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Freedom requires tolerance. We've lost a lot of that and what I think the author is going for.

by jrh3 3y ago

roflyear 3y ago
How about the paradox of tolerance? Should you tolerate intolerant views?
- repelsteeltje 3y ago
  The question implies that I can affect intolerant views by choosing between being tolerant or not. :-)
- lightlyused 3y ago
  The intolerant have violated the social contract that binds our views on tolerance, so no we do not have to tolerate them.
- canadiantim 3y ago
  Yes, absolutely yes. It’s not the popular views that need to be defended, it’s the unpopular speech that does
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    Unpopular speech needs to be defended, but not intolerant speech that infringes upon the rights of others to their own speech. Intolerant and unpopular aren't synonyms.
    - Georgelemental 3y ago
      How can speech infringe on the rights of others? Can you give an example?
      - ericfrazier 3y ago
        Stochastic Terrorism
      - bryanlarsen 3y ago
        Shouting while others are talking, both literally and figuratively.
        Georgelemental 3y ago
        > figuratively Can you give an example?
    - RationalDino 3y ago
      20 years ago I would have reflexively agreed with your statement. But today, many of the most intolerant people out there are loudly proclaiming their tolerance. And because their intolerance comes clothed in rhetoric about their tolerance, they are blind to the fact of their own intolerance. And so we get people like the guy in Los Angeles a few days ago where a guy kicked his way into a Jewish family's home while yelling, "Kill the Jews," and, "Brown people matter!" I therefore am left wondering whether I agree with you. Do we agree on which speech is intolerant speech? It's no longer something that I can just take for granted these days.
      - escapedmoose 3y ago
        You can recognize that this is a very fringe case and not typical behavior of the “cancel culture” crowd, right? Some people will choose “tolerance” as a convenient cover for objectively bad behavior, but a good number of popular “cancelation” calls are reasonably motivated when you look at them on a case-by-case basis. You’ll likely not agree with all of them, but there’s at least sensible reasoning behind them. Especially in examples like college campus speakers, where an invite for a speaker can be seen as the institution’s endorsement of the speaker’s belief.
        belorn 3y ago
        Having a speaker's belief being potentially seen as being endorsement by the university for the decision of inviting the speaker to talk is a rather far leap from speech that infringes upon the rights of others to their own speech. I think we should question why people would associate a university with every guest speaker and everything they say as being authoritative statements of the university and their staff.
        escapedmoose 3y ago
        Unlike social media platforms, any given university only has so many physical spaces, blocks of time, advertising and logistics resources, etc. to host speakers. They’re selectively chosen and coordinated. So when a speaker is invited who is, for example, blatantly hostile to the advertised mission of the university, it raises eyebrows. And it paints a contradictory pictures that devalues the university itself. Or worse, if the message is blatantly hostile to a subset of students, it could discourage some people from even wanting to attend! People work hard to get accepted to universities which they respect, and they have a vested interest in maintaining their university’s respect in the public eye.
- hnthrowaway6543 3y ago
  From the article: is "Abortion should be completely illegal" an intolerant view? I don't agree with the statement, but if someone agrees with that because they believe that life begins at conception and a fetus should have the same rights as a post-birth human: could you explain the intolerance there?
  - roflyear 3y ago
    > is "Abortion should be completely illegal" an intolerant view? Some would argue it is.
    - hnthrowaway6543 3y ago
      So by your own admission, what speech counts as "intolerance" is not universal and subject to interpretation. Could you explain who is responsible for deciding which views are considered intolerant, so that we know which speech we should not tolerate?
      - saghm 3y ago
        > Could you explain who is responsible for deciding which views are considered intolerant, so that we know which speech we should not tolerate? For starters, how about "people who aren't enrolled or employed at a private organization have no standing to demand access to the private organizations resources for amplifying their speech"? We can take a head count of people who are against this idea by having them publicly sign a petition demanding for support for a pro-choice speaking tour kicking off at Liberty University with stops in Notre Dame and BYU.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
    For most who hold it, this position is backed by the person's religious beliefs. It is intolerant because the implementation of their position is, in effect, forcing others to abide by their religious beliefs. In addition to that, the implementations tend to be misogynistic, racist, and/or classist.
