1029
Paradox of tolerance
(lemmy.world)
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.
No it's not. Harm has a definition.
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.
It's in the dictionary. Hasn't changed in a few hundred years.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harm
Sodomy was once considered harm. Masturbation was once deemed to be "self abuse". Some people consider vaccination and masks to be harmful. Judaism was seen as harmful by interwar Germans.
The dictionary defines the word; it does not determine whether a particular act can be described by that word. Harm is subjective, and changes.
Yes, congratulations, you figured out what the other poster didn't. Shame you think you're disagreeing with me, but I'll take your unintended agreeance even if you don't have the comprehension to understand why. Nuance, only for the literate.
Ok. With this as context:
Your acknowledgement that "Judaism" was once considered a "harmful idea" would seem to suggest you believe it is "perfectly legitimate to censor Judaism.
How are we not in disagreement?
I'd consider all religion to be built on a number of harmful ideas as they are figments of peoples imagination rather than objective reality and have been used for subjugation and control.
And I'd argue that it is legitimate to censor those.
You act like context and nuance are nothing more than thought experiments.
Ok. Same question, swapping homosexuality in place of judaism.
Then, same question again, but remembering that "evolution" was once considered a harmful idea.
Homosexuality harms people? Got any proof? Seems to me like homosexuality is harmed by religion.
Evolution harms people? Willful ignorance isn't being harmed.
You are developing a philosophical model for people to adopt. That model calls for the censoring of things that people seem to be "harmful".
At times in our history, certain people have, indeed, considered homosexuality to be "harmful".
If these people follow the philosophy you describe, these people should censor homosexuality. Is that your intent? Or is there a slight flaw in the philosophical model you have described?
Here is the definition used. Re-assess your understanding, and be specific. I can't give you a cognizant answer unless we're on the same page.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harm
In regards to homosexuality being considered harmful, there's a big difference between people's considerations and objective fact, that nuance is important.
Harm to oneself born of one's own intolerance is no ones issue but their own.
Intolerance is self harm.
Ok. I have re-read your definition again. I can work with this.
A group of people have observed a behavior that I may or may not have mentioned. This group of people has determined this behavior to be harmful. Should they censor it, or not? After you provide me with a definitive yes/no answer, I will tell you what that behavior was.
I don't know why you keep calling this "nuance"; it is not nuance. You are using that word incorrectly.
Is their determination objectively verifiably true or the projection of a feeling?
Does this behaviour harm them because of their own intolerance of this behaviour alone?
The answers to these questions create contextual nuance.
The behavior does impact the group in an objective, verifiable way, and they have concluded that this impact is, indeed, harmful.
That's not what I asked. Two questions, two answers. I agree they believe they are harmed.
You provided no evidence that "Judaism" causes objective harm, but you allowed for all religion to be censored. Your model is inconsistent.
If you want to stop being disingenuous we can continue our discussion, but I assume your response is born of belligerence. I wish you the best of luck.
If this isn't the case, reply with your answers to my two questions and I can continue when I get the chance.
I reject the premise of your question that harm can possibly be "objective", so my answer would be "no. The harm is subjective". Applying your model, "subjective" harm does not qualify for censorship, but again, I reject your premise that harm can ever be considered objective fact. Your model thus suggests that nothing should be censored, but you have indicated that Judaism is one objectively harmful issue that should be censored.
So, I want to know what "objective" harm you believe Judaism causes.
You didn't answer the questions. Two questions, two answers.
If you want to keep being intellectually disingenuous and dodging like you play dodgeball, I'll just accept you can't without accepting that I was able to determine you were making a disingenuous attempt to make me say something that could be construed as 'censoring all religion'.
But my logic is solid and the questions remain posed. You showed your hand that the answer was Nazi's referring to Judaism so I'll finish the job for you.
The projection of a feeling.
Yes.
Therefore their harm is self inflicted through bigotry. And you agree with me.
I have not accepted any claim that harm can ever be considered objective. We are not at all in agreement, but we have narrowed down the point of contention.
