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Tolerating intolerance
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this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Lotta talk in here about free speech that seems to be missing the point.
The right for someone to spew hateful rhetoric freely does not supercede my right not to tolerate it. The first amendment does not give the hate monger, nor the englightened centrist immunity from the social consequences of their public opinions.
Exactly: in order to promote tolerance we must be intolerant to intolerance. It's a paradox described by Popper.
Why do people think there's a paradox? Tolerance is a bad policy anyway; the point is to make society accept different races, genders and sexual orientations within reason (i.e. no pedos or whackos) so why even bother with tolerance if you have to dance around it to protect yourself and not be a hypocrite?
You're taking an authoritarian perspective. Fair, but I disagree. Tolerance is important because we as a society grow and evolve due to the discussion of ideas, simple or complex as they may be.
The paradox is that to achieve a tolerant society we must be absolutely intolerant to intolerant ideas otherwise intolerance "wins" and becomes the norm.
Nah. I said what I said. You're just looking for an easy out so you and the other fascists can feel like they've won something, and you won't. You shall have no victory here.
They think people are responding to the substance of their comment, rather than understanding that people aren't quite sure what the comment is supposed to mean.
I think the issue folks have is that your comment was confusing, as in they didn't understand your point. Then in response to people commenting that they didn't understand WTF you were talking about, you lashed out and had a solitary Les Miserables moment where you stood on top of a barricade of confusion, waving your flag and shouting "FASCISTS SHALL HAVE NO VICTORY HERE." I still don't know WTF you are talking about. Take a few calming breaths, friend. If you write like Edward Albee, at least have the self-awareness that you write like Edward Albee, rather than demanding everyone have a working knowledge of the Theatre of the Absurd. EDIT: Any downvoters want to explain why they downvoted me? If the confusing person's perspective is readily apparent to anyone, why not add to the discourse? I'm not trying to fight. EDIT2: This person is so hot headed and hostile, that I have a sneaking suspicion that they created dummy accounts to downvote me and support the perspective that their point is crystal clear to anyone with half a brain. Can anyone explain this person's point? Bonus points if you might understand why they're so angry?
Or maybe, just maybe, the people around you are not idiots and you can't just feign ignorance to help your little Nazi buddies commit genocide.
Most everyone else seems to know what I am talking about. They understand what you mean by tolerance is acceptance of every idea no matter how stupid or dangerous and that's not how life works. You're just hoping you can lie big and loud enough to convince others that "Hey, this guy is so insistent what this other guy has to say is confusing, so it must be true" without considering you're on Lemmy where the average IQ is higher than freaking potato.
Jesus Christ, you're such an embarrassment to the human race. 🤦
Dude, you are seriously hostile, and clearly think I am your enemy. I read your comment, and I didn't know how to parse it or what your point is. I don't know what you think I am lying about. No one's reaction to you convinced me of anything. I still don't know what half of your point is, nor do I know who you are calling "Nazis" or what genocide you are talking about. I am glad that there are people on here that understand what you are talking about - it feels good to be understood. Perhaps you could assume less. I am not about to pedantically instruct you how to write more clearly, but being mindful of your emotional state might help.
I don't quite understand what you mean, could you perhaps rephrase in another couple of sentences? Edit: I'd still be genuinely interested in an explanation of your initial comment. It might help clear things up.
Nor does it magically make their ideas into law. For a democracy to do this it has to actually accept the totalitarian ideas. Widespread ignorance is therefore a precondition for the "paradox" to hold true.
Ironically, ignoring that is a classic appeal to totalitarian principles - claiming that, without totalitarian controls on some aspect of human behavior, people must necessary produce some bad outcome, therefore, banning bad behavior is necessary. It ignores really the entire moral evolution and capability for reasoning of individuals in favor of a simplistic mechanical explanation of people. The simplistic language of "tolerance" in the paradox obfuscates key details - what we advocate with "free speech" is that the government may not criminally punish forms of speech, not that we must respect every idea equally on conceptual grounds, or especially not put every idea, flawed or not, into practice, or law. The entire idea behind a free democracy is that we diligently compare and evaluate concepts and put only the best ideas into practice.
No, the idea of Democracy is surprisingly not to put the best idea into practice, but instead to create a societal framework that the majority of members can live under. It's not about creating good results but the legitimization of the government.
I highly suggest you look into the philosophical background of the democratic movement and liberalism before you continue to repeat the fruits of American Slavers arguing that "states rights".
That IS the best idea, the societal framework that gives the best outcome for the population. Come on, with this reply, seriously.
No, Democracy brings about not the best idea, but the most commonly accepted one, and there is often stark difference. There is a reason the democratic philosophers never actually mentioned "the ability for democracy to find the best idea" and many instead outright warned of the potential for bad ideas, going all the way back to Plato's accounting of Socrates, in the works of enlightenment and revolutionary philosophers such as John Lock, or the governmental structure of the United States its self.
The governmental philosophy that does promise the best results on the other hand is a technocracy.
But do, please keep going about the platitude you heard.
That is the formula for the best outcome in a democracy. Nobody is talking about how Greek philosophers described it. Pipe down.
This is one of those really nasty reddit patterns I was enjoying not encountering here. You leave a thoughtful/well-reasoned message one morning, the next day you wake up and some guy is still hounding you about his bad-faith reading of your comment. I write "the entire idea behind a free democracy", in context clearly I'm talking about how you actually make a society work best with a democratic model, and he starts replying with a "correction" about early Greek philosophers' takes on democracy, like this is in any way what I was talking about.
but your message is not as thought out and well reasoned as you think it is. You are literally just repeating stuff you have heard somewhere, without knowing the context or the entire surrounding school of thought, and then of course you double down on your dunning Kruger interpretation of what a democracy does.
And I wouldn't call John Lock or Alexander Hamilton a "Greek philosopher", but you do need to understand that their idea of democracy stems from the Renaissance and Enlightenment era's rediscovery of Greco-Roman philosophy, so if you are referring to democracy as a governmental structure, you are talking about these Greek philosophers.
I am not "just repeating stuff I have heard somewhere", I have reasoned out myself the basic truth that a society where the will of the public dictates its structure benefits immensely from the population being educated. Regardless of what Socrates or Plato said, regardless of what the American "founding fathers" said. Done with this conversation, blocking.
textbook Dunning-Kruger
There should never be legal consequences for it. I am absolutely for everyone and anyone to be able to say as much racist, sexist, homophobic or what-have-you crap as they want. BUT I agree that the social consequences should be allowed to thrive. Act like a jerk; people are jerks right back. Act like an absolute piece of shit; guess how people treat you? I think that all this sabre rattling about censoring hate speech is just driving the attention-whores into the public forum, not because they actually hate the people they say they do, but because they're attention whores.