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Wiki - The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually ceased or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

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[-] dojan@lemmy.world 104 points 2 years ago

Except if you view tolerance as what it is, a social contract. I'll tolerate you as long as you tolerate me.

Thus I get along great with the religious person that just wishes to practise their religion in peace, and respects my existence as a connoisseur of cock outside of it, but we don't have to put up with the neo-nazis calling for both of our heads.

And so the paradox dissolves.

[-] adam_y@lemmy.world 42 points 2 years ago

That's true. But it also requires that both sides have the same definition of tolerance and the same definitions of good an evil.

For instance, what if that religion being practiced believed that homosexuality is a sin, and you did not?

In their eyes they'd be justified in thinking you were intolerant of their god-given righteousness and you'd be justified in thinking that they were being intolerant of the liberty of others.

Maybe they actively roam the streets harassing gay people, maybe they have laws about a death penalty, or maybe they just talk about them as unclean. Where does your tolerance start? Is it only at words and not action? Does that mean hate speech is ok?

The paradox here isn't to do with tolerance and intolerance, but the assertion that either of those things exist as objective view points.

[-] snooggums@kbin.social 27 points 2 years ago

Thinking something someone else dies us wrong or immoral is is not the same as being intolerant.

A religious person thinking homosexuality is a sin and simply looks down on gay people, but otherwise takes no action is being tolerant. They are not being accepting, just tolerating. Someone who actively tries to stop gay people from existing (through laws, conversion therapy, murder, etc.) is intolerant.

[-] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 8 points 2 years ago

Now what if they don’t actively seek to persecute, but they vote for people that follow their religion exclusively. These people enact laws that are harmful, but these laws were not the reason they chose them at the ballot. Still tolerant? Has it stepped into active yet?

This is the issue. Intolerance breeds intolerance.

[-] snooggums@kbin.social 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

That would be intolerance since they are voting for someone who is intolerant. Assuming they didn't know that person was intolerant and they don't actively vote against that person in the future once they found out.

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[-] cynar@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

The social contract is to tolerate that which doesn't harm or significantly affect you. Someone can choose not to be gay, and that's fine. They don't have to "tolerate" a gay guy hitting on them. However, 2 gay guys sleeping together is none of their business. In your case, the religious person can feel what they want. When they start trying to impose that on the gay guy, they are being intolerant.

Things get more complex when worldviews start impinging on each other. E.g. the religious person can have issues with a "gay pride" parade. At the same time the gay community has a reasonable right to express themselves. The balance of these views is a lot of how the rest of society functions.

[-] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 11 points 2 years ago

People don’t choose their sexuality. They can choose not to act on it, but that’s repression and is harmful.

We’ve got to the crux though. There are opposing viewpoints. A gay pride parade might be tolerated, but what if it is protested, peacefully. I should the pride parade tolerate the protest?

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[-] adam_y@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

The very fact there's now a bunch of comments each defining "tolerance" as something different but with equal fervour sort of proves the point.

Look, I have no answers, but I was particularly commenting on the assertion that the paradox dissolved if you think about it. It doesn't. It's not that easy, and if you think it is, you are the reason why the paradox upholds.

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[-] Zehzin@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago

my existence as a connoisseur of cock

A penis sommelier, if you will

[-] Bread@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago
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[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

I’ll tolerate you as long as you tolerate me.

I'd only comment that it's not just about tolerating me. I am intolerant of people who are intolerant of others, unless they follow this contract.

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[-] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 45 points 2 years ago

Its not a paradox.

Tolerance is a social contract.

If you refuse to be part of the social contract, then you do not receive its protection.

it is not paradoxical to be intolerant to those who want to destroy the contract to harm individuals or society. Being violently intolerant against them is nothing but acting in the defense of our own personhood, the personhood of our fellows, and the good of our society.

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[-] bender223@lemmy.today 30 points 2 years ago

It's only a paradox because the creator of the infographic has oversimplified what intolerance is.

When nazis are intolerant of a minority group, or whatever their target is, are violent towards them.

