The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has to be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually taken seriously. It basically boils down to an argument from fear - We all believe in the importance of {Sacred Value}, but the Evil Ones are coming to take {Sacred Value} away! By using our own good natures and {Sacred Value} against us, they will claim power, and then destroy {Sacred Value}! The only way to stop them is to destroy {Sacred Value}, thereby depriving them of the ability to use it against us!
Incidentally, here's what Karl Popper himself had to say on the matter; "Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, 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. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."[0]
The form of "intolerance towards the intolerant" he actually discusses in his essay is rather far removed from the sweeping authority to suppression that it bestows in the eyes of many of the people who invoke it. He does not recommend censoring or removing any liberties of the intolerant, unless and until they respond to rational argument by force. Unless they instruct followers to disregard rational argument as itself deceptive. Unless they are inciting actual criminal activity.
The idea that some ideas are in and of themselves too dangerous to allow to exist in the public domain, that rational argument should be monitored, controlled, and suppressed to ensure that "tolerance" remains is nowhere to be seen. It is only when the methods of a liberal democracy (that is, open conversation, debate, the marketplace of ideas) fail catastrophically that Popper sees the need for open intolerance towards those who answer argument with violence.
In fact, the argument of the "paradox of tolerance" is actually, you may be surprised to learn, an argument in favor of autocracy. Its whole point is that liberal democracies can't sustain themselves without a "benevolent despot". Popper was arguing against that idea. Per Wikipedia, again; "In the context of chapter 7 of Popper's work, specifically, section II, the note on the paradox of tolerance is intended as further explanation of Popper's rebuttal specific to the paradox as a rationale for autocracy: why political institutions within liberal democracies are preferable to Plato's vision of despotism, and through such institutions, the paradox can be avoided. Nonetheless, alternative interpretations are often misattributed to Popper in defense of extra-judicial (including violent) suppression of intolerance such as hate speech, outside of democratic institutions, an idea which Popper himself never espoused."
First: "as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise"
That's the trick, right? Reality shows that countering crazy ideas with rational argument is not working very well. There are still people in US convinced that "the election was stolen" whatever argument is used, and they will never change their mind (they don't have any reason to change their mind: any argument can be claimed being "part of the conspiracy" so they don't have to accept a result that they don't like).
Second: I don't see why it should be "all or nothing". Intolerance has different degrees of application. It goes from using violence to just refusing to give a platform to intolerant people (which is very mild: they can go everywhere else). It's part of "keeping them in check by public opinion". If someone has an intolerance level of degree 10, we can reply with an anti-intolerance measure of degree 10. If they have an intolerance level of degree 2, why should we not reply to anti-intolerance measure of degree 2?
>Reality shows that countering crazy ideas with rational argument is not working very well.
Have you had a very different experience of reality than me? Apart from some very niche places, the response to crazy ideas has been insult, ignore, and call for censorship. In the rare case that any good faith response is made, it's an appeal to an authority that the crazies don't respect because it repeatedly and unapologetically lied about someone they do.
From my perspective it is abundantly evident that the decades-long push of these people out of the public and into their own spaces is the cause of our current strife. In the aforementioned niche places, election doubts were all but extinct within a month because people actually addressed them at the object level. But I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm genuinely curious about where/when you've seen rational argument fall short.
> Reality shows that countering crazy ideas with rational argument is not working very well
It's working quite well really. There are few things that people stick to their guns on in the face of a good argument. For the average person maybe only a dozen or so.
> There are still people in US convinced that "the election was stolen" whatever argument is used, and they will never change their mind (they don't have any reason to change their mind: any argument can be claimed being "part of the conspiracy" so they don't have to accept a result that they don't like).
This is a bad example, actually providing a compelling argument on a case like this which is built on divergent world view would be the length of a book (to rebuild the erroneous parts of the world view), not an essay.
The correct solution is to give people general epistemological tools and habits that are applicable in most situations that allows and encourages them to do properly rigorous research to understand a complex issue. That teaches them what kind of questions they need to ask, what sort of context might be relevant, how to judge reliability of information and ensuring they make their hypothesis disprovable.
Your first point is what I never see addressed in these discussions. I agree that "intolerance of intolerance" is dangerous since it could easily be abused or misused, but what's the alternative? What we are doing now isn't working.
I'm not sure it is. There are still numerous anti-trans laws being passed. The supreme court struck down the right to an abortion and looks set to allow businesses to discriminate against gay people. Police brutality and unequal legal outcomes are still common. Gerrymandering, the electoral college, and campaign finance reform means that the weak still have almost no voice in government.
Saving children from being sterilized is actually a very good thing. It's one of the few things that conservative legislatures are getting right. They have, perhaps unintentionally, adopted some of the radical feminist position on this - to the benefit of women and children.
