
Tolerance is not a moral precept - bmahmood
https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1af7007d6376
======
ebola1717
Yay for nuance and social & historical context!

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.

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."

~~~
drunkenmonkey
My grandfather was a white male police captain during the civil rights
troubles in Birmingham, AL. He also gave King the notebook he would use to
write Letter from the Birmingham Jail. His quiet support of King literally
enabled King's actions in more ways than I can relate.

To divide a people based on skin color is wrong. King, and my grandfather,
were not lovers of one skin color over another; they were lovers of respect.
It is respect that will break the chains anywhere they are found.

~~~
ebola1717
Did you just try to say that MLK and his jailer did the same amount of good
for Civil Rights????

~~~
cup
>His quiet support of King literally enabled King's actions in more ways than
I can relate.

He genuinely just said a policemans actions during the Civil Rights era
enabled MLK. You can't make this up.

And then to talk about respect in the context of race, when black people are
routinely disrespected by individuals, institutions and the state in America.

------
leereeves
Is this being reposted here today because of the latest scandal inside Google?

If so, do we really feel that the "manifesto", citing gender differences
supported by scientific research, was intolerant?

Or is "intolerance" simply being redefined to mean "disagreement with a
particular political agenda"?

~~~
StavrosK
I just read the Google piece (permanent IPFS link:
[https://www.eternum.io/ipfs/QmYSj4Vyq5RW6jiYsiCJx3FiSc2nRiXz...](https://www.eternum.io/ipfs/QmYSj4Vyq5RW6jiYsiCJx3FiSc2nRiXzrE68CxBmrKG6gn/))
for the first time, after being aware of the outrage, and I found myself
agreeing with the part about silencing the opposition. The piece is well-
written and makes some good points, but the author is vilified just because he
is expressing an opinion that goes against the popular political climate.

The line about "mandating increases for women’s representation in the
homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts" was
especially interesting to me, as I can't easily dismiss that point.

Maybe we should engage in discussion, rather than moralizing over diversity,
as the piece said?

------
alexandercrohde
I'm a little confused by this. Here is how I'd summarize what I think I'm
hearing:

1\. Tolerance isn't a moral value, but is a pragmatic value [why?]

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?]

3\. Suggests due to incompatible interests, constant peace is an impossibility
[?]

4\. From a speech from Patrick Henry [Appeal to authority?]

\---

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?

Perhaps this was heavily excerpted? It seems like social contract theory with
all of the logistic details left out.

~~~
lliamander
Let me see if I can help:

Tolerance is not an end in and of itself. It's sort of a game-theoretic
equilibrium, equivalent to an iterated prisoner's dilemma where cooperation is
enforced by punishing defectors.

Society is full of unspoken rules that govern how we interact civilly with one
another. It's sometimes frustrating that the rules are tacit, but it couldn't
really work any other way.

To your point though, there will always be those who use the tacit, emotional
nature of the social rules to manipulate others. The "place their nose in the
way of other people's fists" as it were.

------
sedev
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.

~~~
BadassFractal
The issue is that every new generation of this issue comes up with its own
version of "the others" to be suppressed.

The witches, the commies, the nazis, the apostates etc. that people feel
morally justified to destroy at all costs. Moral superiority thanks to the
ideology du jour is one of the most insidious and hard to fight social forces
that brings the worst out of humans.

The Gulag Archipelago should be mandatory reading for contemporary generations
that weren't born in a totalitarian regime and want to get a taste of where
blind following of ideology can get them.

~~~
cup
"The witches, the commies, the nazis, the apostates etc"

Surely you can pick the odd one out here.

------
cameldrv
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."

~~~
leereeves
> declares people expressing ideas that they don't like to be violence, worthy
> of punching someone in the face

While we're considering that, it's worthing noting that the author did exactly
that, writing about James Damore:

> a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you
> in the face

Should we accept lessons in tolerance from someone who appears to think
violence is justified if someone holds a different opinion?

~~~
lliamander
>Should we accept lessons in tolerance from someone who appears to think
violence is justified if someone holds a different opinion?

Yes, if their argument is sound.

Edit: of course, we may still ask if they are living up to such standards as
they set for others.

~~~
leereeves
I suspect Yonatan Zunger would argue that James Damore broke the peace by
writing something that hurt people.

(Whether it's true or not is irrelevant in that case; a hurtful truth is still
hurtful.)

That would be my first objection to this theory. If tolerance is a peace
treaty, then it's easy to argue that the slightest breach of the peace merits
the severest response, as a diplomatic insult might lead to a shooting war.

~~~
lliamander
> If tolerance is a peace treaty, then it's easy to argue that the slightest
> breach of the peace merits the severest response

Certainly some will act that way, but I don't think it necessarily follows.
The definition he provides of tolerance rather matches my own intuition when
it comes to the mundane form of "tolerance" that neighbors show to one another
when putting up with each others quirks.

But in any case, my point is that Zunger's character is irrelevant to whether
any particular idea he happens to espouse is good or not. We must judge the
idea on its own merits. To judge the idea based on what we think of Zunger
himself is to engage in an fallacy.

------
lliamander
Probably the sanest definition of tolerance I seen.

Of course, the problem then becomes figuring out whether someone has broken
the treaty, and what the appropriate response should be.

There are also a lot of tactics around trying to provoke others into breaking
the treaty while still keeping your hands clean.

