing "there are good people and bad people, and I, of course, am one of the good people." Have you really never considered the implications of the fact that your bad people also think they are the good people?

erulabs 3y ago
I think the point being made is that there is a limit to tolerance and what might be called multicultural or post modernism. I took the original comments point to be: all humans deserve respect intrinsically, but evil does exist and should not be tolerated. Yes, evil doers think they’re good. Is there a way to objectively judge this? No. This is the classical liberal dilemma re military action. Let’s be tolerant of everyone except those who belong to groups explicitly making the world worse. Is that a subjective measure? Yes. Does that mean we shouldn’t, to use a modern phrase, “punch Nazis”? No, punch away. Everyone has the moral authority and responsibility to act to reduce suffering.
- fallingknife 3y ago
  If everyone has the moral authority, then you realize that your enemies think the same way, right? And you realize that you have just given them license to punch you too, right? How can you believe that other people can err in their judgement of themselves and others and at the same time assume that you are immune to the same error? It's completely ridiculous.
  - erulabs 3y ago
    Oh but that's the entire point! I do not assume I'm immune to the same error - in fact introspecting on this continuously is absolutely vital. What I'm arguing against is inaction in the face of uncertainty. The phrase "punch nazis" polluted my point. Violence against the violent is justifiable. Yes, my enemies can think the same way; this is why armed conflict exists in our world, and why being blanket "anti-war" or "anti-violence" for that matter is unfortunately naive. It's not idealism, its pragmatism.
    - at_a_remove 3y ago
      Alright. Imagine a non-violent Nazi. They're not punching anyone. Your natural move is to claim (their) speech as harmful. This inevitably descends into "My violence is merely political speech, but their political speech is violence," inverting the meaning of things.
      - neaden 3y ago
        You can't be a non-violent Nazi, violence and the idea that racial groups are constantly at war with each other is an inherent part of the ideology. There is at best a Nazi who due to the circumstances around them is not choosing to engage in violence yet.
        at_a_remove 3y ago
        Ah, but look around at people pointed at and referred to as Nazis. That's the rub, isn't it? And if you're advocating punching them, then violence is an inherent part of your ideology. That's why they call it horseshoe theory.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Other people believing in different ethical frameworks only matters if you think other people can't be wrong. I fully acknowledge that just about everybody says that they aren't evil. Yet there are still plenty of people doing evil things. That leaves three possibilities: Either people are lying about thinking their actions are good (I like to think this is rare, as I have a generally positive view of people), I'm wrong about what is good and what is evil, or they're wrong about what is good and what is evil. I like to think that the fact that my beliefs are based on an axiomatic framework of suffering bad, free will good, and innocence by default makes them more likely to be correct than a knee-jerk disgust response of "gay people are icky", but maybe I'm biased. Regardless, between the latter two possibilities, in terms of praxis there is little difference. When two people hold fundamentally contradictory axiomatic beliefs, I fully expect both the fight to protect them and theirs. I don't fault them for choosing to fight. I fault them for the beliefs they're fighting for.

sqeaky 3y ago

You just described yourself as tolerant. Tolerance in this context isn't the casual use, rather it means that you don't treat people differently for those immutable characteristics, however you get there. I don't think I agree with tolerance being performative. I currently live in the Midwest and deal with many people who do foul things because of their intolerance. People here disown gay sons and daughters, then try to commiserate with me about how hard their life is when they fucked someone's life who wasn't hurting anyone. These people are clearly intolerant in the way these "performative" liberals want to end societally. Signaling to others, via things like pride flags, indicates that in some context, they will be "tolerated". For being black or gay, at PayPal offices you won't be attacked, fired, denied financial services, but at Farm Credit you very will might be. Simply waving flags is imperfect, but some signal is better than none, I had to work at farm credit to see the racism first hand (and quit because of it). While my peers at PayPal have mechanisms to defend themselves and their peers from issues around this even thought it is imperfect.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
The essay above was all about how there's no virtue in tolerating those that you have no issue with. That requires that a given individuals belief system includes two overlapping sets of people, between those that you have no issue with, and those that you treat with basic dignity. The difference between those two sets are the people you merely tolerate.

jstanley 3y ago

From the essay: > The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: “Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Virtue Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?” > Bodhidharma answers: “None at all”. > The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why. > Bodhidharma asks: “Well, what do you think of gay people?” > The Emperor answers: “What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!” > And Bodhidharma answers: “Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!”

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
My point was that you gain no merit for tolerating them even if you did have something against them. Tolerance is not a virtue. There is virtue in having nothing against as many people as you can.
- jstanley 3y ago
  Sorry to keep quoting parts of the essay in here, but I think the essay puts it better than I would: > To borrow Chesterton’s example, if you think divorce is a-ok, then you don’t get to “forgive” people their divorces, you merely ignore them. Someone who thinks divorce is abhorrent can “forgive” divorce. You can forgive theft, or murder, or tax evasion, or something you find abhorrent. > I mean, from a utilitarian point of view, you are still doing the correct action of not giving people grief because they’re a divorcee. You can have all the Utility Points you want. All I’m saying is that if you “forgive” something you don’t care about, you don’t earn any Virtue Points.