The rest of their legislative agenda, agreed, it's not so great.
Is "noone" a euphemism for Donald Trump (and his many followers and sycophants and white supremacist dinner guests)? That's the only way I can make sense out of your argument.
Donald Trump says he plans to pardon US Capitol attack participants if elected:
> Reality shows that countering crazy ideas with rational argument is not working very well.
Really? Seems to be working great actually, we've had centuries of great social progress and increased liberties, an explosion of scientific knowledge, and religious adherence has never been lower. Rational argument seems to be winning in the long arc of history.
Maybe you think there have been some disturbing recent hiccups, but if people seem to have "crazy ideas", you can also consider whether you truly understand where they are coming from.
Well, the centuries of progress you are referring to are sometimes happening in countries that, at the time, were applying a anti-intolerance stance. Laws again libel, for example, exist for centuries in countries where progress grew sometimes faster than in other places.
On top of that, for your argument to work, saying that progress happened is not enough. You also need to prove that progress happened _better_ than otherwise. For all I know, we had great social progress, but we would have had super great social progress if more anti-intolerance happened.
> Laws again libel, for example, exist for centuries in countries where progress grew sometimes faster than in other places.
Ok, I'm not sure what you think this proves. Libel is specifically a charge that's proven using rational argument in a court of governed by rational procedures of evidence. Furthermore, libel is a charge of making false statements that injure someone's reputation. True and false are again established using rational argument, so it seems like you're saying that places that prized rational procedures that enforced the distinction between true and false progressed better than others? That doesn't seem to agree with your thesis.
> On top of that, for your argument to work, saying that progress happened is not enough. You also need to prove that progress happened _better_ than otherwise
Well the entire history prior to the rise of rational argument consisted of religious wars. Were those environments more tolerant?
I don't really understand exactly what alternative to rational argument you're proposing, because it sounds like just another religious war that you're justifying because you are obviously morally superior to everyone else, and this will not at all be like every previous religious crusade in the name "goodness".
My initial point was that some people will not be persuaded by rational arguments, and that therefore, we should account for that and consider that letting any affirmation run freely without some sort of intervention may not be the best.
Libel laws is an example of such intervention. If indeed it's just a matter of "showing the rational argument and everyone will agree with them", then libel laws have no reason to exist: if someone says something incorrect about someone else, the second person will obviously react, show the rational arguments showing that the claim is not proven, and everyone will agree that the first person was incorrect, which means that saying something incorrect was always a bad idea: no gain, only loss. The fact that we need a justice system to judge and statue on libel case seems to show that it is not enough to just let the people decide what is true because they are rational and check the argument of the two persons and will therefore not be convinced by the libelous claim. The reason libel should be settle by laws is because people are giving credit to irrational claims.
I believe that rational reasoning is indeed beneficial. My point is that I think rational reasoning is not able to change 100% of people opinion, and therefore it is legitimate to add some sort of intervention (not a dictatorship, but something that is well balanced, such as "libel laws").
> Well the entire history prior to the rise of rational argument consisted of religious wars. Were those environments more tolerant?
I don't think that humans had somehow the "irrational gene" until suddenly the "rational gene" emerged leading to the rise of the rational argument (not even sure when this "rise" is, the most impressive development of formal logic and rational argumentation was in Ancient Greece, in a society deeply religious, well before the end of religion wars). The reason why there is a change in the usage of rational argumentation is, I think, because we choose at some point to build societies that value rationality. As I've said before, I believe that rationality is a good thing, so, sure, societies that value rationality will develop better. Yet, it does not prove that 100% of the population are convinced by rational arguments. You are saying that they were not in the past (how can a "rise of rational argument" even happen if people were all naturally trying to be rational by nature? why were there religious wars if humans were valuing rationality without needing guidance of the social organization?), so, I think it's legitimate to think they may sometimes not be in the present.
Let me illustrate what I mean.
A society S1 where people are all convinced by rational argument will grow with a speed of, let's say, 20.
A society S2 where there is no value in rationality will grow with a speed of 2.
A society S3 where rationality is valued, but some people are still not sway with rationality alone, and there is not much intervention to stop irrational theories to spread, will grow with a speed of 10.
A society S4 where rationality is valued, but some people are still not sway with rationality alone, but there is some interventions (not a dictatorship, just some interventions) to stop irrational theories to spread, will grow with a speed of 14.
Your previous argument was, I think, "see, there is a speed of 10 growth in S3 (which is much better than S2), so it's the proof it works and some intervention is not needed". Well, no, S4 shows that intervention is needed if we want to get an even better society.
