What is the “paradox of tolerance” and is it legit?

Question

What is the “paradox of tolerance” and is it legit?

In: 1208

Answer 1

Did you see Avengers: End Game? It deals with part of this paradox.

So in order to have a tolerant “system”, you must be intolerant to intolerance. The word system is in quotes because we have to define the size, scope and space we’re talking about. Town, room, country, planet, galaxy, whatever.

Okay, so we want a tolerant planet. Great!

What do we do with all the intolerant people? People who hate people who put pineapple on pizza. People who hate the Dutch.

In order to have a tolerant planet, we can’t have those people here. Well…now we’re the intolerant ones. But I’m just trying to be tolerant!

That’s part 1. Let’s get to part 2.

Because at the end of the day, we can tolerate people who like pineapple on the pizza. And the Dutch…ugh.

But what about if we have an groups that cannot coexist. For example, the Dutch constitution forbids pineapple on pizza and they will exterminate anyone who believes otherwise. The people who like pineapple on their pizza are indifferent to the Dutch. They don’t need them for anything and they don’t hate them perse.

We have a problem. As a society.

The only way we can have a tolerant society is if we don’t have the Dutch, because they’re intolerant. And in a manner which cannot coexist with others.

Well, we now have a tolerant society. The Dutch have been dealt with. Except they had some sympathizers. And supporters. If we have a large enough population, we’re going to convert some sympathizers to activists through our previous actions.

Like say if we snapped them out of existence. We have a group who rises up in their support to undo our action. And when we deal with them, some of their supporters are driven to action. And we now have a cycle in which there is no solution. The larger the system you have the more likely you are to encounter this issue. A very small, well defined system? Say a room of 5 friends, not an issue. As we increase the size, though, the problem escalates.

So, where do we draw the lines?