cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6541859
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.
Seems like your biggest hang up is the word ‘contract’, which you have assigned a lot of concrete properties to. Would it be easier to understand if they used the word agreement, and described it in softer terms like the general agreement everyone in the world has that punching someone in the face is not an acceptable for of greeting? I mean, no one has said that, and you haven’t personally gone up to everyone and stated this and shook hands on it, but it’s still something everyone agrees on.
The social ‘contract’ is like that, it just uses an unnecessarily official sounding term in it, but ultimately is just the understanding that some concessions have to be made to deal with other humans. The terms of the contract are really to vague to ‘sign’, and when people start referring to more specific terms things can go of the rails pretty quickly, but there is still an implicit agreement. It’s like living in an apartment where you didn’t sign the lease…sure you’re not legally bound by the terms in the same way that someone who did sign the lease is, but your still bound by them in some ways simply by living in the apartment. In the same way, continuing to live in society is the way the ‘contract’ gets signed.
Yeah ‘contract’ is a terrible word to use here, especially in 2023. Oh sure if we want to discuss hunter gatherers, I can relax my definition of ‘contract’ a little bit, but we aren’t discussing hunter gatherers. We are on the internet in 2023 and we have better words to describe things, like ‘law’ and ‘governance’.
So, taking your definition, a ‘social contract’ is what Russia does to Ukraine when they say “this land is my land”. The Ukraians ‘agree’ or disagree, but since Putin wants that land, the ‘social contract’ is less of a ‘contract’, or an ‘agreement’ and more of a ‘command’ with a threat of violence. It’s just very wierd to discuss wars and modern day politics with ‘social contracts’. It’s such a very basic way of thinking about the world. “That’s the great thing! Ukranians don’t need to sign anything! In solviet russia, social contract comes to you!”
So, can we all please stop using this phrase ‘social contract’ to give our big-brained selves a pat on the back and instead talk like real people in 2023? I’ll start: Is it ok to punch nazis?