> The fact that we need a justice system to judge and statue on libel case seems to show that it is not enough to just let the people decide what is true because they are rational and check the argument of the two persons and will therefore not be convinced by the libelous claim. The reason libel should be settle by laws is because people are giving credit to irrational claims.
No, it's because people operate rationally on bounded information. Introducing a poison pill into such a bounded context undermines the effectiveness of this type of reasoning. Changing the type of reasoning isn't possible, ergo you should punish defectors to reduce the incentives to introduce poison pills.
> My point is that I think rational reasoning is not able to change 100% of people opinion, and therefore it is legitimate to add some sort of intervention (not a dictatorship, but something that is well balanced, such as "libel laws").
Rational argument doesn't have to change 100% of people's opinions, we just have to ensure that most people share democratic values and the rest will follow.
> I don't think that humans had somehow the "irrational gene" until suddenly the "rational gene" emerged leading to the rise of the rational argument
Actually something like this probably did happen. The field of memetics studies this sort of thing.
> Your previous argument was, I think, "see, there is a speed of 10 growth in S3 (which is much better than S2), so it's the proof it works and some intervention is not needed". Well, no, S4 shows that intervention is needed if we want to get an even better society.
First, you assume that "growth" has some intrinsic value that exceeds the values of freedom of thought, speech and association. I don't see why I have to accept that.
Second, you also neglect to complete your argument: exactly what "interventions" should be permitted and what qualifies as "rational" or "irrational". These are questions that can only be answered by democratic consensus, and democratic consensus implies a rational debate with the intent to persuade.
This demonstrates that your S3 and S4 are not actually distinct. Thus, any S4 would be constrained to grow at exactly the same rate as S3.
> No, it's because people operate rationally on bounded information.
Being able to realize the information is incomplete and should be taken critically is a step of the rational reasoning. When a person who is doing a rational reasoning is exposed to "one side of the story", this person will suspend their judgement until they have heard all the side.
The fact that they swallow the pill is the proof they are not being rational.
And it does not change my argument: if indeed you just need to publish your side of the story to see the public opinion realizing the other person is a loser, NOBODY WILL EVER DO ANY LIBEL. Doing a libel is BOUND TO FAIL, and, if, as you say, rationality wins, then why people will do it.
> Rational argument doesn't have to change 100% of people's opinions, we just have to ensure that most people share democratic values and the rest will follow.
Well, that's the crux of the argument: if you agree that _some_ people don't change their opinions when exposed to rational arguments showing their opinion is not rational, then, we agree on my first affirmation that just exposing rational argument is simply not enough.
The "ensure that most people share democratic values" is exactly my point. This is exactly what "anti-intolerance reactions" are doing. How do you ensure that most people share democratic values if, at the same time, you are just not taking any measures to counter-act people who push for non-democratic values?
> The field of memetics studies this sort of thing.
Well, of course, the "gene" in memetics is not a real gene, but is ... exactly what is transmitted in what I've called "the built society valuing rationality". That's basically my point: the rise of rationality is not "human nature", but a choice of society to counteract human nature. Which means that, yes, human tends to not be convinced by rationality, this is why we needed, in a first step, to "rise it to an important value", and in a second step, to somehow protect the rationality in a more efficient way than the naive libertarian "every social rule is tyranny just because" way.
> First, you assume that "growth" has some intrinsic value that exceeds the values of freedom of thought, speech and association. I don't see why I have to accept that.
What? Why are you saying that? You were the one saying "Seems to be working great actually, we've had centuries of great social progress and increased liberties, an explosion of scientific knowledge, and religious adherence has never been lower". Growth, in what I'm saying, INCLUDES freedom of thought, speech and association.
I have summarized "centuries of great social progress and increased liberties, an explosion of scientific knowledge, and low religious adherence" with one word: "growth". Maybe it was a bad choice of words, but that's missing the point, just replace "growth" by that in my argument and it works as it was intended.
But, no, I'm not saying "growth" is better, I was just answering your argument "growth happened in the past, so it is successful".
> Second, you also neglect to complete your argument: exactly what "interventions" should be permitted and what qualifies as "rational" or "irrational".
I think you put the finger on the problem with people who are rejecting the idea that anti-intolerance interventions may be advantageous. They are basically saying "there is a grey area, so, it's impossible and the best way is therefore to have no structure at all". This is a fallacious reasoning: the existence of a grey area does not mean that no decision can be taken for the full-white and full-black cases.
