I guess I would say the paradox of tolerance. I’m sorry but I’m just gonna yoink the definition from Wikipedia because I’m not great at explaining things:
The paradox of tolerance states that if a society’s practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the fact that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
Bonus least favorite paradox: You need experience to get a job and you need a job to get experience.
It doesn’t though. Pure unlimited tolerance would include tolerating someone’s breach of contract, logically speaking. Also, this is a dangerous road to go down, because you can rephrase pretty much anything as a contract and justify your actions or beliefs with people breaking it.
The reason these discussions often break down right about here is because the participants have in mind completely different working definitions of “tolerance.”
For example, the social contract comment above assumes an active definition like recognizing others’ personal sovereignty, i.e. their right to act and not be acted upon. To aid understanding, we can represent mutual tolerance between people as a multinational peace treaty between nations. Intolerance is equivalent to one of these nations violating the treaty by attacking another.
Defense or sanction by neighboring states against the aggressor doesn’t violate the treaty further, of course, since it is precisely these deterrents which undergird every treaty. Likewise, condemning and punishing intolerance which threatens the personal sovereignty of others is baseline maintenance for mutual tolerance, because there’s always a jackass who WILL fuck around if you don’t GUARANTEE he will find out.
Conversely, another popular notion of tolerance — the one you may have in mind, as I once did — is a passive definition that amounts to tacit approval of others’ value systems, i.e. relativistic truth, permissive morality, etc.
This kumbaya definition is a strawman originally used by talking heads because, I suspect, it quickly invokes well-worn mid-century tropes, especially for those who grew up in the era, of namby-pamby suckers and morally compromised weaklings which still trigger strong feelings, like disgust and contempt, that reliably drive ratings and engagement. These days the only regular mention of this term is this manufactured paradox using the bad-faith definition, so the original idea is commonly misunderstood.
Pure unlimited tolerance would include tolerating someone’s breach of contract, logically speaking.
That “pure, unlimited tolerance” is what they mean by tolerance as a moral standard. Tolerance as a contract is “we have each entered into an agreement to be tolerant of each other. If you are not tolerant of me, you have broken the terms of our agreement, so I will not be tolerant of you.”
I don’t see a slippery slope here; I’d be interested to hear more about why this is a dangerous road to go down.
A contract just codifies an existing power dynamic, because its terms depend on the negociating powers of the people agreeing to it. It doesn’t say anything about the morality of the terms or the context in which it was signed. Very extreme and on-the-nose example: “We have agreed to only allow white people, you have breached that contract …”. This works just fine if your moral system is based on contracts, but it’s obvously immoral. There’s also the conundrum of people never explicitly agreeing to the social contract they are born into, and even if they did, it’s not like they have much of a choice.
Imo pure tolerance is a real paradox, because you cannot tolerate intolerance, and that makes you intolerant yourself. You can’t achieve it, but you probably should not want to in the first place. There are certain things we will and certain things we won’t tolerate in a modern society, and that is completely fine. The important thing is that we recognize this and make good decisions about which is which.
Wait, what is a catch-22 but a paradox? I’ve never thought about this before, but Yossarian is stuck in a paradoxical situation so these are synonymous terms right?
I don’t think so. I interpret paradoxes as being either philosophical impasses (ie, 2 conceptually true statements conflict each other in a way that makes you question where one statement’s truth ends and the other statement’s truth begins) or a situation in which a solution is unintuitive.
A Catch-22 is more of a physical and intentional impasse, where obstacles are intentionally set up in such a way that people are unable to make a choice. For instance, in the original example of a Catch-22, there is no philosophical argument saying that only insane people are allowed to not fly - it is an arbitrary rule that some higher-up established. And likewise, it is entirely arbitrary to define insane as being willing to fly.
I guess to simplify my stance, it’s a paradox if it makes you think “the universe has made this unsolvable” and it’s a Catch-22 if it makes you think “some asshole made this unsolvable”
I’ve always hated the intolerance paradox, because it is the same logic used to justify atrocities of all sorts. Trying to make society safe for a preferred group, and targeting anyone who takes offense to that idea.
I think you’re missing the point. The question is about a tolerant society.
Regardless of if the society itself is stable, for the society to be tolerant it must be intolerant of the intolerant, and therefore a tolerant society must be intolerant.
By treating tolerance as a binary (it’s either completely present or completely absent) you’ve removed your argument very far from reality. The goal in reality is to be as tolerant as possible, and the most tolerant stable state simply has some (limited) amount of (very specific) intolerance in it.
I guess I would say the paradox of tolerance. I’m sorry but I’m just gonna yoink the definition from Wikipedia because I’m not great at explaining things:
Bonus least favorite paradox: You need experience to get a job and you need a job to get experience.
Saw this a while ago and it solves that “paradox” nicely.
