Yay for nuance and social & historical context!<p>I'm always seriously surprised by how easily convinced people are of flimsy equivalencies. Every debate on the Internet, it feels like there's a swarm of people that believe that taking a stand against intolerance or bigotry is the same as bigotry itself.<p>I always encourage everyone to read MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, especially his critique of white moderates: "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Is this being reposted here today because of the latest scandal inside Google?<p>If so, do we really feel that the "manifesto", citing gender differences supported by scientific research, was intolerant?<p>Or is "intolerance" simply being redefined to mean "disagreement with a particular political agenda"?
I'm a little confused by this. Here is how I'd summarize what I think I'm hearing:<p>1. Tolerance isn't a moral value, but is a pragmatic value [why?]<p>2. Therefore, only people who abide by the terms of tolerance deserve to receive tolerance, else they're in violation of the treaty and excluded [why? where are these terms listed? who agreed to them?]<p>3. Suggests due to incompatible interests, constant peace is an impossibility [?]<p>4. From a speech from Patrick Henry [Appeal to authority?]<p>---<p>What I find confusing is, to suppose that basic tolerance is subject to a treaty that I don't even know the rules of and never agreed to, then how can I know some stranger's differing ethics (e.g. pro-life) won't say I violated their ethical code and now have am no longer tolerable?<p>Perhaps this was heavily excerpted? It seems like social contract theory with all of the logistic details left out.
I'm glad whenever this article shows up — it's so much more _pragmatic_ than a lot of things in its genre. What it talks about is actionable, and makes communities better. Forcefully ejecting Nazis, fascists, Gamergaters, and their fellow-travellers from our communities, is both the morally correct thing to do and deeply practical.
If everyone cherrypicks what they're going to be tolerant of, and declares people expressing ideas that they don't like to be violence, worthy of punching someone in the face, we're in for a bad time. Now is the time to amp up the tolerance, and be willing to give before you get. Almost everyone is capable of putting their various differences aside in a professional environment and get shit done. Honestly it seems like Google is going to have to add a violence component to their training: "It is never OK to punch someone in the face because of something they said."
Probably the sanest definition of tolerance I seen.<p>Of course, the problem then becomes figuring out whether someone has broken the treaty, and what the appropriate response should be.<p>There are also a lot of tactics around trying to provoke others into breaking the treaty while still keeping your hands clean.
Is it just me or does reality seem to be decaying into a surreal hallucination the last few years.<p>While I agree with the thrust of the argument, if I'm reading it correctly, that damaging extremists are probably not worthy of tolerance, I find the chipping-away at fundamental values to be disquieting. Pushing the argument further, at what point is tolerance justified? Only when dealing with people who agree with you? In which case it's no longer "tolerance".<p>If we're going to chip away at values, why not question all kinds of other fundamentals? Why should people of all types get equal work opportunities, equal pay, when they may have other natural advantages/disadvantages in society at large? Why should talented/smart/beautiful/athletically-endowed people (and, of course, middle-class white males, naturally) get rewarded with much greater wealth-per-effort than others? To what extent should society try to "redress the balance" with taxes/benefits? Why should we reward mere ownership of productive assets, rather than only personal productivity? Then there's a step-back look at modern society, with the nuclear family, work-for-wages, etc, which are relatively new and untested developments in society relative to the age of humanity.<p>Etc, etc, etc.<p>I'm not advocating any position on these issues, merely that if we're going to start questioning fundamental assumptions about how society should be, we may as well be comprehensive.
This was flagged and removed, for no reason that I can see, so I vouched for it to be unremoved (please let me know if I was wrong?).<p>Overall, this seems like a very insightful take on something that has been troubling me for a while now, namely how do you practice tolerance if you are intolerant of people?<p>I think there's more room for discussion than TFA goes into, but it strikes me as a very good starting point.
Ah yes, let's be lectured on what tolerance really means from people who call everyone to the right of Marx a Nazi and loudly deride white people and cheer on their extinction.<p>Remember kids, the left is the authority on all that is good and right in this world, and dissent will not be tolerated.