When the general society is intolerant of nazis, they are not usually calling for nazis to be killed or harmed.

And the creator does not differentiate between how a government deals with nazi versus the people. A government may "tolerate" nazis when it comes to free speech, and then be "intolerant" of nazis when they commit violence, and arrest or prosecute them. The general populace, unlike the government, cannot prosecute nazis (legally), they can only shun them. The creator clumsily does not differentiate between legal consequences and social consequences.

Basically, the infographic creator is trying to both-sides this shit, when one side want ppl dead, while other side just want nazis to go away. They are not the same. Moronic, sophomoric, low IQ. Too bad this may actually work on some people. That's the sad part.

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago

When the general society is intolerant of nazis, they are not usually calling for nazis to be killed or harmed.

And why aren't we doing that? They're literally Nazis?

[-] scottywh@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

Fuckin A, right?

Someone get on that Nazi killing detail, please.

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[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 26 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Fully agree. The only catch with this is it can be distorted with propaganda to point to anyone as being intolerant, with enough saturation. The bar for recognizing intolerance needs to be fairly high.

Why?

  • We don't want to risk further radicalizing those still within reach and not completely indoctrinated.

  • We don't want to risk a false accusation and provoke witch-hunts.

  • We don't want the intolerant to use this against the tolerant.

It's why I'm always a bit leery of the knee-jerk punch-a-nazi movements.

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[-] PopularUsername@lemmy.sdf.org 26 points 2 years ago

I've always disliked how this is described as a paradox. It only highlights a broader point found in many systems, a just system is never about "the good" outnumbering "the bad". It's about a balanced equilibrium, as are most relationships. Besides, allowing intolerance is not a tolerant act, that's not the way we define that term. To make such a claim would be as ridiculous as a racist person saying they are practicing tolerance by not challenging or question any of their bigoted thoughts and instead just letting them play out.

[-] storcholus@feddit.de 16 points 2 years ago

I view it as a contract. If you don't abide by it, you are not covered

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 23 points 2 years ago

The problem is that people label everything and everyone "Nazi" or "fascist" these days and with that they justify not tolerating any type of experience or opinion they find uncomfortable.

This leads to basically ignoring a whole bunch of people. But their problems won't stop simply because you ignore them. Instead you now have people who were on the verge to vote right wing, now definitely voting right wing because they feel the left ignores their problems (which is true).

[-] BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

But the right's problems are things like "black people exist" or "trans people exist", or really just a bunch of variants of that for different people they hate. The Nazi comparison isn't invalid, and there's absolutely no reason for the left to entertain their problems as legitimate.

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

No it's not. I mean for example people who live next to a refugee home and asked for help to deal with the problems that came with it. Just really boring problems that could have been actually resolved. Like people dumping their trash on the streets, ignoring driving rules, minors stealing in corner shops, stuff like that.

In these neighbourhoods it could have been prevented that the people don't want more refugees or even vote for AFD. But instead, when people mentioned these issues, they were called racists or Nazis. Because it was uncomfortable to talk about it and everyone wanted to seem extra tolerant.

I wonder if people still think it was worth it to ignore these complaints as petty. That behaviour has antagonized a bunch of people from the cause. Only for the short gratification of a holier than thou attitude.

[-] gimsy@feddit.it 7 points 2 years ago

That is not generalizing at all. /s There are a lot of people on the right side of the spectrum, some are also compassionate and tolerant

Since it's a spectrum, polarising means ignoring them and forcing them to decide among 2 poles, and guess what will happen?

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[-] PlatypusXray@feddit.de 21 points 2 years ago

This gets abused a lot by people who claim agency over what is intolerance and what isn’t. It would seem an easy and straightforward enough distinction but in reality there seems to be a lot of wiggle room.