We can, if you want, have a lengthy debate on "what interventions" and "what is rational and irrational" (a bit of a strange question from someone who says that "rational wins in the long term": how can you say that if now you are saying that "rational" is not so easy to define). The short answer is easy: we have the same problem with "justice" or "good" vs "bad", and yet, we still have a concept of justice system. It does work ok for white and black cases (no concept of justice system is ever saying that plain obvious murder is good), it does not work very well for grey area, but no concept of justice system at all is way worse. I think it's the same with anti-intolerance: it's not smart to refuse to have some kind of intervention to stop crazy ideas (the ideas that can be proven incorrect with basic rational argument) just because you can imagine grey area.
> This demonstrates that your S3 and S4 are not actually distinct. Thus, any S4 would be constrained to grow at exactly the same rate as S3.
Ok, several things.
First, this is a ad-hoc example: I've SET, as an illustration, the level of "growth" (or whatever you call it) to show a fake situation where your logic was incorrect. Your logic was "I see growth of 10, which is bigger than growth of 2, therefore it's the proof that we cannot do better". This is about your first comment that was saying "Really? Seems to be working great actually, ...": the fact that it is working great does not mean that it will work worse if we change something.
Second, neither your "first" or "second" point affects anything on the S3 and S4 distinction. You seems to come up with arguments or questions, some more legitimate then others (the "first", as I've explained, is missing my point, probably because I did not explain clearly). But they have no connection to suddenly imply that "S3 = S4".
And thirdly: if indeed S3 and S4 have the same "growth", what's your problem with S4? I remind you that "growth" refers to all the good things that goes "great" according to you. Even if now you are saying "no but S4 is bad for freedom", then ... what about your demonstration that S3 = S4. You pretended that, for reasons that I don't understand, your "first" and "second" implies that S3 = S4. How suddenly S3 != S4 when we can either take your argument as they are, or in the worst case, modify them slightly so they account the element that you may add to justify that S3 is better than S4.
Per the second point, I have a thought experiment I like to present people. Let's say you were a judge at a murder trial. The evidence has been presented, and it's up to you to make a final decision, but you remain unsure. After taking stock of every scrap of evidence presented, you think there's a 60% chance that the defendent committed the crime. The punishment for murder is 10 years of jail time. After some thought, you decide to give him 6 years, to match the level of evidence.
Is that just?
What you are proposing is normalizing intolerance. Systemitizing it, so that it has the appearance of fairness and justice while altering the culture and expectations around it. And as Popper (and Plato before him) argued, such a distinction requires a despot to determine who is unacceptably "intolerant" and who is merely intolerant of the intolerant. That philosophical position is incompatible with liberal democracy - that's what makes the "paradox of tolerance" a paradox!
Your thought experiment does not correspond to what I am talking about. Your thought experiment correspond to the following situation: "someone is intolerant and are doing intolerant actions, but you don't these actions. Maybe these actions are intolerant to level 10, maybe they are intolerant to level 2".
In what I'm talking about, you assess the situation and come to the conclusion "Mr A has done an intolerant action of level 2, so, we react by using anti-intolerance of level 2. Mrs B has done an intolerant action of level 10, so, we react by using anti-intolerance of level 10."
The "all or nothing" is not working well, I have a thought experiment. Let's say you were a judge at a trial. The evidence has been presented, and it's up to you to make a final decision. The trial contains a lot of proofs and shows that the defendant stolen something. But you can only condemn the defendant for murder. If it's not murder, you need to let him free, and, if he want, he can steal again. If he steal, he may be arrested again, judged again, and released again without sentence, because it's not murder.
> And as Popper (and Plato before him) argued, such a distinction requires a despot to determine who is unacceptably "intolerant" and who is merely intolerant of the intolerant
That's social study 101, and if you don't realise that this challenge appears in EVERYTHING related to social, then I doubt you can provide anything constructive. Who decide that murder is bad? Who decide that underage alcohol drinking is bad? Who decide that putting employees in situation where they have to choose between bad salaries and not having anything at all is bad? ... There will always be a "despot" who judge what is good or bad. The trick is that this despot should be an active and continuous discussion between citizens not based on emotions, but based on what is fair.
I don't think that's a comparable scenario. In the scenario that you present the question is whether someone actually did what they are accused of. In the parent's scenario the question is how they should be punished for what they did.
A better comparison would be a defendant who was found guilty but there were mitigating circumstances and a low probability of reoffending. In that case I would definitely support a reduced sentence.
Similarly, the parent would presumably advocate overlooking intolerance when there are mitigating circumstances or if the intolerance is unlikely to have a serious effect. It's the difference between your uncle telling an off color joke at Thanksgiving and the chief of police villainizing black people in a press conference.
Thank you for this. I’m seeing the argument and that particular misinterpretation raised frequently in online discussions lately. I suspect that few of its proponents have actually read Popper, and have based their interpretation on that terrible comic that’s often reposted on Reddit.
>The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has to be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually taken seriously.
