Lotta talk in here about free speech that seems to be missing the point.
The right for someone to spew hateful rhetoric freely does not supercede my right not to tolerate it. The first amendment does not give the hate monger, nor the englightened centrist immunity from the social consequences of their public opinions.
There should never be legal consequences for it. I am absolutely for everyone and anyone to be able to say as much racist, sexist, homophobic or what-have-you crap as they want. BUT I agree that the social consequences should be allowed to thrive. Act like a jerk; people are jerks right back. Act like an absolute piece of shit; guess how people treat you? I think that all this sabre rattling about censoring hate speech is just driving the attention-whores into the public forum, not because they actually hate the people they say they do, but because they’re attention whores.
Nor does it magically make their ideas into law. For a democracy to do this it has to actually accept the totalitarian ideas. Widespread ignorance is therefore a precondition for the “paradox” to hold true.
Ironically, ignoring that is a classic appeal to totalitarian principles - claiming that, without totalitarian controls on some aspect of human behavior, people must necessary produce some bad outcome, therefore, banning bad behavior is necessary. It ignores really the entire moral evolution and capability for reasoning of individuals in favor of a simplistic mechanical explanation of people. The simplistic language of “tolerance” in the paradox obfuscates key details - what we advocate with “free speech” is that the government may not criminally punish forms of speech, not that we must respect every idea equally on conceptual grounds, or especially not put every idea, flawed or not, into practice, or law. The entire idea behind a free democracy is that we diligently compare and evaluate concepts and put only the best ideas into practice.
The entire idea behind a free democracy is that we diligently compare and evaluate concepts and put only the best ideas into practice.
No, the idea of Democracy is surprisingly not to put the best idea into practice, but instead to create a societal framework that the majority of members can live under. It’s not about creating good results but the legitimization of the government.
I highly suggest you look into the philosophical background of the democratic movement and liberalism before you continue to repeat the fruits of American Slavers arguing that “states rights”.
No, the idea of Democracy is surprisingly not to put the best idea into practice, but instead to create a societal framework that the majority of members can live under. It’s not about creating good results but the legitimization of the government.
That IS the best idea, the societal framework that gives the best outcome for the population. Come on, with this reply, seriously.
Exactly: in order to promote tolerance we must be intolerant to intolerance. It’s a paradox described by Popper.
Why do people think there’s a paradox? Tolerance is a bad policy anyway; the point is to make society accept different races, genders and sexual orientations within reason (i.e. no pedos or whackos) so why even bother with tolerance if you have to dance around it to protect yourself and not be a hypocrite?
Did you just say tolerance is bad, then go on to to describe tolerance as the solution?
An idea does not have to be absolute with no exceptions to have value.
You’re taking an authoritarian perspective. Fair, but I disagree. Tolerance is important because we as a society grow and evolve due to the discussion of ideas, simple or complex as they may be.
The paradox is that to achieve a tolerant society we must be absolutely intolerant to intolerant ideas otherwise intolerance “wins” and becomes the norm.