- tekla 3y ago
  Yes
- kps 3y ago
  “Intolerant” in this context does not refer to people with repugnant views, it refers to people who aim to suppress debate: “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.”
- wonttowont 3y ago
  People cite the headline of the "paradox of intolerance" without bothering to ingest the actually much more moderate idea behind it. "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. 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." As much as you or I may disagree with them, it's totally absurd to claim that The Right (in the U.S.) is attempting to suppress The Left's arguments by "fists or pistols" when The Left is in the majority and most influential in almost all forms of media. So the idea that The Left should be suppressing The Right under the principle of the "paradox of tolerance" is something Karl Popper called "most unwise" and that's putting it very mildly.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    > As much as you or I may disagree with them, it's totally absurd to claim that The Right (in the U.S.) is attempting to suppress The Left's arguments by "fists or pistols" when The Left is in the majority and most influential in almost all forms of media. ??? It's the right that's encouraging people to show up with guns at LGBTQ events[1] and passing laws (enforced by an entity that has a monopoly on legal violence) effectively banning discussion of trans issues. The idea that "the left" has cultural dominance so it should be "anything goes" for right wing opinions is absurd. [1] https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-eugene-oregon-education-c18fdac0c1f8ca137e98fb92c1d5eafe https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-eugene-oregon-educa...
    - wonttowont 3y ago
      One can easily point to examples of armed protesters on The Left. But in no case is any group in the U.S. in a position to use force to prevent the other side from broadcasting their opinions. The Right has Fox News and a few other things while The Left dominates almost all other media. It's just completely laughable to argue that The Left is not getting a chance to "counter them by rational argument" If The Right is winning some debates, and getting bad laws passed, that's just a reason for The Left to do a better job convincing people. We're not living in 1920s Germany. There's absolutely no excuse to resort to suppression, as that would be "most unwise" according to the very guy who put forth the "paradox of tolerance" idea that people love to simplify and distort.
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  God, I’m tired of this bullshit. The minute you don’t protect ALL opinions, you have no more freedom of thought or freedom of speech. Your “intolerance” is someone’s honest opinion. And their “intolerance” is yours!
- nwiswell 3y ago
  It's not actually a paradox, it's just playing with semantics. Wiktionary[1] defines "intolerant": 1. Unable or indisposed to tolerate, endure or bear. 2. Not tolerant; close-minded about new or different ideas; indisposed to tolerate contrary opinions or beliefs; impatient of dissent or opposition; denying or refusing the right of private opinion or choice in others; inclined to persecute or suppress dissent. Bigotry (or discrimination, or prejudice), in general, is a subcategory of the broad definition #1. You are indisposed to tolerate a group of people, or a religion, or whatever. Seeking to suppress speech or marginalize opinions (of any kind) falls under definition #2. English might as well have two separate words for these two definitions, in case there is no "paradox". It's only a paradox if you seek to suppress speech from people who seek to suppress speech with their speech. [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intolerant https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intolerant
  - roflyear 3y ago
    This is what I was referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- jstarfish 3y ago
  Yes. That's literally what tolerance is. The only "paradox" is hypocrisy masquerading as ethics. Reframing tolerance of intolerance as a "problem" is just engineered rhetoric. Heresy's track record does not lend itself to the idea that silencing views we disagree with is a practice worth continuing. After the Church, only dictators have ever insist on the necessity of censorship. The anti-speech demographic's interests neatly align with the most intolerant, most-abusive oppressors throughout history. Catholics and Hitler-- that's the company you keep when you suggest speech needs limits. News flash: I don't have to like what you have to say. I'm expected to fucking deal with it. You can do it too. The "words are violence" crowd sure throw a lot of words around, themselves, while arguing that others should not have the same right. Everything everyone else has to say is "hate speech!" How far the goalposts have moved from burning crosses, nooses and death threats. Galileo was a heretic. Martin Luther was a heretic. That's the company the rest of us keep. Haters, the lot of us.