JackFr 3y ago

> People willing to openly state their bigotry towards people I consider my peers disqualify themselves from my respect. That is to say, people with whom you disagree.

bittercynic 3y ago
Openly expressed bigotry seems like a special type of disagreement to me.
- zogrodea 3y ago
  Some will argue that "bigotry" has suffered from concept creep though. People will readily call me one for saying I believe gender is immutable or that I believe intercourse with the same gender is a sin, but I'm not wishing any harm to those who disagree.
  - sixstringtheory 3y ago
    > I'm not wishing any harm I just wanted to note the progression from "disqualify themselves from my respect" to "wishing harm". What is your definition of bigotry?
    - zogrodea 3y ago
      (Clarifying, because you brought up disrespect, that I don’t believe in disrespecting them for their beliefs; they are just humans like you and me with their own struggles.) I don’t use the word “bigot” because of the flimsy usage I’ve observed from others. Enough people use it to mean express anger/dislike (like how someone uses “ouch” to express pain) that I don’t associate it with semantic content.
      - sixstringtheory 3y ago
        I didn’t bring it up, it was a quote from the article that was being discussed upthread. I don’t believe in disrespecting anyone because of their beliefs prima facie. It’s how they react to those beliefs being challenged that I find myself losing respect for them over. It’s like the difference between “suffer the little children, for they know not what they do” and “ whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble”. Now I can’t speak for the article’s author or the other replies above us, but to me that is the kind of bigotry I have problems with. In my experience, people who hold beliefs like “black people innately are more criminal” react more immaturely to discussion than people discussing the underpinnings of astrophysics do. Also note that my spectrum for respect is orthogonal to my spectrum for love/hate. Just because I don’t respect someone due to their beliefs doesn’t necessarily mean I hate them or think they are evil. But I’m less likely to be influenced by their opinions in the future, or to even give them the time to listen to what their opinions are on other things.

galangalalgol 3y ago

While I get the rest of it, I don't follow on using immutability as the test of what you are non-judgmental towards. People can have immutable qualities that are completely incompatible with any form of social contract. I'm thinking violent behavior attributed to various mental disorders. Disorder being applied not as a judgment, but simply to indicate it doesn't allow them to have what they consider a fulfilling life, what with the rest of us commiting them involuntarily. There may or may not be medications or treatments that might modify those situations. If there are, then we are asking them to modify their natural state to be accepted. I think in that specific case and perhaps others it is reasonable of me to demand that of my in-group. I don't want to get stabbed because they were instructed by a command delusion. I know the medicine and treatments are not ideal. And if they fail to comply with treatment, or it doesn't work, I reserve the right to judge them for their nature. The parallels for orientation are clearly there, and given enough clockwork orange type abuse, I'm sure you could make me attracted or repelled by just about anything, but I don't choose to judge people with sexual orientations that differ from mine, not because it is their immutable state, but because there are no valid arguments for it harming me or society at large. Population seems to be managing itself. If it was runaway, I might judge people who engaged in behavior that might add to the population, and if there was barely a breeding population of us left, I might judge those who didn't.

at_a_remove 3y ago

There's a few holes in that. First, you've got sexual orientation as an immutable characteristic. From some queer people I know saying that they had experiences which changed their mind or that there was some choice (that "lived experience" people go on about, as well as some of my own) to the quite obvious political stratagem of saying someone was "born that way" as a way to deflect blame (which never really held much water; a group willing to accept Original Sin as a concept would find Born That Way to be little more than a speedbump). And then you bring in tabula rasa, which itself contradicts "born that way." But sure, let's just ignore that paradox. Can we think of other born characteristics we might not find appealing? Quite a lot of personality disorders appear to arise from genetics, and yet you might find someone with Borderline Personality Disorder less than optimal company. Must you tolerate that? Consistency, if anything, is a poor metric when it comes to anything as complex as people. "Destroy anyone not of my ethnic group" is consistent and simple. Do not fall in love with either. If anything, the concept of tolerance itself is a trap, creating dividing lines everywhere. Worse yet, it allows someone to feel "just." This is perhaps one of the more dangerous emotions one can experience and consider as moral. A person who thinks of themselves as just is "justfied." Examine the words associated with "justified," even the television show. Consider the history of those who thought of themselves as justified. I feel just, I may then relent on my self-examination. It's a way to sidestep the endless labor of wondering, "Am I doing something right?" Observing, thinking, considering: these are all weights that humans quite naturally want to put down. How easy, how self-satisfying it is to say "Punch that Nazi!" And of course you first must judge that person to be a Nazi, but even before that you're twiddling your definitions, making them expansive enough to pin that label on someone, all for the simple joy of feeling like it is okay to hit someone, that they are evil and deserving. The ecstasy of self-righteousness ought to be Schedule I. Give me uncertainty and doubt. Dispel that self-assurance. Going around deciding whom to tolerate invites judgment, as if one were all-knowing and infallible. We are not.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Sexual orientation being immutable or not really isn't that big a deal. Not hating people because of their immutable characteristics was chosen as relatively uncontroversial manifestation of my axiomatic belief of innocence by default. People are good, unless they do something bad. Probably should have phrased it as the more accurate "non-harmful" characteristics, in hindsight. Once your philosophy is consistent, there's little room for philosophical debate. Faced with someone with the philosophy of "Destroy anyone not of my ethnic group", the course of action isn't to debate philosophy with them. It's to shoot them. That's why it's important to have a consistent ideology: So you know when the time for words has ended. At that point, "Punch that Nazi" is a good start.