Onlyhereforthelaughs
60782
1270
69
Feel free to be offended by this.
Apr 30, 2024 6:10 AM
Onlyhereforthelaughs
60782
1270
69
Feel free to be offended by this.
Darkspire
Ahh yes the paradox of water. If you drink water, you must drink all water, or you drink no water at all. Makes perfect sense.
Username58165916599
Theshnazzyone
This goes to all the people who say that whites are really the persecuted ones. Equality doesn't mean less for the privileged.
whiterabbit1322
Tolerance only functions if it's reciprocal. If there no willingness to compromise, there is no willingness for cooperation and understanding. The things that far right neglect to mention about getting along is that they don't want it themselves, and they actively attempt to leverage it as a "weakness" against their opponents without understanding that it is in fact their opponents strength.
skapanda616
Someshithead241
Tolerance does not mean acceptance or giving them a break. It only means the simple understanding that everyone has the same rights, such as free speech. Which have to be universal so they can guarantee protection of *your* speech no matter what, such as anti government speech.
You can be tolerant and still out these people. You can mock, hate, remove properly and effectively, without devolving into a society that breaks rights whenever they feel it.
Someshithead241
As soon as you start changing and drawing that line, it will never stop at just nazis and do you really trust the cunts in charge to decide which speech should and shouldn't be allowed?
This paradox only exists if you intentionally misrepresent what tolerance is for the goal of justifying being a society just like they would create. It's bullshit.
epicjim
Wallaceman105
CoarseAndSalty
Punching Nazi's isn't intolerance, it is simply respecting the views of the other person in the conversation.
earthtokelly127001
I don’t watch Fox but I imagine they are trying to spin this somehow?
Onlyhereforthelaughs
Well of course, they just say they're the good guys in all this, and that we're the intolerant ones.
noWhiteHorseHereJustBatturuPrinsu
Had gay friends most of my life. Never cared that they were gay, not relevant for friendship. Never felt the need to refer to them as gay either. Then my sister got a couple of gay friends and constantly felt the need to refer to them as her gay friends or the gay couple she knew etc. IMHO people that constantly feel te need to somehow let everybody know how tolerant they are aren't really tolerant. They only use people and 'tolerance' to give a little fake shine to their own image.
solrev
** insert N@zi getting punched GIF that got me a warning. **.
soultarr
#2 saving this for when we win in November
Prometheusblu
Are people actually tolerating Nazis in the name of tolerance? I always thought that’s what Nazis said when they take over a platform so they can pretend they are creating a “free speech zone” when really they are just making a Nazi bar.
Onlyhereforthelaughs
The Proud Boys are tolerated enough to march through towns as free speech protests. And their goal is a white America, soooooo...
sileeds
You do not have to Tolerate any speech or action you dislike however be very careful trying to control or police free speech. That may have unintentional consequences.
judyblue
I noticed the beehive in the first panel and wondered, "Did the artist intend to make this about the mormons?" Then the silhouette of Moroni in the second panel confirmed my suspicions. In the original it was Nazis, so that's quite a statement on the redesign.
MightyZephyr
apartejongeman
Voltair - treatise on tolerance is such a good book about this
quagma
lordoverkill
The concept of Outlaws in the American West (19th century) in a sense. Out -laws were outside the law, as such they weren’t entitled to its protections. If you wanted protection by the law, you had to be in good standing.
derekjohn
This built on earlier laws eg the Anglo-Saxon 'Wolfshead'. If you were named 'wolfshead' your had the same rights as a wolf, ie none.
Yenaldooshi
The right to a rad name is pretty dope though.
Kdvdp
This is a pretty solid way of putting it
mbiella
That's not the Popper Paradox
FrankPembleton
The far right cannot be allowed to exist any longer
Locate1
You are the sort of idiot Popper warned everyone about.
AzgarOgly
Are you advocating for political cleansing? Concentration camps and gas chambers of the far right? Right?
FrankPembleton
just to clarify, yes I absolutely am
AzgarOgly
Are you building a gas chamber for yourself too? Because after you kill all the bad people you have to be disposed of too, as you are as bad as they are.
sangman
They might just mean dismantling organizations. A bit of a leap you're making there.