  - Kye 3y ago
    >> "Catholics and Hitler-- that's the company you keep when you suggest speech needs limits. News flash: I don't have to like what you have to say. I'm expected to fucking deal with it. You can do it too." This is a model Godwinning. You don't see it much these days. I feel like I'm in a museum.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  Should they tolerate your intolerant views?
- hightrix 3y ago
  Let's take a more recent example to show how the statement "should you tolerate intolerant views" is meaningless or even harmful to the truth. "COVID was leaked from a lab in Wuhan" At various points in time in the last 4 years, this statement has been considered 1) hate speech 2) tin foil hat conspiracy 3) a possible scenario 4) a plausible scenario 5) a disputed fact that may or may not be true. If we were to "not tolerate intolerant views" then there would have been no further discussion to get from stage 1 to stage 5 and the world would still believe that it was transmission by a rodent.
  - axpy 3y ago
    The same statement in different contexts are interterpreted differently. Saying COVID came from China is not an problem but using the term "China virus" as a way to promote racism is problematic. Same is true about the possible lab leak. In your example, it was originally hate speach because it was pulled by the media and some part of the population in a very racist way given only vague conjectures. I do think at that point it made sense to stop talking about it in the media because a it was not very well backed and of a low plausibility. It's just damn hard to strike the right balance when we are mostly geared toward emotional response. Same thing happened with vaccine and treatments. I do think we need to be careful about proper communucation on some subject because of the high potential for misinterpretation. This is especially true when we are talking about highly technical subjects that might not be obvious to everyone.
- leereeves 3y ago
  Since you cite the paradox of tolerance, you should be familiar with the quote from Karl Popper, the philosopher who invented the concept: > I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.

Freedom requires tolerance. We've lost a lot of that and what I think the author is going for.

by jrh3 3y ago

Freedom requires tolerance. We've lost a lot of that and what I think the author is going for.

roflyear 3y ago

How about the paradox of tolerance? Should you tolerate intolerant views?

repelsteeltje 3y ago
The question implies that I can affect intolerant views by choosing between being tolerant or not. :-)
lightlyused 3y ago
The intolerant have violated the social contract that binds our views on tolerance, so no we do not have to tolerate them.
canadiantim 3y ago
Yes, absolutely yes. It’s not the popular views that need to be defended, it’s the unpopular speech that does
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Unpopular speech needs to be defended, but not intolerant speech that infringes upon the rights of others to their own speech. Intolerant and unpopular aren't synonyms.
  - Georgelemental 3y ago
    How can speech infringe on the rights of others? Can you give an example?
    - ericfrazier 3y ago
      Stochastic Terrorism
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      Shouting while others are talking, both literally and figuratively.
      - Georgelemental 3y ago
        > figuratively Can you give an example?
  - RationalDino 3y ago
    20 years ago I would have reflexively agreed with your statement. But today, many of the most intolerant people out there are loudly proclaiming their tolerance. And because their intolerance comes clothed in rhetoric about their tolerance, they are blind to the fact of their own intolerance. And so we get people like the guy in Los Angeles a few days ago where a guy kicked his way into a Jewish family's home while yelling, "Kill the Jews," and, "Brown people matter!" I therefore am left wondering whether I agree with you. Do we agree on which speech is intolerant speech? It's no longer something that I can just take for granted these days.
    - escapedmoose 3y ago
      You can recognize that this is a very fringe case and not typical behavior of the “cancel culture” crowd, right? Some people will choose “tolerance” as a convenient cover for objectively bad behavior, but a good number of popular “cancelation” calls are reasonably motivated when you look at them on a case-by-case basis. You’ll likely not agree with all of them, but there’s at least sensible reasoning behind them. Especially in examples like college campus speakers, where an invite for a speaker can be seen as the institution’s endorsement of the speaker’s belief.
