Comment by FooHentai
9 years ago
"If a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
IMO this is the ideal rebuttal to the 'be tolerant' argument.
> IMO this is the ideal rebuttal to the 'be tolerant' argument.
It's an interesting point, but at what point does the intolerance of intolerance become intolerance in it's own right?
If the compromise on things we stand for (Freedom of speech, due process, equality for all) where is the line where we cease to be the things we claim to stand for?
FWIW I'm all for charging Nazis with crimes and putting them in jail whenever they commit them. I would be happier if they weren't covered in the media at all. I'd be over the moon if they didn't exist. But if we allow mob rule (which negates the rule of law) to take over, then we risk claiming to stand for things that we do not.
Popper's Paradox illustrates the theoretical. I would argue as a counterpoint that we're successfully as a society not tolerant without limit because of the rule of law.
It's a circular argument that leads nowhere. Just recurse one more time to see it: the people shutting down StormFront, Milo Whatshisname, James Damore, Brendan Eich etc are paragons of intolerance. They scream, they shout, they blockade, they demand firings and other forms of retribution, they DDoS and sometimes they get violent. Meanwhile many in the media and at places like Google stand by and do nothing to stop them.
So by your own argument, should we start tossing Google executives in prison, for tolerating intolerance?
This makes me think of the game theory site linked in an HN comment the other day. I suppose 100% tolerant people would be the naive "always cooperate" players, and 100% intolerant people would be the "always cheat" players.
Interesting to think about how we should behave in this context... If I recall correctly, the ideal behavior would be the copy-cat?
This seems to validate the 'intolerant of intolerance' objective.
Nassim Taleb talks a bit about this in his draft book on Medium. There's a concept of group renormalization which is quite interesting in relation to hardliner absolutists and how the majority must inevitably accommodate their positions.
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...