Even certain behaviors that out modern society does call for censorship of - such as calling for violence to a person or group - are not "objectively" harmful, but subject to public opinion. Death threats would generally be considered worthy of censorship, but death threats to Osama Bin Laden in the wake of 9/11 didn't seem harmful. Are death threats and objective harm to be censored, or are they subjective, as I have just demonstrated?
So again, I would like some examples of what you mean by "objective" harm, because I currently cannot conceive of any behavior that could be unequivocally, objectively harmful.
I can't imagine what it must be like to feel so in contention with someone who has all the right answers when you ask the right questions. I feel sorry for you.
If you'd like to reform your diatribe into concise and cohesive questions I'll gladly continue to answer them.
It's funny, kind of meta, you have this preconceived notion that I'm some bigoted racist born of the harm you feel when you attempt to interpret what I'm saying.
You're self harming with your own preconceived notions that aren't congruent with reality just like the Nazis in our discussed example.
Please provide an example of "objective harm". You referenced this concept. You have clearly demonstrated that this concept is essential to understanding the model you have described, but I do not understand what you mean by that statement. Please provide an example to aid my comprehension.
Broad question, but I'll play. Physical violence.
It is, indeed, a broad question.
Is it "physical violence" when a Nazi shoots a Jew?
Is it "physical violence" when a Jew shoots a Nazi?
What if the Jew in question were David Berkowitz, and the Nazi in question were Oskar Schindler?
Depends on the context.
Why is either shooting the other?
Depends on the context?!?
Ok, let's back up a little further: what does "objective" mean?
Yes. Depends on the context.
Objective
/əbˈdʒɛktɪv/
adjective
(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
So,remove your feelings and provide the facts I'm requesting so we can get to the objective logical endpoint.
Thanks for clarifying.
The Jew is shooting the Nazi because the Jew believes the Nazi is causing harm to the Jew.
The Nazi is shooting the Jew because the Nazi believes the Jew is causing harm to the Nazi.
Is the Nazi causing the Jew harm beyond the Jew's personal belief?
Is the Jew causing the Nazi harm beyond the Nazi's personal belief?
I am not sure what exactly you are asking here. I will clarify that these are two separate scenarios: there are a total of four people.
The Nazi is perforating the Jew's body with a bullet. There is no question that the Jew is suffering injury from the Nazi's bullet.
The Jew is perforating the Nazi's body with a bullet. There is no question that the Nazi is suffering injury from the Jew's bullet.
Yes, I understand the scenario, but the context of intent changes everything.
Let's agree that it's all "physical violence" as defined as: they are both physically damaging each other and causing harm.
But depending on the context of intent that "physical violence" breaks down into two more nuanced types of physical violence: Defensive Violence and Offensive Violence.
Defensive Violence can be logically justified, Offensive Violence cannot.
Edit: If I had answered your question as to what is an objective harmful act, I could have been more specific and clarified Offensive Violence.
Generally speaking, I would agree on your characterization of violence.
However, I am required to suspend my own feelings and opinions on these scenarios. I realized that I cannot actually answer your last question. I can objectively state that both the Nazi and the Jew were injured, but I am forbidden from saying whether either injury constitutes "harm".
I think I can state that the shooter-Nazi believes his force is defensive, while the injured Jew believes that force was offensive.
I think I can state that the shooter-Jew believes his force is defensive, while the injured Nazi believes that same force was offensive.
Correct, which is why the individual opinion has no bearing on whether something is objective, anything experienced by the individual is purely subjective, it is only with the agreeance of an outside impartial observer that anything can be determined as "real".
So in the given example neither of their opinions are real without external context. We know from history that that context includes Jew's trying to survive (defensive violence) and Nazi's trying to kill them (offensive violence) and thus with this external impartial context we can determine that the morality of harm lies in favour of the Jew's and that the Nazi's are objectively morally incorrect.
Now for the mud. That can only be said of the cohesive group identities and their aligned moralities. To make the same determination for each individual person you need to understand their individual context.