      - belorn 3y ago
        Having a speaker's belief being potentially seen as being endorsement by the university for the decision of inviting the speaker to talk is a rather far leap from speech that infringes upon the rights of others to their own speech. I think we should question why people would associate a university with every guest speaker and everything they say as being authoritative statements of the university and their staff.
        escapedmoose 3y ago
        Unlike social media platforms, any given university only has so many physical spaces, blocks of time, advertising and logistics resources, etc. to host speakers. They’re selectively chosen and coordinated. So when a speaker is invited who is, for example, blatantly hostile to the advertised mission of the university, it raises eyebrows. And it paints a contradictory pictures that devalues the university itself. Or worse, if the message is blatantly hostile to a subset of students, it could discourage some people from even wanting to attend! People work hard to get accepted to universities which they respect, and they have a vested interest in maintaining their university’s respect in the public eye.
hnthrowaway6543 3y ago
From the article: is "Abortion should be completely illegal" an intolerant view? I don't agree with the statement, but if someone agrees with that because they believe that life begins at conception and a fetus should have the same rights as a post-birth human: could you explain the intolerance there?
- roflyear 3y ago
  > is "Abortion should be completely illegal" an intolerant view? Some would argue it is.
  - hnthrowaway6543 3y ago
    So by your own admission, what speech counts as "intolerance" is not universal and subject to interpretation. Could you explain who is responsible for deciding which views are considered intolerant, so that we know which speech we should not tolerate?
    - saghm 3y ago
      > Could you explain who is responsible for deciding which views are considered intolerant, so that we know which speech we should not tolerate? For starters, how about "people who aren't enrolled or employed at a private organization have no standing to demand access to the private organizations resources for amplifying their speech"? We can take a head count of people who are against this idea by having them publicly sign a petition demanding for support for a pro-choice speaking tour kicking off at Liberty University with stops in Notre Dame and BYU.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
  For most who hold it, this position is backed by the person's religious beliefs. It is intolerant because the implementation of their position is, in effect, forcing others to abide by their religious beliefs. In addition to that, the implementations tend to be misogynistic, racist, and/or classist.
tekla 3y ago
Yes
kps 3y ago
“Intolerant” in this context does not refer to people with repugnant views, it refers to people who aim to suppress debate: “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.”
wonttowont 3y ago
People cite the headline of the "paradox of intolerance" without bothering to ingest the actually much more moderate idea behind it. "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. 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." As much as you or I may disagree with them, it's totally absurd to claim that The Right (in the U.S.) is attempting to suppress The Left's arguments by "fists or pistols" when The Left is in the majority and most influential in almost all forms of media. So the idea that The Left should be suppressing The Right under the principle of the "paradox of tolerance" is something Karl Popper called "most unwise" and that's putting it very mildly.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  > As much as you or I may disagree with them, it's totally absurd to claim that The Right (in the U.S.) is attempting to suppress The Left's arguments by "fists or pistols" when The Left is in the majority and most influential in almost all forms of media. ??? It's the right that's encouraging people to show up with guns at LGBTQ events[1] and passing laws (enforced by an entity that has a monopoly on legal violence) effectively banning discussion of trans issues. The idea that "the left" has cultural dominance so it should be "anything goes" for right wing opinions is absurd. [1] https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-eugene-oregon-education-c18fdac0c1f8ca137e98fb92c1d5eafe https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-eugene-oregon-educa...