~~~
TOGoS
There usually is no explicit treaty. That's why it's a hard problem. People
become so used to those around them being mostly reasonable* most of the time
that when white supremacists show up to promote genocide, no specific line has
been crossed, so those around them just continue to act like this is just
another thing to be 'tolerated'.

(*reasonable by mainstream standards, which already allows for a lot of
unreasonable stuff, like billionares polluting the environment in the name of
profit, which is somewhat related in that not bothering to define what is okay
and what isn't contributes to the persistence of some really bad problems)

------
jacknews
Is it just me or does reality seem to be decaying into a surreal hallucination
the last few years.

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".

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.

Etc, etc, etc.

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.

~~~
arthur_pryor
> 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".

by the author's definition, i think that this would be too narrow to qualify
as tolerance. according to the author: "Tolerance is a social norm because it
allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s
throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in
their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that
if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business."

for what it's worth, i generally go out of my way to give the benefit of the
doubt and to be tolerant. and i very much support erring heavily on the side
of free speech when it comes to legislation and government regulation. and
while i have zero problem with requesting an explanation from someone as to
why they believe what they believe, even if i agree with those beliefs, i also
have zero problem lumping someone with strong racist or sexist beliefs in with
climate change deniers and anti-vaxers. i'd say flat earthers, but flat
earthers are harmless. whereas, people who deny climate change, think that
vaccines cause autism, believe that women are genetically predisposed to be
less talented engineers, or believe that black people are genetically inclined
to criminality: these are people who hurt the rest of society via their
idiocy. like anyone else, they deserve a chance at education, and we shouldn't
suppress their ability to speak should some agree to broadcast them or to
listen. but anyone with any sort of sense should do what they can to convince
the rest of the world that those moronic viewpoints aren't worth serious
consideration, because they've been refuted many times over, and no novel
arguments are being made.

> 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.

fine by me. i am fine questioning literally every single one of those things,
and actively evaluating how they fit into our social structure. "why should
talented/smart/beautiful/athletically-endowed people (and, of course, midle-
class white males...) get rewarded with much greater wealth-per-effort than
others?" great question. i can't think of a good moral reason, but i can think
of lots of unsatisfactory-on-a-moral-level explanations that sum up to those
outcomes.

------
hjrnunes
In other words, tolerance is only necessary until _my_ ideas are accepted and
become the norm.

Hypocrisy.

------
StavrosK
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?).

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?

I think there's more room for discussion than TFA goes into, but it strikes me
as a very good starting point.

------
xienze
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.

Remember kids, the left is the authority on all that is good and right in this
world, and dissent will not be tolerated.

~~~
PrimHelios
Ah yes, everyone left of Gee Dubya is a white-hating antifa marxist.

~~~
xienze
I didn't say that. But the author of this article certainly is.

~~~
arthur_pryor
can you cite any evidence from the article to support that claim? the closest
thing i can see to that is this statement:

> This is why “white separatism” is, in practice, just a rebranding of white
> supremacy; white separatists never seem to suggest that they should be the
> ones who should leave their homes and lives behind.

nothing about that implies "white-hating antifa marxist" to me at all. i don't
think a strong distaste for white separatism implies hatred of white people,
and conflating those viewpoints is highly disingenuous at best (but it seems
much more likely to me to be an attempt at trolling, or white supremacist
apologetics).

~~~
hjrnunes
Implies "hypocrite" to me.

[https://twitter.com/yonatanzunger/status/888906855044403200](https://twitter.com/yonatanzunger/status/888906855044403200)

"I am unapologetically a Zionist. I believe that the Jews must have a state to
exist safely in the world, and that it has the right to exist."

The implication is that Jews would be entitled to separatism because that's
the only way they can be safe. Lets admit it is true. But how come, somehow,
whites will always be safe and don't need a "white" country?

Pure hypocrisy.

Oh, and for the record, most Jews are "White" as far as my eye can tell.

~~~
PrimHelios
>But how come, somehow, whites will always be safe and don't need a "white"
country?

Nobody is at war with us over our country's borders

>Oh, and for the record, most Jews are "White" as far as my eye can tell.

A lot of people disagree, actually. In fact, "white" doesn't refer to skin
color, but ethnicity. Hebrews are usually considered to be non-white because
of their ethnicity ("Jew" is just a colloquialism and doesn't refer to their
religion, but ethnicity).

~~~
hjrnunes
A lot of people disagree with what my eye tells me?

OK. But I still can't distinguish. I have no clue if a person is Jewish or not
from just looking at her, unless she's wearing something indicative.

As for people not being at war, even if that was the case now, who's to say it
won't be in the future? It was in the past. The Ottoman went all the way to
Vienna. The Umayyad conquered the Iberian Peninsula. The Mongol hordes reached
central Europe.

I'm sorry, I understand the desire for separatism even if I don't totally
agree with it; but to want it for oneself while calling other's "supremacy" is
just hypocrisy.

~~~
PrimHelios
>A lot of people disagree with what my eye tells me?

Uhh, that's a straw man. What your eye tells you means jack, and it's also not
what I said.

>OK. But I still can't distinguish. I have no clue if a person is Jewish or
not from just looking at her, unless she's wearing something indicative.

That's not how race works.

>I'm sorry, I understand the desire for separatism even if I don't totally
agree with it; but to want it for oneself while calling other's "supremacy" is
just hypocrisy.

This isn't even a straw man. You just threw a bunch of straw on the floor and
started yelling at it.

