What is the “paradox of tolerance” and is it legit?
In: 1208
Baraka: I want to eat you.
You: No you can’t.
Baraka: I see your promises of equality and tolerance are all lies.
Baraka: I want to eat you.
You: No you can’t.
Baraka: I see your promises of equality and tolerance are all lies.
Eli5:
If you and your friends agree that you will always, always be nice to each other, no matter what you do, then everybody gets along at first.
Then Billy starts being really mean at sleepovers. He takes toys, says really mean things, pushes people off the couch when you watch movies and does other mean things.
Billy keeps doing this because you are all being super nice to him and you keep inviting him to sleepovers.
You have to tell Billy to stop or he doesn’t get invited to more sleepovers, because he makes it really bad for everybody else.
If you keep being nice to Billy and inviting him and not telling him to stop, he’s only going to keep making sleepovers really bad.
Sometimes you have to tell mean people that they’re not allowed to be your friend, even if you really, really want to be nice to every one.
Eli5:
If you and your friends agree that you will always, always be nice to each other, no matter what you do, then everybody gets along at first.
Then Billy starts being really mean at sleepovers. He takes toys, says really mean things, pushes people off the couch when you watch movies and does other mean things.
Billy keeps doing this because you are all being super nice to him and you keep inviting him to sleepovers.
You have to tell Billy to stop or he doesn’t get invited to more sleepovers, because he makes it really bad for everybody else.
If you keep being nice to Billy and inviting him and not telling him to stop, he’s only going to keep making sleepovers really bad.
Sometimes you have to tell mean people that they’re not allowed to be your friend, even if you really, really want to be nice to every one.
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?
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?
The idea is that if we are tolerant of *everything* we also have to tolerate people who will forbid their followers from listening to reason. This is counter to the very values of tolerance.
It’s legit, but there are important points to realise
1. It’s a footnote, not a thesis. It’s an observation that unlimited tolerance is not possible,
2. Popper wasn’t arguing that we should have absolutely no tolerance for intolerant ideas. In fact quite the opposite. He was observing that no matter how tolerant we are there has to be a line somewhere.
Many people see it as a justification for suppressing anything they view as “intolerant” but this is a severe misreading.
For those who need a visual analogy, imagine a fire pit with a roaring fire inside it. This is the “Flame of Tolerance”, it represents a tolerant society.
Now you can throw many things into the Flame, and it’ll keep burning.
Next image a Bucket of Water. The Water is a non-specific “intolerant” group. You can imagine it as Nazi’s or religious fundamentalists or any group who by their very nature refuses to tolerate or accept the existence of another group of people.
Now no sensible society would let such a group in wholesale. The Flames of Tolerance don’t wish to be put out, so they don’t allow for the entire Bucket of Water to be dumped on it at once. Thus is the tolerant society is intolerant to the intolerant group.
The Flames of Tolerance **cannot** tolerate the Water, because to do so extinguishes the Flames. Those who are ACTIVELY intolerant of others in the society based on beliefs with no evidence to back up why those other shouldn’t be tolerated, are incompatible with a tolerant society, which is ofc paradoxical to the meaning of the world tolerance.
Now the paradox also teaches you must be vigilant against allowing the intolerant groups any foothold. Say someone managing the Flames of Tolerance goes “I mean the Bucket of Water isn’t all bad, surely we can allow some of it into the Fire, it can take it” and no one steps up and opposes the notion, they begin pouring small cups of Water into the Fire.
And at first they’re right, the Fire burns too brightly and hot, so the cups of Water do not extinguish it outright. But over time, as more cups of Water and added to the Fire, the wood begins to dampen, the ashes at the bottom of the fire-pit begin to turn into a sludgy waste and the Fire of Tolerance begins to weaken as its fuel is made ineffective by the gradual additions from the Water Bucket of Intolerance. Eventually either the Flame sputters out, or its so weak someone decides to finish it off by dumping the rest of the Bucket on top because it *seems* like the best option over the weakened Flame.
In either scenario, be it the Bucket douses the Flames wholesale, or the Flames are weakened slowly over time by the gradual addition of the Water, in the end you are left with a disgusting, useless sludge made from the ashes of the once bright Flames of Tolerance, and it will take a monumental effort to reignite the Flame from that mire of filth and scum.
Turning off the analogy, you cannot let intolerant groups who have shown no desire to change their ways exist within a tolerant society, and you must always be trying to root them out. Because if you let them fester under the surface, they actively undermine and weaken the tolerant society, and then at a key moment reveal themselves to the people of the weakened society and go “Look at how weak it is (without revealing that made it weak), let us take the lead and we will bring back the glory days” and the people of the weakened tolerant society, desperate and unable to see the perpetrators of their suffering before them accept their offer. Then the intolerant group makes the society better for some, but a nightmare for others. But to those that see improvement all they see is “it went from bad to good again” so they willfully ignore the plight of their former friends and colleagues out of fear that if they don’t keep the intolerant group happy, they could go back to the bad times (that the intolerant group often caused themselves)
For those who need a visual analogy, imagine a fire pit with a roaring fire inside it. This is the “Flame of Tolerance”, it represents a tolerant society.
Now you can throw many things into the Flame, and it’ll keep burning.
Next image a Bucket of Water. The Water is a non-specific “intolerant” group. You can imagine it as Nazi’s or religious fundamentalists or any group who by their very nature refuses to tolerate or accept the existence of another group of people.
Now no sensible society would let such a group in wholesale. The Flames of Tolerance don’t wish to be put out, so they don’t allow for the entire Bucket of Water to be dumped on it at once. Thus is the tolerant society is intolerant to the intolerant group.
The Flames of Tolerance **cannot** tolerate the Water, because to do so extinguishes the Flames. Those who are ACTIVELY intolerant of others in the society based on beliefs with no evidence to back up why those other shouldn’t be tolerated, are incompatible with a tolerant society, which is ofc paradoxical to the meaning of the world tolerance.
Now the paradox also teaches you must be vigilant against allowing the intolerant groups any foothold. Say someone managing the Flames of Tolerance goes “I mean the Bucket of Water isn’t all bad, surely we can allow some of it into the Fire, it can take it” and no one steps up and opposes the notion, they begin pouring small cups of Water into the Fire.
And at first they’re right, the Fire burns too brightly and hot, so the cups of Water do not extinguish it outright. But over time, as more cups of Water and added to the Fire, the wood begins to dampen, the ashes at the bottom of the fire-pit begin to turn into a sludgy waste and the Fire of Tolerance begins to weaken as its fuel is made ineffective by the gradual additions from the Water Bucket of Intolerance. Eventually either the Flame sputters out, or its so weak someone decides to finish it off by dumping the rest of the Bucket on top because it *seems* like the best option over the weakened Flame.
In either scenario, be it the Bucket douses the Flames wholesale, or the Flames are weakened slowly over time by the gradual addition of the Water, in the end you are left with a disgusting, useless sludge made from the ashes of the once bright Flames of Tolerance, and it will take a monumental effort to reignite the Flame from that mire of filth and scum.
Turning off the analogy, you cannot let intolerant groups who have shown no desire to change their ways exist within a tolerant society, and you must always be trying to root them out. Because if you let them fester under the surface, they actively undermine and weaken the tolerant society, and then at a key moment reveal themselves to the people of the weakened society and go “Look at how weak it is (without revealing that made it weak), let us take the lead and we will bring back the glory days” and the people of the weakened tolerant society, desperate and unable to see the perpetrators of their suffering before them accept their offer. Then the intolerant group makes the society better for some, but a nightmare for others. But to those that see improvement all they see is “it went from bad to good again” so they willfully ignore the plight of their former friends and colleagues out of fear that if they don’t keep the intolerant group happy, they could go back to the bad times (that the intolerant group often caused themselves)
The idea is that if we are tolerant of *everything* we also have to tolerate people who will forbid their followers from listening to reason. This is counter to the very values of tolerance.
It’s legit, but there are important points to realise
1. It’s a footnote, not a thesis. It’s an observation that unlimited tolerance is not possible,
2. Popper wasn’t arguing that we should have absolutely no tolerance for intolerant ideas. In fact quite the opposite. He was observing that no matter how tolerant we are there has to be a line somewhere.
Many people see it as a justification for suppressing anything they view as “intolerant” but this is a severe misreading.
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