6 ms·

This article stinks of that assertion/misunderstanding that "Tolerant of all but the intolerant" is a paradox or contradiction. It's not. It's a social contract

This article stinks of that assertion/misunderstanding that "Tolerant of all but the intolerant" is a paradox or contradiction. It's not. It's a social contract and if you violate it you are no longer covered or protected by it. Put another way, give everyone a basic level respect until they demonstrate they aren't deserving of it. It's worth mentioning you can take punitive, intervening and/or remedial action against someone and still be respectful.

aaroninsf 3y ago
This 1000x. I'm very weary of the at times bad faith, at times ignorant, assertion of this "paradox." For me it seems rooted in a sort of Angloamerican philosophical analytic realism I associate with e.g. Quine, which is IMHO not just inane but pernicious in as much as it contributes to such things as this "debate" and, say, Constitutional Originalism. Words are how we use them. A civil open society has not just a right but a need to defend itself from those whose actions (words and deeds alike) threaten the stability of the society itself, not to mention, trespass on the rights and wellbeing of its constituent members. This is so obvious I find it hard to find examples I am willing to accept as "ignorance." Bad faith, albeit cloaked from introspective view perhaps by willful refusal to do so, is far more common.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Have you noticed the interesting way most everyone in this thread who has taken an adversarial stance uses language? If not it's a shame, because it is really something to see.
riversflow 3y ago
It is a paradox. His point about ISIS vs Republicans is pretty on the money. I think a lot of people in the West are so saturated with tolerance that they don't even recognize what it is. There are countries in the world where being an atheist or being raped is punishable by death and plenty of people there cheer on. In that light, republicans I know are very tolerant people on the whole, possibly even more so than the average Democrat. They have strong feelings about what the government should or shouldn't do, but I haven't met one yet who would actually advocate killing someone for things we think about in terms of tolerance. If you truly think that the entire republican party, a huge portion of the country's population, have all broken the social contract, I don't think that social contract is worth much.
- Arainach 3y ago
  Enough of them believed that to storm the capitol. Enough of them believe that to pass draconian health laws that are causing the death of women: https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-doctors-ectopic-pregnancy https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-do... We can have reasonable debate and differences of opinion over economic policy, but when one side is denying that people have human rights and trying to restrict their right to live and for people to learn about them, it's not a "both sides are the same". https://apnews.com/article/florida-transgender-health-care-adults-e7ae55eec634923e6593a4c0685969b2 https://apnews.com/article/florida-transgender-health-care-a... It's not innocent mistakes. After the most corrupt presidential administration in US History, with a President slinging lies and abuse on Twitter every day, nearly half the country still voted for him anyway. What social contract?
  - woooooo 3y ago
    Have you considered whether you're overly attached to the ingroup/outgroup thing with how you characterize the above? A bunch of liberal people shut down the Seattle capitol for a few days at the height of Black Lives Matter and ironically shot several young black men in the process. Yet I never hear a word about it. They were the ingroup.
    - 6D794163636F756 3y ago
      So there no difference between storming the national capitol because your candidate lost and you would rather violently overturn the election because you lost and a group protesting the injustices built into our society? Nuance is important and if you want to say BLM and jan 6 are the same you are severely lacking it.
      - woooooo 3y ago
        How many black people did the Jan 6 criminals shoot? It sounds like allegiance is more important than deeds. Ingroup, outgroup.
Veserv 3y ago
The actual problem is that “tolerance” is undefined in that statement. If you make it concrete the “paradox” either disappears or is obvious. As an example, say the definition of tolerance is: “I will not physically harm based on spoken words.”. Then the phrase becomes: “I will not physically harm people based on spoken words unless that person will physically harm people based on spoken words.”. No paradox. Say we define it as: “I will not initiate violence.”. “I will not initiate violence on a person unless that person initiates violence on people.”. No paradox. “I will never harm a person unless that person harms people.” No paradox. It is just a problem of lazy definitions and not defining your terms.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Zandikar 3y ago
  > The actual problem is that “tolerance” is undefined in that statement. Disagreed. You can be pedantic about semantics and doublethink your way out of anything, but that's not productive discourse, so I'll dismiss that out of turn. > If you make it concrete the “paradox” either disappears or is obvious. Strong Disagree. If you make it concrete, then you introduce a catch-22 by forcing others to conform to your perspective before a discussion can be begin. If there's any paradox at all in this, it's here. > It is just a problem of lazy definitions and not defining your terms. Lets start with tolerance then, because your example (Say we define it as: “I will not initiate violence.”) provided above is WAY off base: > Tolerance: the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with You can concretely define your terms all you want, doesn't mean people will agree, use, or perceive your use of them in that way.
  - Veserv 3y ago
    You have completely missed the point. The definition of “tolerance” you quoted uses the word “tolerate”. What does “tolerating a behavior” mean? “Tolerating a behavior” means taking or not taking some action in response to a behavior. The crux of the “paradox” is that the condition and action are wholly undefined resulting in a nebulous mushy concept battle. As soon as you define, even vaguely, the conditions and actions you wish to use as “tolerating”, the “paradox” disappears. The examples I provided are there to illustrate the concept using a relatively simple condition/action model. I am not imposing a definition beyond defining what constitutes a “concrete” description. I literally could not care less what you choose. You can choose the definition that you want that is infinitely favorable to your perspective and the paradox will still disappear. I do not even need to agree with your definition. The mere act of defining causes the paradox to disappear (or be trivially inconsistent) in your own axiomatic model as far as I can tell. The paradox of tolerance is just the paradox of being too lazy to define your words so you can move the goalposts.
colonCapitalDee 3y ago
That resolves the paradox of tolerance for you, but not for everyone else. What happens when you think that I'm being intolerant, but I disagree? Back to being a paradox.
- kbelder 3y ago
  No, it becomes a disagreement.
  - bawolff 3y ago
    While that might work as a personal moral code, i don't see how you can extrapolate something like that to govern a society at large, which is the topic at hand.
    - stouset 3y ago
      This is why we have juries instead of Prolog machines you input laws and evidence into in order to determine guilt.
      - bawolff 3y ago
        But we don't use juries to determine what is moral. We use them to determine what is illegal. There is a wide difference.
bawolff 3y ago
If everyone agreed who the bad people were and who the good people were, what is just and what is injust, the world would be a simple place. The reality is that nobody agrees on where the line is or what even is good and bad. And while i agree that you can in theory respectfully take punative action against someone, if they don't deserve the punative action you are still a bad person no matter how respectfully you punish the undeserving victim.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
Thinking that half of society has broken the social contract is a truly horrible way to live. I've found that I'm much happier if I do my best to steelman my opponents. So are the Republicans furthering our great country? No. But they haven't done anything as a whole to break the social contract. Most of them are doing their best to lead a fulfilling respectful and valuable life.
- greenie_beans 3y ago
  > I've found that I'm much happier if I do my best to steelman my opponents. you're bad at it tho
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Marxists aren't my opponents. They don't bring me any unhappiness at all.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