I think you meant that people use it as an excuse to be intolerant, instead of applying it whole. They are not "taking the philosophical argument seriously" in the first place.
You do not need a strong mechanism to suppress intolerance all the time, nor autocracy, not even hierarchy.
People used shaming, ostracizing and exclusion since forever against odious individuals. The real problem is groups of such people, especially bigger ones, and preventing such groups from accumulating or a strong demagogue with such odious views from taking control.
The Internet makes it easier for such people to aggregate...
There also is no such thing as a benevolent despot. To remain a despot, that person must ultimately do very calculated nasty things to remain in power. If only economic exploitation.
(This as opposed to a chosen dictator who can be removed from power at any time, presumably.)
>You do not need a strong mechanism to suppress intolerance
I would argue that you do need one, evidenced in your examples. You need a strong cultural bias/expectation towards tolerance. You need people to understand that tolerance is a good thing, a universally positive attribute. If the cultural holds that as a central belief, it has a strong defence against intolerance. The problem with the pop-culture formulation of the paradox of tolerance is that it weakens that belief.
I heard a quote some time back that I loved; the only thing harder than holding to your convictions all of the time is holding to them some of the time. Any weakness in a people's belief that tolerance is a virtue, any exception that they carve out, can be worked on, widened, and manipulated by malicious actors. The danger of this idea of the paradox of tolerance is that it naturally leads people to accept intolerance - in the specific sense that the paper under discussion is using the term, the revocation of civil rights and liberties - as normal, necessary, and right.
The idea of the benevolent despot is a Platonic one that Popper was arguing against. Fundamentally, the argument that some ideas are naturally dangerous and require suppression demands such a despot - at the very least, to determine which ideas are to be suppressed. Hence why the paradox of tolerance is an argument in favor of autocracy.
> The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has to be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually taken seriously.
My understanding of the “paradox” was consistent with the long-form argument that you provided, and it always made perfect sense to me. In the face of a violent group who don’t respect the arguments and traditions of tolerant society, societies must defend themselves with means other than rational argument, or perish. You seem to be arguing not against Popper but rather against some nebulous “as it is commonly argued” (maybe on Reddit?) and you haven’t done a very good job of defining the position you’re critiquing.
Arguing in bad faith and encouraging their followers to disregard rational arguments is precisely what right wing groups (Fox News, Crowder, InfoWars, etc.) are doing. For example:
The popular idea of "owning the libs" is based on trolling instead of engaging in rational debate.
Labeling any even remotely left wing economic policy as "communism" is an attempt to invoke fear of Stalinism rather than considering the policy on its own merits.
Refusing to understand what progressives mean by "gender" vs. "sex" in order to make discussion of the related issues impossible.
> The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has to be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually taken seriously. It basically boils down to an argument from fear - We all believe in the importance of {Sacred Value}, but the Evil Ones are coming to take {Sacred Value} away! By using our own good natures and {Sacred Value} against us, they will claim power, and then destroy {Sacred Value}! The only way to stop them is to destroy {Sacred Value}, thereby depriving them of the ability to use it against us!
Hmm. If I were trying to present a bad-faith interpretation of the paradox of tolerance, this is how I'd do it. If I were trying to present a good-faith interpretation of the paradox of tolerance, I'd probably replace the last line with something like "The only way to stop them is to physically guard {Sacred Value}, thereby depriving them of the ability to destroy it!" Tolerance, as a {Sacred Value}, isn't like a treasury or fortified position, it's an open-air exhibition never intended to be hidden away. The only option, if we're actually serious about having it, is to stand against those who openly and boldly identify themselves as trying to take it away.
>He does not recommend censoring or removing any liberties of the intolerant, unless and until they respond to rational argument by force. Unless they instruct followers to disregard rational argument as itself deceptive. Unless they are inciting actual criminal activity.
I suppose you've never heard of right-wing militias showing up to left-wing protests while cops look on, or plot to kidnap and overthrow a governor? [0] I suppose you've never heard Donald Trump suggest that "what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening"? [1] I suppose you haven't heard of the banners at the most recent CPAC? [2]
>"In the context of chapter 7 of Popper's work, specifically, section II, the note on the paradox of tolerance is intended as further explanation of Popper's rebuttal specific to the paradox as a rationale for autocracy: why political institutions within liberal democracies are preferable to Plato's vision of despotism, and through such institutions, the paradox can be avoided."
I suppose you've never heard of Project REDMAP? [3] I suppose you've never heard of Murc's Law? [4] I agree with you -- the paradox of tolerance is best resolved by guiding our collective choices to avoid a direct confrontation with it, but the "political institutions within liberal democracies" seem powerless or unwilling to do anything about the encroachment of violent intolerance.