AzgarOgly
IDK. The comment says that "the far right" should not be allowed to exist. I read that as people with far right views should not exist. As they are not going anywhere by themselves, that imply killing them. That sounds pretty fascist to me.
keyblader1985
You can have the tolerant right too.
RedCamaro
Priests tolerating abuse, right?
Onlyhereforthelaughs
HA! Good one.
Locate1
That's a vapid misunderstanding of Popper. It's kinda sad that this graphic is still used.
TheDefective
Enlighten us with your nuanced and accurate interpretation then. For bonus points, draw it, and for extra credit, mind the brevity to preserve the soul of wit.
Tarmaccian
I didn't draw it, but here you go:
TheDefective
You can see that it seeks to paint actions as language in panel 3 so it can step around Popper's language indicating how terrible incitement to slavery would be, not simply violent action. Reducing it to a call to be intolerant of a movement that might wield force and violence, as opposed to pointing out that you shouldn't let an intolerant ideology spread because it might then ADOPT violent doctrine once it's metastasized is reductive and a detraction, as opposed to a clarification. Cherrypick.
Allrighty
I honestly think this is a worse misrepresentation than the original comic, because the full quote (posted above) definitely makes it clear that "[w]e should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal" and "we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument".
Locate1
No, it gets to the CORE of Poppers argument.
Allrighty
As opposed to my direct quotes?
ProppaGanda
I don't want a "tolerant" society. I want an accepting society. I tolerate those things that I think are wrong but I'm powerless to change. I accept people who are queer, who choose to live on their own terms.
AzgarOgly
That is exactly what tolerant is.
You disagree with someone and you let them live without trying to change them. But you are not obligated to convert into their ideas, they are not trying to change you also.
My neighbor puts pineapple on pizza. If I happen to believe he is wrong, I won't punch him. Which also implies he won't come to punch me for breaking spaghetti.
AndroidSoul
That's kind of the point, homie. It's honestly more important that you tolerate things that you think are wrong, but that belong to other people's concept of right. Get one hundred people in a room, you'll probably find at least one of them will think any given belief or behavior is wrong. The objective is not to create a world where everyone agrees, since you can't. It's to create a world where people can disagree respectfully and not throw shit everywhere.
ProppaGanda
I mean, I'm not dismissing the importance of tolerance but I don't want it to be the goal of society. And to outline what I mean the difference between acceptance and tolerance: I accept that people are spiritual and/or religious even if I'm a fundamental materialist. On the other hand, I merely tolerate the existence of churches.
Foxsayy
So...you do tolerate people. The options your statement leaves us with seem to be:
- Do you want not to tolerate churches, but to accept them? Or:
- Do you want not to tolerate churches, and instead try to get rid of them?
If not that, then what's the other option(s)?
Foxsayy
Most people will have to tolerate some things they disagree with in society. Including misguided views you don't like but that aren't at the level of going to war with them. For example, the Republicans remaining that aren't just bat shit crazy. Devout Christians that aren't getting into law. For those Christians, the Satanic Temple. Etc.
Saying we don't want a "tolerant" society strikes me as being unwittingly self-righteous. We all must tolerate, and in some ways we are all tolerated.
ItTookMeAGoodWhileToComeUpWithAUsername
That’d be nice but a nice first step would be tolerance.
TheFishFace
It sounds like you are equating tolerance of people with different ideas and *mere* tolerance of people with different identities. They're not the same, and what Popper was talking about only had anything to do with tolerance of ideas, (and is despicably misrepresented in the awful summarisation in the OP)
alsweigart
Have people noticed that the neo-nazi originally in this comic has been replaced by a Palestinian? Are we blaming the Palestinians for their own genocide now? The redesign credit is for "Gileriodekel" and if you google her she's a right-wing religious nutjob who co-founded the "Church of the Entheogenic Saints"
judyblue
It's mormonism, not Palestine. The beehive and the Angel Moroni are both mormon symbols.
judyblue
Well, I suppose I shouldn't say "not Palestine". I can't speak to the artist's intent. But those are overtly mormon symbols.
Onlyhereforthelaughs
Are all slightly brown people Palestinian now?
Avilan1972
Wait, they redrew this without the Nazi flags?
JamesFaction
the cartoon with the nazi flag is the original.
lelevup
It will be an adapted version for Facebook, since it bans any image containing a swastika regardless.
alsweigart
The redesign credit is for "Gileriodekel" and if you google her she's a right-wing religious nutjob who co-founded the "Church of the Entheogenic Saints". That explains why the neo-nazi was replaced by a Palestinian in a keefiyeh.
Allrighty
I was wondering at this; couldn't make sense of what the new persons were supposed to represent, or the bell symbol.
judyblue
It's mormonism. That's the beehive and the silhouette holding the gun is the Angel Moroni.
CormacTheCat
This is Popper's actual quote, it's considerably more nuanced than this comic suggests:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies;
IIBM
Thank you. Speech needs to be free. Actions and real threats need to be answered. You can't control thoughts and ideas but you can agree as a society to rules of conduct and hold people accountable.
ordmandrell5
I've seen this passage by Popper twisted and perverted to justify intolerance far more often than I'd like to admit. That cartoon, for example, is often (heck - always) used by folks trying to suppress perspectives they find objectionable. Not sure that makes them the good guys they fantasise themselves to be.
fishbicyclerepairman
It’s a footnote.
TwoNineSix
What perspectives?
ordmandrell5
Quite a few actually.
The perfect example is race.
Stuff like "blacks are inferior to whites under all circumstances" is clearly racist and should be condemned (i.e. we can be justifiably intolerant of it).
Stuff like "I disagree with affirmative acrion" isn't intolerance and is a perspective held by many. However, there's a wide swathe of ideologues who classify it as intolerance and won't even countenance its discussion due to their 'intolerance of intolerance'.
Pretty convenient.
TwoNineSix
Can you show me an example of this? Preferably several, since you've seen it more often than you'd like to admit and all.
ordmandrell5
I gave one. I'm not sure that more are required here (especially given the time it'd take me to type them all out and the character limitations of Imgur).
However, I would note - that the sarcastic tone does little to grant you the rhetorical.victpry you seek.
You're actually helping to make my point.
CormacTheCat
as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists
CormacTheCat
or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
FetteredJuvenescence
Counterpoint:
ElroydIsGone
Upvoted for accuracy, and I think it is important to note, that one shouldn't just punch anyone in the face b/c they utter some intolerant BS once, but the more it comes to political movements seeking actual power, the better the simplification of the pic represents the actual quote.
InternetAnonymityplz
This comic always makes me roll my eyes when I see it, so thank you for the full context, that feels like a much more reasonable argument. Too much is lost in the short version.
Bhargo
I mean they were right, they teach their followers not to listen to rational argument and to use violence to get their way
Allrighty
The only nuance I see is the attempt to -initially- keep intolerance in check through rational debate; but Popper was also not so foolhardy to think that rational debate should always and only be the counter to intolerance. He fully claims the right to suppress those who refuse to listen to reason, even if they have not yet shown themselves to be violent, and in this he actually comes closer to Germany's laws on displaying nazi support than America's "free speech".
EggFooYung
There needs to be a way to favorite comments.
TheFishFace
The trite misunderstanding of this is one of my real pet peeves online. Thanks for taking the time to set the record straight - until the next time it gets posted!
Smileyphase
Thx. Cheers!
ParryLost
Counterpoint: "as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion" is actually a pretty high bar →
ParryLost
→and it's quite arguable that we're past that point. Rational arguments aren't working, and public opinion seems about evenly divided on →
ParryLost
→the whole "is fascism really all that bad" issue. So it seems like the whole "we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even→
Someshithead241
Yeah but that's not as catchy and nuance is hard for some, so they prefer the simple version where they can justify whatever they want
CNChapeL
Nuance is usually hard... for the intolerant. It's ironic.
Kdvdp
Woah, Popper was a smart dude. This is solid, especially also the remark on being careful of suppressing intolerant ideas (since that could legitimise the ideas for some).
Didn't the guy also coin "paradigms" in science philosophy? Smart dude
memeseeks
Fuck Nazis and punch them in the face. That's the only thing they understand.
Holedemort
Yes, but, I will argue that they are usually more than just one. So let them meet all together and then bring them to justice nazism apology. No killing no punching (maaaybe a little bit). That's what normal societies should do.
pdonettes
But I don't want to have sex with Nazis!
memeseeks
I don't want you to force yourself in them either. That's why the other option is to punch them.
pdonettes
Yeah, I much prefer to punch them.
AzgarOgly
But beware of declaring just anyone you disagree with a Nazi. Because in this case you are becoming one yourself.
3PiecesOfBread
Underrated comment
memeseeks
I disagree with a lot of people and their politics. The difference between me a Nazi is I don't push my beliefs on them. I'm not going to harsh someone's mellow simply because I don't agree with them.
memeseeks
Nazis out themselves eventually.
ResearchAndDeveloper
I feel like the first thing you should list when you say, “The difference between me and a Nazi…” should def be: “I don’t hate Jews” and THEN move to the more nuanced stuff.
memeseeks
Except there are Jewish Nazis. i.e. Ben Shapiro.
ResearchAndDeveloper
Oh for sure, I think my tone was lost in text. I was taking the piss a little. The statement king of sounded like, “the difference between me and Jeff Bezos is our taste in music”
AzgarOgly
Jewish matter is very prominent in a history of Nazism, but ideologically it is only a small part. Nazis are not about Jews at all. They are about supremacy and domination. It happened back in 1930-40s that Jews where a convenient target for them. But they hated pretty much everyone and they have killed even more Slavic people than Jews. Only Soviet Union lost 27 million people of which about 2/3 where russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.
3PiecesOfBread
I'm gonna guess you meant to say, "The difference between me **and** a Nazi..."
memeseeks
Yeah.
chefsoda
Tolerance is a social contract. Those who chose not to be a party to it, cannot then claim its privileges.
Fotophocused
The constitution is THE social contract and those who deliberately squash the bill of rights are not deserving of its protections. There, fixed it for you.
Those who eneterd the country illegally violated the social contract, therefore, they are outside of the law.
See how this works?
SneakyGaryTheSerialHorseDrowner
Oh look an account that woke up yesterday after 7 years and is spewing Nazi propaganda.
Downvote, mute, report and help it die :)
EaNasirsExcellentHighGradeCopper
Agreed. There is nothing paradoxical about protecting the tolerant by being intolerant to those who would use, abuse, and usurp the system
EaNasirsExcellentHighGradeCopper
to bring about world of their intolerant control.. Just like there is nothing paradoxical about being non-violent, but engaging in violence
EaNasirsExcellentHighGradeCopper
to defend and protect the innocent.
AzgarOgly
The problem is, intoletance of the intolerant is used to warrant intolerating anyone who one disagrees with. They just find the one thing their opponents intolerate and proclaim them intolerant.
chefsoda
People will lie about anything. Tolerance and social contract has nothing to do with one’s approval of another’s ideas, and those who say it does, are not abiding this axiom, they are falsely using it to cover their bigotry.
chammey
YES. Tolerance is not a paradox. It is a peace treaty. A social contract.
Those who claim that Tolerance is a mysterious paradox want Tolerance gone.
sturmhauke
Popper was saying that *unlimited* tolerance is paradoxical; tolerance of things that seek to subjugate the "other" will result in the destruction of all tolerance. Therefore tolerance must not be extended to such things.
tylerlarson
It's simpler than that: tolerance does not imply obedience or acceptance. Tolerating a group doesn't require you to allow them to negatively affect others, nor does it require you to accept what they believe. It just means you don't start conflict with the peaceful, and nothing more.
NKato
This is the correct statement that needs to be appended to the paradox.
Zootsoot
BINGO!
CaptSchmidtGaming
yea but they'll bitch the whole way down.
Tarmaccian
No, it's not a contract. A contract is agreed upon by the parties. The whole root of the problem is that the parties don't agree on what's acceptable.
A person will say something hateful that they think is acceptable, so you'll think they broke the contract. You eject them from society, and they'll think you're breaking the contract first.
With tolerance as a social contract, everyone thinks they're the victim. Nobody ever thinks of themselves as the villain. It's not really any improvement.
Allrighty
It's an implicit contract. The point is to contrast it with tolerance as a moral precept.
doomedlord656
societies are founded on group lies. Religion, state, corporations, trademarks, patents, copyright, laws...