The real paradox is this opinion coming from Twitter
It doesn’t though. Pure unlimited tolerance would include tolerating someone’s breach of contract, logically speaking. Also, this is a dangerous road to go down, because you can rephrase pretty much anything as a contract and justify your actions or beliefs with people breaking it.
The reason these discussions often break down right about here is because the participants have in mind completely different working definitions of “tolerance.”
For example, the social contract comment above assumes an active definition like recognizing others’ personal sovereignty, i.e. their right to act and not be acted upon. To aid understanding, we can represent mutual tolerance between people as a multinational peace treaty between nations. Intolerance is equivalent to one of these nations violating the treaty by attacking another.
Defense or sanction by neighboring states against the aggressor doesn’t violate the treaty further, of course, since it is precisely these deterrents which undergird every treaty. Likewise, condemning and punishing intolerance which threatens the personal sovereignty of others is baseline maintenance for mutual tolerance, because there’s always a jackass who WILL fuck around if you don’t GUARANTEE he will find out.
Conversely, another popular notion of tolerance — the one you may have in mind, as I once did — is a passive definition that amounts to tacit approval of others’ value systems, i.e. relativistic truth, permissive morality, etc.
This kumbaya definition is a strawman originally used by talking heads because, I suspect, it quickly invokes well-worn mid-century tropes, especially for those who grew up in the era, of namby-pamby suckers and morally compromised weaklings which still trigger strong feelings, like disgust and contempt, that reliably drive ratings and engagement. These days the only regular mention of this term is this manufactured paradox using the bad-faith definition, so the original idea is commonly misunderstood.
That “pure, unlimited tolerance” is what they mean by tolerance as a moral standard. Tolerance as a contract is “we have each entered into an agreement to be tolerant of each other. If you are not tolerant of me, you have broken the terms of our agreement, so I will not be tolerant of you.”
I don’t see a slippery slope here; I’d be interested to hear more about why this is a dangerous road to go down.
A contract just codifies an existing power dynamic, because its terms depend on the negociating powers of the people agreeing to it. It doesn’t say anything about the morality of the terms or the context in which it was signed. Very extreme and on-the-nose example: “We have agreed to only allow white people, you have breached that contract …”. This works just fine if your moral system is based on contracts, but it’s obvously immoral. There’s also the conundrum of people never explicitly agreeing to the social contract they are born into, and even if they did, it’s not like they have much of a choice.
Imo pure tolerance is a real paradox, because you cannot tolerate intolerance, and that makes you intolerant yourself. You can’t achieve it, but you probably should not want to in the first place. There are certain things we will and certain things we won’t tolerate in a modern society, and that is completely fine. The important thing is that we recognize this and make good decisions about which is which.
I think the job experience is less of a paradox and more of a Catch-22. True nonetheless
Wait, what is a catch-22 but a paradox? I’ve never thought about this before, but Yossarian is stuck in a paradoxical situation so these are synonymous terms right?
I don’t think so. I interpret paradoxes as being either philosophical impasses (ie, 2 conceptually true statements conflict each other in a way that makes you question where one statement’s truth ends and the other statement’s truth begins) or a situation in which a solution is unintuitive.
A Catch-22 is more of a physical and intentional impasse, where obstacles are intentionally set up in such a way that people are unable to make a choice. For instance, in the original example of a Catch-22, there is no philosophical argument saying that only insane people are allowed to not fly - it is an arbitrary rule that some higher-up established. And likewise, it is entirely arbitrary to define insane as being willing to fly.
I guess to simplify my stance, it’s a paradox if it makes you think “the universe has made this unsolvable” and it’s a Catch-22 if it makes you think “some asshole made this unsolvable”
This makes quite a lot of sense, thanks for explaining that to me!
I’ve always hated the intolerance paradox, because it is the same logic used to justify atrocities of all sorts. Trying to make society safe for a preferred group, and targeting anyone who takes offense to that idea.
Again leaving out the second half of the quote.
They always do.
I do not see any paradox there. Paradox is something contradictory. All your statements are true and do not contradict to each other.
The phrase, “You have to be intolerant to be tolerant” doesn’t sound like a contradiction to you?
Sounds like contradiction, yes, but it is just incorrect phrase. You do not have to be intolerant to be tolerant.
The society have to be intolerant to intolerance to be stable, not to be tolerant or intolerant.
I think you’re missing the point. The question is about a tolerant society.
Regardless of if the society itself is stable, for the society to be tolerant it must be intolerant of the intolerant, and therefore a tolerant society must be intolerant.
By treating tolerance as a binary (it’s either completely present or completely absent) you’ve removed your argument very far from reality. The goal in reality is to be as tolerant as possible, and the most tolerant stable state simply has some (limited) amount of (very specific) intolerance in it.