> I suppose you've never heard of right-wing militias showing up to left-wing protests while cops look on,
Note that the reverse is also quite common. "Punch a Nazi" was very popular for a while and antifa was big. Political violence is back on the rise in the USA, though its not as bad as the 70s.
> I suppose you've never heard Donald Trump suggest that "what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening"?
It really sucks that it was Trump who popularised the idea of "fake news". It tarnished an idea that long predated the most untruthful politician in modern US politics: While the big reputable news corps will very rarely lie in their own voice (I've only seen a couple of examples over many years of news reading) it is extremely common for those reading the news to pick up an incorrect view of what happened. Two years later I'm still correcting educated people who believed that the 6/6 capitol invaders beat a policeman to death with a flagpole and a fire extinguisher. Or those who believe the Canadian protest truckers were Nazis proudly waving Nazi flags (as opposed to being disproportionately waving signs declaring the government were Nazis and these signs having swastikas or SS symbols etc on them).
>Note that the reverse is also quite common. "Punch a Nazi" was very popular for a while and antifa was big. Political violence is back on the rise in the USA, though its not as bad as the 70s
If the Nazis self-identify, and the most famous cases indeed did, I can't say I'm terribly concerned. Publicly espousing the view that some people are naturally inferior not by creed but by nature, and that you intend to impose physical consequences on them for that nature, isn't compatible with a free society. I don't think violence is a necessary condition to stop the Self-Identified Nazis from carrying out their murderous plans, but history shows that it is a sufficient one. Now look at the numbers: who hurts who, and by how much? Which is the bigger threat, as assessed by the US government: "left-wing terrorism", or "right-wing terrorism"? And what's "antifa"? Is it an organization with a website and funding, like the Proud Boys or Stormfront or the National Socialist Movement?
>it is extremely common for those reading the news to pick up an incorrect view of what happened
Sure, anyone who regularly reads HN has probably noticed the Gel-Mann Effect [0] in news articles pertaining to tech; other experts regularly notice them regarding their fields of expertise. Whether due to an overworked "staff writer" or intentional puff-piece (or imperative commands from The Owners to say this or that), the idea that one can "pick up an incorrect view of what happened" isn't unreasonable.
I don't think that's what Trump is talking about when he suggests that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that the Constitution should be suspended in order to restore him to power.
>Or those who believe the Canadian protest truckers were Nazis proudly waving Nazi flags (as opposed to being disproportionately waving signs declaring the government were Nazis and these signs having swastikas or SS symbols etc on them)
Or those who believe the "Canadian protest truckers" were mostly truckers, or that they didn't have a memorandum of understanding that the Canadian Prime Minister should be violently deposed and replaced by a council chosen by them!
> If the Nazis self-identify, and the most famous cases indeed did, I can't say I'm terribly concerned.
You should be. Normalizing a behaviour encourages more of that behaviour, and outside of the original context.
> Publicly espousing the view that some people are naturally inferior not by creed but by nature, and that you intend to impose physical consequences on them for that nature, isn't compatible with a free society
Sure it is, as long as that view remains fringe, which it is. Encouraging or even tolerating violence against such people emboldens them and their claims of persecution, and the violence itself generates sympathy. You're better off ignoring them and addressing the factors that cause people to gravitate to these ideas. That's where we're failing today.
> Publicly espousing the view that some people are naturally inferior not by creed but by nature, and that you intend to impose physical consequences on them for that nature, isn't compatible with a free society.
In my experience the SJW version of this is more commonly espoused than the right wing version. I've certainly talked to more people who believe men are inherently worse (more violent, worse students, etc) and believe in affirmative action quotas than I've met right wingers wanting to deport all black Americans to Liberia.
Most of the desire for immigration restrictions seems to come from belief in potential immigrants coming from undesirable cultures and bringing it with them, though there's admittedly a noticeably large minority who believe IQ gaps are partially genetic.
Btw: would I be correct in saying that you don't think genes are irrelevant on an individual basis, just that we should treat people according to what they actually do, rather than what their DBA says?
> Self-Identified Nazis from carrying out their murderous plans
Not sure I've ever come across anyone in the modern world who espoused killing undesirables and self identified as Nazi, even in the news. Not convinced these people exist in non-negligible numbers.
> Now look at the numbers: who hurts who, and by how much? Which is the bigger threat, as assessed by the US government: "left-wing terrorism", or "right-wing terrorism"?
I would be quite interested in the numbers here if you have them. Though there are methodological questions like, do you include people killed in the Floyd protests (e.g. extending things to "political violence" rather than "terrorism") and do you include those killed on 6/6 (e.g. extending it to those killed as a result of the political action rather than just those killed by the action initiators)?