The social consciousness understands, as you do, violence bad. But they lack the context and nuanced understanding that comes with asking more specific and just as important questions, which is something that you might have been able to pick up here.
Edit: Almost forgot the core point, going back to the original discussion, I think we can now agree that the morality of violence can be objectively determined with adequate context and removed from the opinions of the perpetrators. As such I believe we can most definitely devise a determinate system for the censorship of harm.
I think you just argued that "objective harm" cannot be "real", as it's "realness" is subject to the opinion of an outside impartial observer. I don't think "impartiality" implies "objectivity".
While I share your opinion that the context of the holocaust should be considered in these scenarios, I believe that we are both expressly prohibited from inserting our opinions on any issue that would affect the "objective" nature of the harm. I do not believe we can "impartially" impose this external context. I believe that when we try, we cannot consider the harm to be "objective", but subject to our reasoning and opinion on relying on that context.
I think we run into a similar problem evaluating individual context: the initial harm becomes subject to our opinions rather than objective fact.
No, impartiality is the removal of the emotional response and personal bias, you practiced impartiality earlier, and it is key to objectivity.
Objective harm can only exist if an impartial outside observer determines that you are being harmed, this idea is the core of the legal system, which I think is also a good analogy for where I'm losing you. The legal system deals purely in 'objective truth'; what can be proven, is, and the limitation of this system is that available evidence is not always aligned with 'universal truth'.
I think that the point where I'm losing you is that you don't believe we can develop enough of a nuanced understanding to make the determinations necessary to align the two, and for some things you are most certainly correct, that's called the grey area, the indeterminable, the land of fuzzy logic and educated best guesstimates.
But that ignores all the things we can objectively determine to be censor worthy; harm that people engage in regularly.
This comes back to why I said bigotry is self harm. A bigot is not harmed by an outside source, not harmed by anyone other than their own perceptions. A bigot still feels hate and anguish and suffering due to incorrect perceptions that are backed up by the consensus of other bigots, but are not backed up by objective reality.
Societies tolerance of bigots starts and ends at their own actions. Wanting to harm co-operation is objectively harming the constructual foundation of society, and harmful to the disenfranchised, and objectively morally incorrect and can be censored should enough of society wish to. But that begins a separate discussion on social consciousness and social obligations and their related morality.
I'm going to risk assuming that your silence is due to the understanding that my logic is solid and that both functional and self inflicted harm born of bigotry are logically determinable with adequate contextual nuance.
If this isn't the case, reply with your answers to my two questions and I can continue when I get the chance.
I just wanna point something out. You realize you are the oppressor right? Its not people having open discussions causing genocide, it's people like yourself that think you have the right to oppose yourself over others. How do you expect to enforce these positions?
lmao 🤣 it's gold that Lemmy saves the source of deleted comments. You really let your ego show there 🤣🤣🤣
And you are oppressive, 100%. You would oppress the religious rights of billions of people if only you could. How you would impose this without mass death? How would you be different from Nazis?
That's why we need big brains like you to tell us what to think!! Ohhh if only I wasn't but a lowly peon I might possibly be able to grasp that religious oppression isn't. Yes yes.
Funny how you deflect to calling people stupid rather then admit to the glaring holes in your position, sorry that's not the right word. Sad, it's sad not funny.
Anyways it's been fun measuring dicks, but I got you beat, and it looks like you don't have a response.
✌️ Take care.
I'm not here to tell you how to think, but don't conflate your ignorance for other people's knowledge.
It must suck fighting imaginary enemies. I wish you the best of luck.
🤣 Of course not, I'm not religious.
I'm not telling religious people how to think. Anyone can think how they like. It's how they express themselves that's the issue, but you knew that, right?
You don't think the definition of mental harm has changed over the last few hundred years?
Read the rest of the page, context is included.
The things that cause harm change, the definition of harm is constant, not all harm is equal.
Having read the rest of the thread I would like you to answer @Rivalarrival@infosec.pub 's questions.
@Rivalarrival@infosec.pub, got caught up on two simple questions and lost their composure.
Rivalarrival came back round you should read the rest if you're interested.