aaroninsf 3y ago

This 1000x. I'm very weary of the at times bad faith, at times ignorant, assertion of this "paradox." For me it seems rooted in a sort of Angloamerican philosophical analytic realism I associate with e.g. Quine, which is IMHO not just inane but pernicious in as much as it contributes to such things as this "debate" and, say, Constitutional Originalism. Words are how we use them. A civil open society has not just a right but a need to defend itself from those whose actions (words and deeds alike) threaten the stability of the society itself, not to mention, trespass on the rights and wellbeing of its constituent members. This is so obvious I find it hard to find examples I am willing to accept as "ignorance." Bad faith, albeit cloaked from introspective view perhaps by willful refusal to do so, is far more common.

mistermann 3y ago
Have you noticed the interesting way most everyone in this thread who has taken an adversarial stance uses language? If not it's a shame, because it is really something to see.

riversflow 3y ago

It is a paradox. His point about ISIS vs Republicans is pretty on the money. I think a lot of people in the West are so saturated with tolerance that they don't even recognize what it is. There are countries in the world where being an atheist or being raped is punishable by death and plenty of people there cheer on. In that light, republicans I know are very tolerant people on the whole, possibly even more so than the average Democrat. They have strong feelings about what the government should or shouldn't do, but I haven't met one yet who would actually advocate killing someone for things we think about in terms of tolerance. If you truly think that the entire republican party, a huge portion of the country's population, have all broken the social contract, I don't think that social contract is worth much.

Arainach 3y ago
Enough of them believed that to storm the capitol. Enough of them believe that to pass draconian health laws that are causing the death of women: https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-doctors-ectopic-pregnancy https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-do... We can have reasonable debate and differences of opinion over economic policy, but when one side is denying that people have human rights and trying to restrict their right to live and for people to learn about them, it's not a "both sides are the same". https://apnews.com/article/florida-transgender-health-care-adults-e7ae55eec634923e6593a4c0685969b2 https://apnews.com/article/florida-transgender-health-care-a... It's not innocent mistakes. After the most corrupt presidential administration in US History, with a President slinging lies and abuse on Twitter every day, nearly half the country still voted for him anyway. What social contract?
- woooooo 3y ago
  Have you considered whether you're overly attached to the ingroup/outgroup thing with how you characterize the above? A bunch of liberal people shut down the Seattle capitol for a few days at the height of Black Lives Matter and ironically shot several young black men in the process. Yet I never hear a word about it. They were the ingroup.
  - 6D794163636F756 3y ago
    So there no difference between storming the national capitol because your candidate lost and you would rather violently overturn the election because you lost and a group protesting the injustices built into our society? Nuance is important and if you want to say BLM and jan 6 are the same you are severely lacking it.
    - woooooo 3y ago
      How many black people did the Jan 6 criminals shoot? It sounds like allegiance is more important than deeds. Ingroup, outgroup.

Veserv 3y ago

The actual problem is that “tolerance” is undefined in that statement. If you make it concrete the “paradox” either disappears or is obvious. As an example, say the definition of tolerance is: “I will not physically harm based on spoken words.”. Then the phrase becomes: “I will not physically harm people based on spoken words unless that person will physically harm people based on spoken words.”. No paradox. Say we define it as: “I will not initiate violence.”. “I will not initiate violence on a person unless that person initiates violence on people.”. No paradox. “I will never harm a person unless that person harms people.” No paradox. It is just a problem of lazy definitions and not defining your terms.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Zandikar 3y ago
> The actual problem is that “tolerance” is undefined in that statement. Disagreed. You can be pedantic about semantics and doublethink your way out of anything, but that's not productive discourse, so I'll dismiss that out of turn. > If you make it concrete the “paradox” either disappears or is obvious. Strong Disagree. If you make it concrete, then you introduce a catch-22 by forcing others to conform to your perspective before a discussion can be begin. If there's any paradox at all in this, it's here. > It is just a problem of lazy definitions and not defining your terms. Lets start with tolerance then, because your example (Say we define it as: “I will not initiate violence.”) provided above is WAY off base: > Tolerance: the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with You can concretely define your terms all you want, doesn't mean people will agree, use, or perceive your use of them in that way.
- Veserv 3y ago
  You have completely missed the point. The definition of “tolerance” you quoted uses the word “tolerate”. What does “tolerating a behavior” mean? “Tolerating a behavior” means taking or not taking some action in response to a behavior. The crux of the “paradox” is that the condition and action are wholly undefined resulting in a nebulous mushy concept battle. As soon as you define, even vaguely, the conditions and actions you wish to use as “tolerating”, the “paradox” disappears. The examples I provided are there to illustrate the concept using a relatively simple condition/action model. I am not imposing a definition beyond defining what constitutes a “concrete” description. I literally could not care less what you choose. You can choose the definition that you want that is infinitely favorable to your perspective and the paradox will still disappear. I do not even need to agree with your definition. The mere act of defining causes the paradox to disappear (or be trivially inconsistent) in your own axiomatic model as far as I can tell. The paradox of tolerance is just the paradox of being too lazy to define your words so you can move the goalposts.

colonCapitalDee 3y ago

That resolves the paradox of tolerance for you, but not for everyone else. What happens when you think that I'm being intolerant, but I disagree? Back to being a paradox.

kbelder 3y ago
No, it becomes a disagreement.
- bawolff 3y ago
  While that might work as a personal moral code, i don't see how you can extrapolate something like that to govern a society at large, which is the topic at hand.
  - stouset 3y ago
    This is why we have juries instead of Prolog machines you input laws and evidence into in order to determine guilt.
    - bawolff 3y ago
      But we don't use juries to determine what is moral. We use them to determine what is illegal. There is a wide difference.

bawolff 3y ago

If everyone agreed who the bad people were and who the good people were, what is just and what is injust, the world would be a simple place. The reality is that nobody agrees on where the line is or what even is good and bad. And while i agree that you can in theory respectfully take punative action against someone, if they don't deserve the punative action you are still a bad person no matter how respectfully you punish the undeserving victim.

HDThoreaun 3y ago

Thinking that half of society has broken the social contract is a truly horrible way to live. I've found that I'm much happier if I do my best to steelman my opponents. So are the Republicans furthering our great country? No. But they haven't done anything as a whole to break the social contract. Most of them are doing their best to lead a fulfilling respectful and valuable life.

greenie_beans 3y ago
> I've found that I'm much happier if I do my best to steelman my opponents. you're bad at it tho
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Marxists aren't my opponents. They don't bring me any unhappiness at all.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]