>The only way to stop them is to physically guard {Sacred Value}
When the {Sacred Value} is participation in the marketplace of ideas, then guarding it against unwelcome elements is the same as destroying it. When your justification can be used, identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of your beliefs, then it's not a logical reason, but a justification.
Regarding the examples of criminal action, I'd heard of some of those events. I've also heard of a CNN host say that a teenager had a "punchable face" because he wore the wrong kind of hat and stood silently while being accosted by a screaming stranger banging a drum in his face. I've heard a lot of talk about punching Nazis, which seem to be a broader and broader group every year. I've heard of comedians jailed for jokes. I've heard of teenagers jailed for singing along to rap songs. I've I've heard of that quote by Trump, just as I've heard stories of news anchors standing in front of streets aflame, calling protests "mostly peaceful." It all reduces down to that Orwell quote, doesn't it?
I'm insulated from most of this, I realize, by not being American and not having the same intense loyalty to your political tribes. But "the other group is doing all these terrible things to us" is not a very convincing argument for changing beliefs like this. Every group wants to claim it is being marginalized, and basically every group can point out specific examples of exactly that marginalization happening. Giving one group the right to cancel the civil liberties of the other group, as the paradox of tolerance suggests, does not strike me as a particularly wise idea, given the stakes involved. I have no confidence in any group to hold that power justly.
>When the {Sacred Value} is participation in the marketplace of ideas, then guarding it against unwelcome elements is the same as destroying it. When your justification can be used, identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of your beliefs, then it's not a logical reason, but a justification.
My "justification" is not usable identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of my beliefs, because they do not believe my beliefs. I, and you, and anyone else, can establish this by reading the cited links in my post above. Further, the {Sacred Value} under discussion isn't "participation in the marketplace of ideas", it's tolerance!
Society does value "participation in the marketplace of ideas", but that's another can of worms; not entirely orthogonal to tolerance, but it's obviously not the same. In fact, I'd suggest that overreliance on the "marketplace of ideas", which, like any marketplace, is most easily dominated by those with the most money, is exacerbating society's problems with tolerance.
>Regarding the examples of criminal action, I'd heard of some of those events. I've also heard of
All the examples you cite (a CNN host, individuals talking about physically opposing self-identified Nazis, "comedians jailed for jokes", teenagers jailed for singing) are individuals. They may be being oppressed, in your view, by monolithic forces of intolerance, but they themselves are not monoliths baldly angling to protect in-groups which the law does not bind, alongside the exclusion of out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. Speaking of which--
>Giving one group the right to cancel the civil liberties of the other group
But that's not what's happening. One group is cancelling the civil liberties of another, visibly, but they are keeping those rights for themselves. When the Black Panthers armed themselves, Reagan, of all people, instituted gun control, and now LGBTQetc groups protecting LGBTQetc events get called out by those who were previously using those same arms to threaten them; curtailing access to abortion is a great good, but "the only moral abortion is my abortion", and so those with means get 'em anyway from elsewhere. [0]
>It all reduces down to that Orwell quote, doesn't it?
Yes, some animals are more equal than others. That's what I'm saying. Rules are for the little people, not the important people. The important people can break the law and act immorally, and it's our fault for not stopping them. That's Murc's law. Popper's political solution only actually works if there are actual checks and balances, but most of them seem to be legally toothless and highly dependent on the moral standard of the individuals involved. It's my understanding, for instance, that every President since Nixon has voluntarily released their tax returns in order to promote trust; Nixon didn't for eerily similar reasons to those bandied about in modernity.
>I'm insulated from most of this, I realize, by not being American and not having the same intense loyalty to your political tribes
I'm not American. I assumed you were, by the examples of left-wing badness largely drawn from talking-head American media, and certain nuances of your defence of the political right. I don't like the American uniparty, but the simple fact is that one wing of it acts very differently than the other. They seem to functionally agree on like 75% of things (big military budgets, pro-Israel, the 1/5 of the GDP provided by for-profit medical care), but the wedge issues have become meaningful socially, and are being exported abroad. We all benefit from, and are all bound by, the Pax Americana.
>My "justification" is not usable identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of my beliefs, because they do not believe my beliefs.
"If we tolerate {people with out-group beliefs}, they will take power and restrict our civil liberties, therefore we must guard {Sacred Value} from them" can be - and is - used by both sides to justify restriction of civil liberties.
>All the examples you cite (a CNN host, individuals talking about physically opposing self-identified Nazis, "comedians jailed for jokes", teenagers jailed for singing) are individuals.