All of these exist because the public at large AGREE's for them to exist. if tomorrow 60% of people said "government doesn ceases to exist in the uk" and stopped abiding by government laws, or acknowledging state, well the state is screwed.
chefsoda
Better to say communal understandings, as they’re not lies. People agreeing that murder needs a prohibition involves no lying, rather it’s a group coming together and agreeing that certain limits are needed for the safety and survival of the group. You’re correct that there is no magic here. If a nation decided murder was acceptable, then they could pass laws to that effect, or simply disregard the laws as a society, making them moot.
doomedlord656
That's also true but they are lies. lies carry the stigma of being bad, but they aren't always and this is one such case. If i asked you to get me a grain of government or a grain of law, you could not do so. if government tomorrow vanished, the buildings, staff etc all remain so what is government? nothing. Its an idea... not a tangible thing. The lie is that goverments "exist" in any real sense, that laws do, that your communal understand does. they dont. The lies needed for us to existthough
doomedlord656
and so we act as though they do. we grant them power by all agreeing to partake in the charade. Its still a charade though. its fake. non-existent. a lie. its pretend. to be clear, that does not remove its power. those lies, grant power, because everyone has agreed to let it. If I tomorrow called myself the great godking of the northern hemisphere, it holds no power, not because its any less "real" or less "true" than the uk gov but because not enough people will agree pretend its real and true.
doomedlord656
if tomorrow tesco is disolved the buildings are there, the stock there, the employees there, but "tesco" is gone. these group lies are the foundation of the social contract. They set the moral basis for society.
Part of that contract is the willingness to accept others lives, albeit different to your own (also known as tolerance) otherwise i could harm my neighbores for believing something different to me. this acceptance of others views is not restricted to "extreme" beliefs, its the little
doomedlord656
things upward. now heres the thing, being tolerant of all but the intolerant is not unacceptable by and large. An example: you have a white supremacist, he believes white people are the best race in existence, so he spends his whole life helping everyone, no matter race or creed, to prove white people are the best, tolerable belief. he hasn't harmed or made any one suffer or caused such. you have a white supremacist who supports the enslavements of black people - intolerable and shouldbestopped
doomedlord656
thing is, the punishment for the breach typically matches the severity of the breach. e.g. post racist rants online about black people needing to be back in chains, and you might lose your job as your employer doesnt want associating with that. on the otherhand, if you start calling a mob up to kill a black person for daring to be in an interracial relationship will likely result in prison time... then when you get millions of racists trying to vote parties in who will try to disenfranchise well
5m4llP0X
What if you do intolerable things? (Ex: pedophilia, billionaire shit) Shouldn't we also treat them as breaking the contract?
chammey
Yes that is breaking the contract. A civilized society should have laws on the books to deal with that.
pixelsnader
Those are definitely breaking some very important social contracts, just not the specific one about tolerance.
5m4llP0X
I used to frequent a forum that'd allow an openly admitted pedo on it. I never understood that.
ttm2
How ostracising and wishing death on them makes it more likely that they will seek help for it?
5m4llP0X
Telling them their creepy defense of grooming children and calling it "love" is unacceptable and they aren't welcome.
PoliticalWanderer
My way of looking at it is a peace treaty. Small violations of a treaty are one thing, and they can be perhaps be settled without the equivalent of war, but when one side abandons the treaty and declares war, the other side no longer has to abide by the treaty and is entirely free to fight back in whatever way will bring them victory.
dirtcreature
And so Israel attacks and destroys hamas
JsonAson
You do realize how easily that can be turned around, right?
dirtcreature
And so Israel attacks Hamas?
JsonAson
I will never get why people are so wilfully dense.
WitchyVixen
Dis
eetsumkaus
it's easy when you assume there's only two sides. But the fact of modern democracy is, if one abandons it, and one side decides to throw away principles to fight back, everyone else mistrusts them both.
PoliticalWanderer
You're assuming that doing what it takes to win means throwing away principles or violence. I'm an all of the above sort; sometimes it's going to mean exploiting good PR and non violent methods, sometimes it's going to mean exposing the abuses and cruelty of the other side, sometimes it's going to mean disruptive strikes and protests, sometimes it's going to mean symbolic/provocative gestures, and sometimes it's going to mean knocking Nazi teeth out when they're terrorizing a neighborhood.
eetsumkaus
I'm not assuming anything. Keep in mind, MLK Jr. was unpopular in his day too. It applies regardless.
PoliticalWanderer
Fair enough. My mistake for assuming.