  - wonttowont 3y ago
    One can easily point to examples of armed protesters on The Left. But in no case is any group in the U.S. in a position to use force to prevent the other side from broadcasting their opinions. The Right has Fox News and a few other things while The Left dominates almost all other media. It's just completely laughable to argue that The Left is not getting a chance to "counter them by rational argument" If The Right is winning some debates, and getting bad laws passed, that's just a reason for The Left to do a better job convincing people. We're not living in 1920s Germany. There's absolutely no excuse to resort to suppression, as that would be "most unwise" according to the very guy who put forth the "paradox of tolerance" idea that people love to simplify and distort.
dmitrygr 3y ago
God, I’m tired of this bullshit. The minute you don’t protect ALL opinions, you have no more freedom of thought or freedom of speech. Your “intolerance” is someone’s honest opinion. And their “intolerance” is yours!
nwiswell 3y ago
It's not actually a paradox, it's just playing with semantics. Wiktionary[1] defines "intolerant": 1. Unable or indisposed to tolerate, endure or bear. 2. Not tolerant; close-minded about new or different ideas; indisposed to tolerate contrary opinions or beliefs; impatient of dissent or opposition; denying or refusing the right of private opinion or choice in others; inclined to persecute or suppress dissent. Bigotry (or discrimination, or prejudice), in general, is a subcategory of the broad definition #1. You are indisposed to tolerate a group of people, or a religion, or whatever. Seeking to suppress speech or marginalize opinions (of any kind) falls under definition #2. English might as well have two separate words for these two definitions, in case there is no "paradox". It's only a paradox if you seek to suppress speech from people who seek to suppress speech with their speech. [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intolerant https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intolerant
- roflyear 3y ago
  This is what I was referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
jstarfish 3y ago
Yes. That's literally what tolerance is. The only "paradox" is hypocrisy masquerading as ethics. Reframing tolerance of intolerance as a "problem" is just engineered rhetoric. Heresy's track record does not lend itself to the idea that silencing views we disagree with is a practice worth continuing. After the Church, only dictators have ever insist on the necessity of censorship. The anti-speech demographic's interests neatly align with the most intolerant, most-abusive oppressors throughout history. Catholics and Hitler-- that's the company you keep when you suggest speech needs limits. News flash: I don't have to like what you have to say. I'm expected to fucking deal with it. You can do it too. The "words are violence" crowd sure throw a lot of words around, themselves, while arguing that others should not have the same right. Everything everyone else has to say is "hate speech!" How far the goalposts have moved from burning crosses, nooses and death threats. Galileo was a heretic. Martin Luther was a heretic. That's the company the rest of us keep. Haters, the lot of us.
- Kye 3y ago
  >> "Catholics and Hitler-- that's the company you keep when you suggest speech needs limits. News flash: I don't have to like what you have to say. I'm expected to fucking deal with it. You can do it too." This is a model Godwinning. You don't see it much these days. I feel like I'm in a museum.
Georgelemental 3y ago
Should they tolerate your intolerant views?
hightrix 3y ago
Let's take a more recent example to show how the statement "should you tolerate intolerant views" is meaningless or even harmful to the truth. "COVID was leaked from a lab in Wuhan" At various points in time in the last 4 years, this statement has been considered 1) hate speech 2) tin foil hat conspiracy 3) a possible scenario 4) a plausible scenario 5) a disputed fact that may or may not be true. If we were to "not tolerate intolerant views" then there would have been no further discussion to get from stage 1 to stage 5 and the world would still believe that it was transmission by a rodent.
- axpy 3y ago
  The same statement in different contexts are interterpreted differently. Saying COVID came from China is not an problem but using the term "China virus" as a way to promote racism is problematic. Same is true about the possible lab leak. In your example, it was originally hate speach because it was pulled by the media and some part of the population in a very racist way given only vague conjectures. I do think at that point it made sense to stop talking about it in the media because a it was not very well backed and of a low plausibility. It's just damn hard to strike the right balance when we are mostly geared toward emotional response. Same thing happened with vaccine and treatments. I do think we need to be careful about proper communucation on some subject because of the high potential for misinterpretation. This is especially true when we are talking about highly technical subjects that might not be obvious to everyone.
leereeves 3y ago
Since you cite the paradox of tolerance, you should be familiar with the quote from Karl Popper, the philosopher who invented the concept: > I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.