I didn't know quite how to parse this. Are you saying that the victims are all individuals, or that the oppressors are? In both cases, that's not necessarily true. There were many people involved in calling that teenager a terrible person and harassing him - the force of the media, hate mobs on Twitter, and the like. And the people chilled into silence by "cancel culture" form a large group themselves. All of these groups, of course, are composed of individuals, but that doesn't seem to weigh on either direction. Of course the people who most acutely feel oppression are going to be individuals; how else would that work? Of course the oppressive group is going to be large; how else would it have any power?
>One group is cancelling the civil liberties of another, visibly, but they are keeping those rights for themselves.
And this is exactly what I mean about the symmetry of these arguments. I have heard this same idea repeated by right-wing people about the left! And they are able to produce examples of the same - that's what their complaints about cancel culture are. Here's an example of that; in the wake of the #MeToo movement, I have seen people on this very forum put forward the idea that allegations of sexual assault and rape are so serious and so traumatizing to the victims, that they should be assumed to be true and damning in the absence of evidence or trials. That is, that the accused should have their right to a fair trial, the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty, revoked. That's a really damned worrying thing to hear as a liberal who's actually interested in protecting civil rights! Apparently some people have never heard of Emmett Till.
The thing is, the pop-culture paradox of tolerance - the idea under discussion - is literally about being able to declare some ideas "intolerant" and thus remove them from the discussion. It's a claim that some ideas are so dangerous that the public needs to be protected from them, and the claim that the group presenting that paradox are the people who should make that determination. I don't trust any group with that power. To do so would be to willingly place myself under the power of a despot.
It's not in-group vs out-group, it's tolerant versus intolerant. If, for example, someone believes that homosexuality is a sin, but they treat gay people with respect and support them having the same rights as straight people, then there's no problem.
The people "chilled into silence by "cancel culture"" have let you know about their situation on talk shows and Twitter. They have not only not really had any rights taken away, but they are individuals being "oppressed" by individuals. The power of a mob of individuals deciding that they don't like you is not comparable to those in control of government making decisions about everyone's reproductive rights.
>Of course the oppressive group is going to be large; how else would it have any power?
Those in control of such government are actually in the minority; abortion and gay marriage and social programs are actually pretty popular. That's why they need Project REDMAP: to maintain power. The beneficiaries of endless tax cuts are an even smaller minority. But this is all just by the numbers, not how it makes a celebrity on Twitter feel, as platformed by a multinational news conglomerate.
Emmett Till "was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States." [0]
Just so we're clear, you're suggesting an equivalence between Emmett Till being actually lynched -- not an isolated event, but a zenith of decades of racism and oppression -- and the suggestion, not implementation, that those accused of sexual assault receive no fair trial? Are these the symmetrical arguments you're referring to?! They might have a symmetric character, but what those arguments are actually for aren't realistically comparable under anything like human morality. Unpunished murder as a result of systemic oppression versus angry suggestions on a forum are not the same, but I can't imagine what else you could be trying to say. If you're not actually American, you should be aware that you're carrying water in their culture war.
One is what happened, one is powerless angryposting about what might happen. One group has taken away reproductive rights (for some, see "only moral abortion", above); one group is trying to prevent their own rights from being taken away. Symmetry!
Incidentally, here's what Karl Popper himself had to say on the matter; "Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, 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. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."[0]
The form of "intolerance towards the intolerant" he actually discusses in his essay is rather far removed from the sweeping authority to suppression that it bestows in the eyes of many of the people who invoke it. He does not recommend censoring or removing any liberties of the intolerant, unless and until they respond to rational argument by force. Unless they instruct followers to disregard rational argument as itself deceptive. Unless they are inciting actual criminal activity.
The idea that some ideas are in and of themselves too dangerous to allow to exist in the public domain, that rational argument should be monitored, controlled, and suppressed to ensure that "tolerance" remains is nowhere to be seen. It is only when the methods of a liberal democracy (that is, open conversation, debate, the marketplace of ideas) fail catastrophically that Popper sees the need for open intolerance towards those who answer argument with violence.
In fact, the argument of the "paradox of tolerance" is actually, you may be surprised to learn, an argument in favor of autocracy. Its whole point is that liberal democracies can't sustain themselves without a "benevolent despot". Popper was arguing against that idea. Per Wikipedia, again; "In the context of chapter 7 of Popper's work, specifically, section II, the note on the paradox of tolerance is intended as further explanation of Popper's rebuttal specific to the paradox as a rationale for autocracy: why political institutions within liberal democracies are preferable to Plato's vision of despotism, and through such institutions, the paradox can be avoided. Nonetheless, alternative interpretations are often misattributed to Popper in defense of extra-judicial (including violent) suppression of intolerance such as hate speech, outside of democratic institutions, an idea which Popper himself never espoused."
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance