this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Paradox of Tolerance Philosopher Karl Popper described the paradox of tolerance as the seemingly counterintuitive idea that “in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.” Essentially, if a so-called tolerant society permits the existence of intolerant philosophies, it is no longer tolerant.
The paradox says nothing about the ethics of using violence to achieve your ends. You've rest of the fucking owl'd them and name dropping Popper doesn't hide that. Even the word intolerant is ambiguous and you're using it to do a bait and switch.
They're arguing that violent means against peaceful people is unethical. Their intolerance: words. Your intolerant response: violence. That's what they're asking you to address.
Some fascist-like groups do directly use violence (proud boys, patriot prayer, etc). Other groups rely on systemic violence implemented through law and stochastic terrorism to achieve their goals. Memes aside, it's not very smart or helpful to engage in violence when it can't be defended in court as self-defense. Violence does not change people's minds; if anything, it probably cements their beliefs further.
I believe in very robust rights to self defense, and I think most of us believe in at least some self defense. It's pretty popular to stretch definitions of violence right now or defend violence against noisy but ultimately peaceful bigots and edgelords. I don't really like the idea of us fighting each other over words rather than fighting our overlords.