[-] neonspool@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

absolutely it gets abused. any time anyone wants you to tolerate what they want you to(defend their own tolerance), they might suggest that you're not being tolerant enough. (suggesting you intolerant)

this means that both intolerance of reasonable rules, as well as intolerance to unreasonable rules can always be twisted as "intolerant of the tolerant ruling".

essentially, whatever an authority establishes as being right/good must be tolerated, whereas what they consider wrong/bad will not be tolerated.

of course most reasonable people know that what people think is good/bad/right/wrong varies massively, and how tricky and meaningless this fact can make the whole idea of "tolerating the intolerant". it certainly doesn't help in convincing the intolerant to be tolerant, so i think it's not worth talking about.

[-] Sharan@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago

It's not the paradox, it's the common sense.

[-] OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 years ago

If twelve people sit at a table with a Nazi, you have thirteen Nazis

[-] Clbull@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago

It happened with the UK.

Our political landscape went to shit when mainstream platforms started giving highly right wing and racist parties like UKIP and the BNP platforms.

[-] CorruptBuddha@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 years ago

From what I've seen people use this as an argument for censorship. Personally I believe in proportional responses.

[-] LemmysMum@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

This assumes that censorship is inherently bad. Censorship against speech regarding the government should be protected. However it's perfectly legitimate to censor harmful ideas, and many countries censor hate speech. We censor people's ability to physically and emotionally harm others. We censor threats. Censorship isn't inherently bad, and is already used functionally everywhere, just ask ChatGPT.

I do however think censorship can be dangerous. I think the censorship we see in public forums (including lemmy) already treads on the toes of legitimate intellectual conversation of objective views on hate speech and offensive language. Tone policing is incredibly intellectually disingenuous, but is widespread because feelings trump literacy. I think the censorship of individual words is supremely dangerous because it also bans or limits the conversation around those words, their usage, etymology, and understanding their use. Comprehension of offensive things is just as valuable as understanding anything else, if not more so should you wish to fight them, but censorship of offensive things without context destroys the capacity for understanding to permeate the social consciousness.

[-] mwguy@infosec.pub 9 points 2 years ago

However it's perfectly legitimate to censor harmful ideas,

What is an isn't a harmful idea changes drastically between generations. This would have been used to censor information about homosexuality before 1995 or so. "Harmful" as modernly defined is a subjective standard.

[-] LemmysMum@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

No it's not. Harm has a definition.

[-] mwguy@infosec.pub 6 points 2 years ago

Not one that remains objective over time. In 1820 Atheism, and Homosexuality would be considered harmful; in 1920 Racial equality would have been considered harmful, as would Unionization. Imagine the things we consider harmful today that our descendants in 2120 will consider us barbaric for.

[-] LemmysMum@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It's in the dictionary. Hasn't changed in a few hundred years.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harm

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[-] trailing9@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The paradox of the paradox: there wouldn't be a paradox if the philosopher wouldn't be stuck in the logic of a limited model and a distorted assumption about growth.

Only because there exists the possibility that a movement can grow doesn't mean that it will grow.

Intolerance is also not real, like the war on hunger. There is no enemy, but instead there are people to feed.

This leads all to a simple answer that hides that 'let' s give them a chance' was driven by intolerance for socialists and communists, which should ring a bell.

People are so proud that they are allowed to hate the right enemy that they don't ask what those humans actually need to become friends. (Which doesn't mean apeacement!)

*edit: could the downvoters please leave a note and state where they disagree, please?

[-] Kanda@reddthat.com 9 points 2 years ago

Your point doesn't come with an eloquent webcomic and I think having fantasies about punching Nazis is cool

[-] Xeknos@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I, too, think punching Nazis is cool.

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[-] jernej@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

Thatms why I always say that i'm intolerrant towards intolerrant people

[-] Tyler_Zoro@ttrpg.network 7 points 2 years ago

That's not what Popper is talking about. He's talking about maintaining the option to be intolerant of the act of intolerance, not of people.

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[-] LemmySoloHer@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago
[-] MrMobius@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 years ago

I sometimes make fun of reactionaries by saying "Anti-Racists are intolerant of Racists. They're the true racists!". Didn't know there was a point to be made in that joke!

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this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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